cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/37268108

Dive Deeper

Source: Commission of inquiry into the psychological effects of TikTok on minors.

Recommended reads in french:

Imposing the ban and a 10 pm to 8 am curfew for 15- to 18-year-olds would “send a signal both to children and parents” that social media “is not harmless” for the young, Laure Miller, the MP who compiled a parliamentary inquiry’s report, told AFP.

With more than 1.5 billion users worldwide, TikTok – owned by China-based ByteDance – has been especially under fire from Western governments in Europe and the US in recent years.

Concerns raised over the platform have included content encouraging suicide, self harm or an unhealthy body image as well as its potential use for foreign political interference.

French President Emmanuel Macron has already backed a social media ban for children and young adolescents, following in the footsteps of Australia which started drafting its own landmark ban for under-16s last year.

Meanwhile TikTok is in legal limbo in America, as President Donald Trump has permitted the platform to continue operating there despite a law requiring its sale.

The service was also singled out as a vector for Russian influence when Romania’s presidential election was controversially annulled last year by the country’s supreme court.

Launched in March, the French parliamentary committee set out to examine TikTok and its psychological effects on minors after a 2024 lawsuit against the platform by seven families accusing it of exposing their children to content pushing them towards suicide.

Members put forward Thursday’s recommendations – welcomed by Laure Boutron-Marmion, a lawyer representing the families – after months of testimony from families, social media executives and influencers.

  • zrst@lemmy.cif.su
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    8 hours ago

    The ruling class never cares about what harms workers unless it somehow comes back to them.

    I’m guessing people are being radicalized by social media and recognizing how their rulers are only looking out for themselves, like in Nepal.

    Hopefully we see more social media bans and more rulers get killed as a result.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      2 hours ago

      This is not a social media ban, this is limiting children’s access, something I agree with

      Problem is that the responsibility for that is left with the providers, which is how we get to identification requirements for websites, which I vehemently disagree with

      Do it, but do it differently

    • Waryle@jlai.lu
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      7 hours ago

      Private platforms owned by billionaires =/= Free speech

      Protecting children from these cesspools is a matter of sanitary measures. I would even go further and just kill Meta, Twitter, Tiktok and the likes just for being major platforms for espionage, disinformation, and democratic destabilization, particularly used by hostile foreign powers.

      • Fluffy Kitty Cat@slrpnk.net
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        5 hours ago

        You say that like these laws are written to only apply to them. I’ve read some of these nasty laws and they would apply to literally anything Web 2.0

    • zrst@lemmy.cif.su
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      9 hours ago

      Voting doesn’t work when the ruling class gets to control what everyone else is allowed to think.

      I would love see actual guillotine executions of rulers that have gotten too big for their britches.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
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    9 hours ago

    How about holding the platforms accountable instead? Their algorythms don’t do ragebaiting recommendations by accident.

    • HighlandCow@feddit.uk
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      9 hours ago

      That was immediately my first thought, this is a parent decision not the government and there are ample resources provided by major ISPs or things built into are technology already that help with this

      Only issue is some parents are quite tech illiterate but this issue will be fixed in later generations hopefully

    • melroy@kbin.melroy.org
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      19 hours ago

      Exactly my point. These rules are not for kids… It’s for adults, so everybody becomes known with their passport uploaded. Etc.

  • hisao@ani.social
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    15 hours ago

    Imposing the ban and a 10 pm to 8 am curfew for 15- to 18-year-olds would “send a signal both to children and parents” that social media “is not harmless” for the young

    The signal I’m reading there is that the concept of statesmanship should be seriously reevaluated.

  • Culf@feddit.dk
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    20 hours ago

    I feel like it wouldn’t be too bad in itself to have some amount of restriction to social media platforms for kids, but if the only way to implement that is by introducing privacy-ruining age verification for everyone, the positive is greatly outweighed by the negative imo

  • melroy@kbin.melroy.org
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    19 hours ago

    French politics are crazy. If this is getting pushed. Then all adults need to upload their passports and id’s.

    • Blisterexe@lemmy.zip
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      6 hours ago

      It’s getting pushed by the least popular party in the government, it’s very unlikely to pass, imo

      • melroy@kbin.melroy.org
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        8 hours ago

        I am already. But most of them will not go away from social media platforms. Especially youth and older people. Since both of these groups often lack the knowledge and understanding of what is really happening and how to circumvent it.

  • network_switch@lemmy.ml
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    20 hours ago

    They don’t want kids to know too well how their government operates domestically and internationally. Don’t want kids to learn history much better than the watered down version they learn in school