Honestly, in 2026 do you really think this won’t be subverted?

VPN to countries that don’t require identification. Done.

Kids have been buying accounts for years now. It isn’t new. See: WoW. This isn’t anything new, just a new market for it.

lol regarding holding anyone legally responsible. Good luck is all I can say. The US doesn’t prosecute firearms owners who claim a stolen gun that was involved in a crime, only in very clear (and especially stupid) cases. No chance this happens with social media accounts. Just none, on any wide scale.

And again, pretty easy to AI generate an ID these days… kids were doing this in the 70s and it was way, way harder back then.

And this is at the cost of mandatory handing of IDs to big tech that will inevitably leak. Are you comfortable posting a picture of your ID right here? If not, you should be no more comfortable handing your ID to Facebook.

I’m not willing up give up my right to privacy because someone else is a shitty parent, sorry. I’ll subvert it because it’s unethical.

A) It’s very unlikely to actually stop kids from accessing social media. VPN’s, purchasing blackmarket accounts that have already been verified, classic fake ID’s (in the age of AI generated images, no less). So they’ll just keep building profiles for them anyway (it’s already known they do this now for people not actually signed up with social media, their trackers are all over the web and it’s easy to build a profile without concerted effort against it). Why do we always think “this time for sure forcing abstinence will work!”? It never does.

B) In addition to not actually stopping building profiles on kids, it now hands them a goldmine of information on adults. Mandates it, even. Data leaks are going to get a lot more “fun”…

It’s not at all comparable. If I go into a library and get a book on fixing cars, the librarian doesn’t follow me around suggesting Joe Rogan.

Most people access their libraries via digital platforms like Libby as well these days. Unless you’re just going full Luddite and we’re just saying no digital access to anything at all.

I don’t see the value in the data being greater than the cost of administrating a patchwork of varied regulations across the globe.

This is a very strange position from someone posting in this community. You don’t think, even assuming no ill intentions, there’s any security risk in allowing big tech to access, and likely store, official identification? Data leaks happen all the time. If you wouldn’t publicly post your identification information, you should see the value in that data.

You may have a more personalized experience, but the front door of Youtube is… nauseating.

Is that really a good reason for banning its use for kids? Again, this is like shutting off library access because the stuff presented at the front is slop… my library presents slop at the front door, I don’t think that should stop kids from going inside.

I’d also point out at least my library doesn’t do any age verification or ID checks either.

Anyway, I cheer for any friction added to these tech companies because they are doing so much harm, so anything to slow them down.

I think this is cutting off your nose to spite your face though when it allows… mandates, rather, a huge collection of data. I’m not so sure big tech is really against this… early iterations of code to verify age were said to not store any data, but auditors found that to not be the case. That was walked back, but I find it very unlikely they won’t just do it again when there’s less scrutiny.

Especially since kids are likely going to just get on through backdoors anyway, we’ve likely done very little to stop data collection on them while handing them most adults on a silver platter. That’s in no way a score for the little guy.

I’m totally on board with fucking tech companies, I just don’t think this does it while simultaneously it fucks us.

I would love to see a platform curated with high quality content.

Nebula. It isn’t perfect, and it needs more creators, but that’s the closest I’ve come.

“Hey mom and dad can I use ‘historyTube’” “Absolutely!”. Easy.

Well, not if it’s banned as social media, that’s the issue.

Traditional Broadcasters have some standards.

Broadcasters did because they had laws restricting their content. Cable very much did not.

Think about the experience of going into a library or bookstore vs. YouTube, the content mix is not comparable.

My experience is that the stuff pushed by most libraries as their hot new items, things to read, general recommendations, are pretty much slop. Romantasy slop is a big genre all its own.

Which isn’t to say people can’t enjoy it, but it really isn’t much better than YouTube slop.

The algorithms , content scale, and access is another world.

Now that, I agree is an issue, but that’s just as true for adults as we’ve seen. I’d have less issue restricting how algorithms are pushed than mandatory ID… it would benefit all of society, not just kids, and it’s actually a positive improvement on privacy since it disincentivizes profile building.

Youtube is a massive problem for boys. There may be a couple of educational things on there but it’s adjacent to awful recommended content.

So is it worth losing access to Veritasium, Extra History, Professor Dave Explains, countless sources for learning programming…? This is like banning kids from TV because Jackass exists. It’s always been parents’ job to help guide their kids towards media that is more wholesome and fulfilling rather than tripe.

True of books, too, by the way… the written word isn’t an automatically higher art. Pulp has always been a thing, and anyone who actually does do a lot of reading can confirm there is a lot of tripe out there right now in book form.

Read a book, find a mentor, stay in school.

Learning to use digital content is a big part of school. It isn’t the 70’s anymore. This is like pushing for abstinence only education… it is pretty much proven, from sex ed to drugs, not to work. You need to teach responsible use.

Depends what counts as social media. YouTube could very much be implicated as a social media. Reddit/Lemmy obviously. There’s a ton of legitimately educational material on both platforms. What about Steam? With chat/friends/community function, isn’t that a social media? Where is the line drawn?

How well have these studies accounted for neuro-divergence in kids (something Europe has generally done a pretty poor job accommodating)? What about kids with certain disabilities that put them indoors often if not essentially always? Isn’t the isolation worse for their mental health?

Is there not some point at which you really do just have to depend on parents being parents? I accept that some state involvement is necessary sometimes, but this really feels pretty solidly in the purview of something that should be up to parental judgement.

I’ve been predicting for while we’re going to see two parallel Internets develop, the “new” net running on the old infrastructure that’s basically run by the big guys and a new infrastructure modeled after the old internet that’s decentralized. We’ve been seeing a bunch of different pieces from Fediverse to LoRa communication, Meshtastic, Matrix, increased hobbyist interest in old ways of connecting computers (even saw a guide on how to set up your own dial up ISP for fun), etc. I’m not sure exactly how all those pieces are going to come together, but a locked down internet is only going to increase demand for what was lost in its creation. And its already been trending this way for awhile.

Perhaps, but one could argue it happens so often that the hammer lends itself to hammering this particular nail, and so often devolves into that. The Balkans are this experiment played out, attempting to carve out ethno states, and we’ve seen how that’s gone. Once you start saying things like “this country should only be (or primarily be) for X people”, you almost necessarily have to engage in some degree of genocide (in the wider sense of removing a people and culture that doesn’t fit the paradigm), or apartheid, otherwise the statement ends up a bit vacuous, no?

Israel is, in my view, a very clear example of this; once you’ve decided “this is a Jewish state”, anyone not Jewish by definition become second class citizens.

If we’re just talking general assimilation, that’s more nuanced… I don’t oppose calls for more assimilation, but I think governments have done a very poor job in using more stick than carrot. They tend to not put any effort in helping people integrate, which is, from experience, very difficult. One could argue it isn’t their responsibility, but I think such framings for state action is silly… either the state has an interest in a thing being done or it doesn’t, and in this case I think they very much do. Most immigrants that form insular communities do so not out of any inherent pull to, but because they’re already being somewhat ostracized. In the US, Chinatowns arose as a direct result of ostracization and discrimination.

I do think there is a danger of assimilation programs overzealously wiping out culture… the Sami have faced multiple attempts in the past at trying to stamp out their culture, the US and Australia religiously forced the elimination of many native cultures in the name of assimilation. It is also a fine line to walk. But there is undoubtedly a state interest (and immigrant interest!) in assimilating into society.

I’d argue the binding culture that should be assimilated shouldn’t be things as fuzzy as ethnicity… the culture that binds should be the values of that nation. Which doesn’t really have anything to do with ethnicity.

I guess I’m just skeptical this false impression will work on locals… I’d presume they aren’t hearing from this group from lemmy mainly and likely already have feelings established, no? It just seems to me this wouldn’t be a good forum on which to spread misinformation… strikes me as a lot more likely that a forum known for being pretty left leaning is just latching onto a story that is related to their interest.

Because (at least on lemmy) they spam articles about this, and treat it like some “gotcha” moment that would make the company no longer able to fulfill their purpose.

Because more militant left leaning views are pretty common here. Seems to be the Occam’s Razor answer.

Yes of course, it is to me just clear that it is not about Mullvad. The post are about ÖP.

To what end? Surely locals would have a better idea of exactly where their politics stand… what’s the point in giving a false impression to people from random countries on the Internet?

I still wouldn’t support it and would probably pull my money from someone who is actively promoting it. Often this kind of sentiment is a soft pedaled version of more ugly policies, and I just don’t agree with it in the first place. I think nationalism is generally an ignorant position and the lesson of the 20th century should be that trying to maintain homogeneous states nearly always leads to genocide in the worst cases and apartheid states in the best of times. So this doesn’t assuage me much.

That said, extra context is always welcome.

This is way worse than what Yen did. This guy donated a lot of money to a party that explicitly pushes demigration policies, and if there was any doubt that this was a motivating factor for the donation, he later said he felt those policies were necessary. That’s understandable to not want to give your money to someone who you know is going to go bankroll demigration politics with some of your money.

Yen praised the Republicans at large over an anti trust pick.

I think the other criticisms of Proton’s policy changes are valid, and everyone has different standards for what is enough to divest from a company I guess, but I’ve heard people calling Yen a fascist sympathizer for that statement, and that’s just divorced from reality imo.

“Dang.” adds two new email aliases.

? I mean, I’m replying?

I’m willing to hear the argument, I just haven’t heard one yet aside from what I summarized above, which seems to me very weak. I think it’s worth talking about because this line that keeps getting repeated by a small but vocal minority led me to believe that this guy was something like a JK Rowling that’s pumping lots of money into groups that tangibly harm people, or is out there changing minds towards a very negative ideology or something… but he literally only took up the gauntlet regarding anti trust, which is pretty not-fascist. He isn’t pushing anyone to the right with that.

I could ask the same… why participate if you aren’t willing to consider maybe you were too hasty in judgment?

Again, you’ll need to explain to me that if his real goal here is “align[ing] with fascist talking points”, why is the only actual issue he jumped in on anti trust? Where was he regarding the election moves? Where was he regarding the ICE policies?

A decent anti trust pick isn’t aligned at all with fascism, yet it’s that issue that he spoke up on. Why only that when there have been countless issues that are aligned with fascism he could have commented on?

This screams the kind of now typical online left purity testing way more than fascism, to me.

Sure, but he was also perfectly willing to encourage him towards what he could frame as being a win for Trump, too.

I’m in no way saying Mamdani isn’t principled. I’m saying he also has an eye for strategy over performative politics. There was, probably is, a small left cadre that was really giving him shit for meeting with Trump at all for fear of “legitimizing” or “normalizing” him… this strikes me as very, very similar to the dynamic around Yang.

Again, there has been ample opportunity for this guy to go to bat for fascism. Why only anti trust?

So in 2024 he is praising the republican party about anti-trust, which even you admit he is wrong about.

If I divested from everyone I thought was incorrect about something, I wouldn’t be able to do business with literally anyone. And I explained why I think he said this, which implied it’s quite possible he doesn’t even think this is true.

How is this any different than what Mamdani did?

Again, if he was out here stumping for fascist positions I’d have a little more pause. But the issue he picked up here, of all the political issues in the recent years, was anti-trust. Sorry, this doesn’t scream crypto fascist to me. Certainly not enough for me to worry about.

I also didn’t say I’m surprised. I’m arguing that I think it’s wrong and the vast majority of even those on the left aren’t going to care about this.

It’s always nice when people let you know to block them for juvenile and petty behavior that would make a redditor blush before they actually manage you get to you.

You can’t remove the context this statement was made in though, which was about the appointment. And let’s be real here: he is not wrong about corporate capture of the Democrats at all. Yes, saying the Republicans are any better is ridiculous, but this strikes me far more like stroking the ego of a guy that likes having his ego stroked and made a rare decent pick for anti trust. This is no different than what Mamdani did visiting the White House… do we cancel him too for appeasing fascists? Or can we acknowledge choosing to try and engage with and manipulate a guy that’s shown to be easily manipulated is probably a strategic choice more than ideological?

And the thing he’s praising here is anti trust. Sure, I think it’s wrong to say Republicans are better on this issue, but literally the thing he’s praising is very much antithetical to fascism. How can we really say he’s supporting fascism then? Where are his posts supporting his ICE policies? Where are the comments supporting overturning a democratic election? He makes one comment supporting anti trust efforts and suddenly he must be a crypto fascist because it came from Trump? Not buying it, man.

I really think trying to portray Yang as something like the My Pillow Guy, which is the level of discourse a lot of this has had around it, is really, really disingenuous and I think only serves to make people take these accusations less seriously even when they’re levelled against people who truly are fascist sympathizers at the very least.