It's bloody obvious how damaging social media, especially on mobile devices, is to everyone's mental state. Check out what teachers have to say about the attention span of the current generation pupils. But no, your access to whatever it is you're addicted to is more important.

Anyway, the government can already take away your bank account. No need for them to introduce such a complex scheme.

> And, from now on, if you ever criticize the government you will lose your bank account and your job.

We could have a real conversation about tradeoffs (and maybe this one isn't worth it!) but not if you just assume/pretend the worst-case scenario is real. I'm Australian and I'll happily bet that N years from now I'll still be able to criticize the government without being debanked or sacked.

If we do ever fall to authoritarianism, I doubt this will have been a crucial step; it's already easy for the government to deanonymize most posters if it wants to, and an evil future government that wanted to go further could probably just... do it, regardless of precedent.

Also Rahm Emanuel: "Let's take Second Amendment rights away from everybody on the no-fly list." [1,2]

1: https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/rahm-emanuel-hey-lets...

2: https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/816qf/rahm_eman...

I don't have the solution. But it seems like a problem which needs to be addressed and regulation isn't a crazy place to look. As a parent, it feels like I'm constantly battling with Meta, Tiktok and Google over my childrens' development and we have very different goals.

Can't zero knowledge proof solve this problem?

Submit a zkp that you are over 18 to the website that requires it. The proof need not be tied to the identity of the user.

I personally don't think self-regulation works. It's harmful so the next best option is the government regulating it.

This is probably controversial, but this reason I would much rather things like social media and pornography be outright banned rather than age-gated.

> And, from now on, if you ever criticize the government you will lose your bank account and your job.

When has this happened in the countries you listed?

> And, from now on, if you ever criticize the government you will lose your bank account and your job.

The USA seems to be doing the "if you ever criticize the government [there will be consequences]" part before the rest of them?

> It's amazing how coordinated it is.

It looks coordinated to you? Then why is the USA threatening tariffs etc. for the rest of us doing these things, even when they're going further?

We already ban children under 13. I think that's a good thing and the age limit should be 16 or 17.

The rest of your comment is a non sequitur.

Why are you lumping Canada into that group? Only UK and AUS are doing the digital ID.

Also in the meantime kids find their way to other sites / work around and they claim to be adults so now ... NO PROTECTIONS for the kids ...

Completely the opposite of what you would hope.

An an Australian, the social media ban legislation specifically requires than non-ID methods be available (it specifically says that also included digital ID).

Children’s welbeeing being a dog whistle? You should go out and talk to real parents and teachers in the real world.

We like to pretend that this is something new. Before free porn on the internet, what did people do?

- They bought porn from stores (no anonymity)

- They rented porn from hotel rooms

- They paid for it on pay per view channels (how many kids growing up in the 90s remember watching the fuzzy scrambled Spice channel and trying to make out a boob somewhere in the garbled picture?)

- They went to movie theaters for porn! I've never actually seen this but have read about it.

NONE of those actions are anonymous. They're even documented and associated with real identities.

If you're telling me that somehow adding some kind of verifiable age gates to things like porn (and social media) will lead to authoritarianism, we don't have to theorize. We ran this experiment already. And nobody had issues with it, realistically.

We're still running this experiment. If you try to watch an R rated movie in a theater, they will likely ask you for ID if you're clearly under 17. They used to do that to me growing up.

The current state of "Kids can access all this without any protection at any time" is abnormal. It's NOT normal.

We can all have a reasonable conversation here without always bringing in the authoritarianism boogeyman.

This is a speculative, intuitive reflex meant to derail an argument.

Sorry what do you think is happening in New Zealand?

Better to just heavily tax social media like we tax other harmful things like cigarettes. Heavily tax advertising while we're at it, too.

I would suggest that anyone who says modern social media isn't damaging to people in general, but particularly young people, either (a) has never used it; or (b) is being deliberately disingenuous.

From that point I would view social media essentially like alcohol.

As an adult you can choose to (ab)use it if you wish, but it's arguably the government's responsibility to protect children at large from social dangers like this.

It's absolutely a thing that people are asked to prove their age to buy alcohol, or even to enter a licensed venue that serves alcohol. I don't think I've ever heard anyone except underage teenagers complain about the invasion of privacy to hand over your ID for beer/etc.

Does the implementation around safe proof of age need work? Probably. Does that mean the whole thing is a not-so-subtle attempt to fire you for swearing?

I don't fucking think so mate.

People are already fired for saying stupid shit on social media, they're already debanked for being out-and-proud White Supremacists.

Given the current political situation in the USA and how it got there, if you have any illusions of a continuing democracy, you should be champing at the bit for anything which reduces social media use.

Meh, the gov can do this already. The effect of social media on our kids is a bigger evil at this point.

Can we stop pretending Google and Apple don't already know exactly (probably down to the month) how old a phone user is?

Digital ID is not required...

> It's amazing how coordinated it is.

It's not really "amazing" at all, when you consider that the working class in those countries has finally woken up to the fact that their biggest present day issues, like housing unaffordability and low purchasing power, have been caused by the intentional fiscal policies of their governments over the last 30+ years, instead of the usual boogeymen (Xi Jinping, Putin, Covid, immigrants, etc).

And now after 20+ years of constantly vote hopping between left and right, hoping "this time it will be better than last time" but in practice it always ended up worse, the people are trying to hold them accountable for it, so the elite are switching tactics now that the ye olde reliable tactic of gaslighting the people doesn't work anymore.

If the carrot doesn't work anymore, time to move over to using the stick to keep the peasants in line.

I think playing a ton of games as a kid has helped me.

I walk through a casino and see all the flashing lights and sounds and like the casino screen is half as busy as an RTS. It's just not the same level of engagement; it's not overwhelming, it's just slow.

I feel the same way. In a sense, our parents had it easier in terms of the damage external world could do emotionally, because there was typically a simple way to prevent most of it. Now, it is not nearly as simple. Not to search very far, our kid has a media diet that some consider strict ( 30 minutes a day of pre-selected items if kid meets some criteria, which I still consider too high ). But then some kids already have cellphones, ipads ( some completely unlocked too ! ). I only recently gave my kid lappy with gcompris installed ( locked down lappy; no net access ). Point I am trying to make in my rambly way is that each parent is hodge podge of various choices. And it does not work in aggregate.

I get that it is all about balance, but it is hard to disagree with Rahm here. Top down ban is the only real way to go.

How would we effectively regulate social media? Being the regulator could be a very powerful political tool and used to capture or maintain political power.

> This is the exact policing we don't want government to do regardless of the age. In my opinion it's the responsibility of the parents to decide how to raise their children and teach them how to live and adapt in the age of social media and maintain a balance.

It's complicated. I can decide how to raise my child when he's inside the house. But if when he goes into the world he's sorrounded by people addicted to their phones, what do you think it's going to happen?

Stores are banned from selling cigarettes to those under 18. Sure, kids can still get them, but it does present a barrier.

I don't see this as being any different, and as a parent, I'd support a ban like that.

Then, people would complain it was an echo chamber because you only followed people who were aligned with you...

This is a good point. I completely relate to the statement that "social media is a plague on society." But you have a good point -- it's not so much the digitization of a social network as the algorithms that are hyper-optimized to steal attention and sell advertising. Maybe it's not the age that should be regulated, but the algorithm. Whether algorithm regulation should be age dependent is another question. Personally I don't think it should be age dependent. Or... Dear Social Media Companies, F your attention hijacking, skinnerbox advertising and engagement crack regardless of how old your victim is.

Yes. The stakes of getting it wrong are different. Social media ≠ voting.

He was also directly involved in the chicago police department's attempted coverup of the murder of laquan mcdonald. He is completely despicable, the idea that anyone is covering his policy ideas is fucking vile. He should be begging for prison.

Don’t worry, we have Abundance now

They have a panel who are reviewing it’s effects across all aspects of teen life including sleep patterns, school grades ect and then nationally test results ect

Almost no laws are enacted with this in mind. The people doing it are neither scientists nor engineers and never suffer any consequences for failure of what most people will see as well meaning lawmaking. The idea that a law should be subject to quality control is not merely absent but also anathema.

That is extremely short-sighted to assume that because a few anecdotes on “how to parent” will fix the problem. I recommend you go out in public and observe the reality in various states and in various demographics and you’ll quickly see that the parents are just as addicted as the kids. They won’t know how to parent this away without legislation.

Just go into the classroom and witness children and their six-seveeen.

This is 100% like smoking except worse, because entire population of children are being deprived of their attention span. They just learn how to peddle useless products onto their peers without brain development to understand the consequence.

Your niece and her husband are one in a thousand parents. Very few have the fortitude to do it. Not a good outlook for the future if we depend on the virtue of parents.

I concur with this. I’d even be okay with government-sponsored PSAs about social media use as long as it’s based on sound research. But a ban is a hard no due to the First Amendment.

> there's clearly no good done by the existence of social media.

If this were true, I’m sure that you wouldn’t have any trouble advocating that we ban it. Many of us remember social media before the algorithmic feed took over, and it was a good way to stay connected to friends and family. Some us also were lucky enough to experience a protracted period of socializing on the internet in the pre-social media days: MUDs, web forums, chat rooms, etc. I enjoyed all of those, in my teen and college years, and like you I count myself fortunate that I was not exposed to social media during a formative time of my life. I think that’s why I hesitate to say that we should outright ban it: I know that the internet _can_ coexist (and even augment) a healthy social life. That said, I don’t use social media at all anymore (unless you count HN), so I’ve definitely voted with my eyeballs.

Yea I've seen those too. Made my heart sink.

When you start to think about that statement, and why it was written there, why a company chooses to pay $ to tell you this, you know that inherently something went REALLY wrong in the past.

And because it's a company, they're doing the bare minimum to fix it, as to minimize the impact on their bottom line.

It reminds me of the ads against a certain prop in CA, the one that would make app workers (?) employees.

Advertisements taken out by Lyft, Uber, etc, all to sway people.

When companies want you to do something it's not in your best interest. It's in theirs.

> there's clearly no good done by the existence of social media.

I assume you apply this to HN as well? Discord? Forums?

All of these can easily be defined as "social media"

> there's clearly no good done by the existence of social media

Citation needed.

Look, I am greatly opposed to how US social media giants handle and monetize data, and I don’t like them having the level of control that they do. Antitrust is a great lever to use here, because concentration is the source of many problems. But banning what is in effect public social communications is a giant step over the First Amendment.

People can and do use social media to their benefit, whether it’s for political organizing, whistleblowing, mutual aid, OSINT, or gathering on the ground media and first hand accounts from active events (such as conflicts, protests, or police actions) that may never show up in the news. The professional media cannot be everywhere, and sometimes they will not cover certain events. That’s what social media is good for, despite its flaws.

Your mention of cigarettes is apt.

We will come to see social media in its current form the same way we view smoking.

Yes. My parents happily drench themselves in a neverending barrage of unhinged political commentary on YouTube and watch clips on Facebook without knowing they are AI generated. It is really horrifying.

Yes but they won’t let you take it away from them because they are hooked

Adults of all ages are being harmed.

It's not clear to me that he has any political career beyond his home town.

The effects are there for everyone to see. GenZ is depressed and can't hold a thought for more than a few seconds. No, it's not because of the housing or job market, it's the phones. Check e.g. Jonathan Haidt: https://jonathanhaidt.com/social-media/

And free speech: you don't need a mobile phone or tiktok to exercise that right.

It's interesting, because quite a lot of the pornography ID laws are passed by Republicans and popular among Republicans. I don't mean this as a "both sides" sort of argument, but rather that modern tech seems to be unpopular among all constituents, even if different groups have their preferred villain.

The good news is Emmanuel, although a media gadfly, isn't well liked by Democratic voters so he won't make it out of a Democratic primary.

It's popular in Australia according to polling even though you'd never guess that based on sampling opinions about it from social media.

Credibly fixing both social media and cost of living would be an effective platform across the West.

> On March 12, 2025, Politico reported that Emanuel was interested in running for president in the 2028 U.S. presidential election.

They are going to find out soon enough.

The pitch of the centrist/“3rd way” wing that’s still, incredibly, ascendant even after the massive party shift on the other side that was teed up in the late ‘00s and realized in 2016, is basically “we’re just like Reagan but we like the gays and abortion a little more, and like guns a lot less”.

It’s a shit message, but they’re apparently permanently damaged by the 1980 landslide re-election loss to Reagan and incapable of moving on. IDK if liberal democracy will survive here long enough for us to see if another wing of the party can ever get those folks to let them try something else.

[edit] not for nothing, Obama lightly hinted at a move away from that in his campaigning (if not his governing) and it seemed to work pretty damn well. Why they didn’t double down on that is anyone’s guess, but I’d suppose it rhymes with “bobbying”.

Is this not a bipartisan issue?

Unfortunately yes.

Trump won during a time where incumbents lost by ~10 points. He narrowly beat a candidate that lost their only primary run by <2 point.

Trump's very vocal minority is very good at making people think there is a silent majority.

However, the democrats have been elected quite a lot this millennium and they've fully shown they're incapable of making necessary reforms so there's going to keep being populist candidates until there's new blue blood.

That would require making positive, pragmatic suggestions that could improve the lives of the average person, rather than moralizing and kowtowing to the special interest groups and wealthy donors who have captured the party. Good luck with that.

As it is we now have two parties obsessed with “regulating” the morality of citizens while bleeding them out financially.

banning kids from youtube seems pretty reasonable

Yes, the global rise of fascism is a huge problem. Gleefully handing fascists more power over communications and a means of de-anonymizing access to information and communications is exactly what you don't want to do.

That's what this sudden movement is really about: maintaining bubbles of indoctrination to maintain the rightward slide of the Overton Window, and installing a permanent means of tying Internet activity to identity for monitoring.

It's important that things like the first amendment never be compromised precisely because that erosion becomes a tool of fascism. We're inches away from neo-McCarthyism, and this is the tool to enable it.

Correct. Deporting illegal aliens is exactly the job of the federal government.

The question is how the laws are enforced.

The driving, smoking, and drinking laws are enforced outside the home. Everyone has to prove their age at the DMV to get a license and at commercial establishments to buy cigarettes and alcohol.

The only way to enforce the social media law age minimum is to force everyone to show their ID just to use the internet, even from their own home. That seems more Orwellian to me.

No: It's more like leaded gasoline. People of the future will be like, "why would you let a big corporation control the feed algorithm?" Social media is fine. It's the algorithm that seeks addiction/engagement that's the problem. Not social media in general.

"Social media" is far too ambiguous anyway. For example, under most definitions, Steam is a social media platform. Yet no one is addicted to sharing things via Steam. But you can! You absolutely can share and browse people's posts, screenshots, videos, and even chat (text and voice)!

The reason why no one complains about Steam's social media features is that they're not designed to be addicting. That's not the point of the platform (it's to sell more games).