Everyone knows that social media is PROBABLY not good for kids. Kind of like how we know that potato chips are PROBABLY not good for us. But it’s not something that’s easy to stop.
Norway has announced a new BAN on young people on social media. Supposedly, they will “enforce a strict minimum age limit of 15”, because tech companies are, “pitted against small children’s brains.”
The Norwegian prime minister admits that it’ll be “an uphill battle,” but said politicians MUST protect children from the, “power of the algorithms.”
Norway already had a minimum age of 13, which is aligned with the existing minimum age requirements on many social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. But none of that is working.
Norway says despite this, more than half of nine-year-olds in Norway, 58% of 10-year-olds, and 72% of 11-year-olds are on social media.
The government says they’re considering several ways to enforce it that “don’t intervene with human rights,” like tighter age verification barriers. For example, they could require a bank account, which would be tied to an official age.
(Many parents would probably like to see something similar in the U.S., the hard part is doing it in a way that doesn’t give the tech companies or the internet MORE personal data on its users, particularly kids.)
