alt.hn

2/1/2026 at 9:01:49 AM

New Dutch government to push for EU social media ban for under-15s

 https://www.politico.eu/article/d66-cda-vvd-dutch-government-aims-to-keep-under-15s-off-social-media/

by DavideNL

2/1/2026 at 12:21:48 PM

Social media should be banned like pesticides, fossil fuels and other things harmful to the society.

by akagusu

2/1/2026 at 4:23:49 PM

You are posting this on something which can only be described as "social media".

There is enormous value in letting humans communicate freely through the internet and any harm which comes from the misuse needs to be very carefully weighed against the benefits.

By the way, fossile fuels are partly responsible for the greatest uplift in human quality of life. Pesticides are essential in creating a sustainable food output.

by constantcrying

2/1/2026 at 7:49:46 PM

Collectively, "social media" is basically everything that allows interactive expression and evolution of different opinions online. The manipulation of Big Social is simply a deterrent to that process, in effect it's a tool against good social media.

> any harm which comes from the misuse needs to be very carefully weighed against the benefits.

Also, misuse can be addressed in different ways, blanket bans and surveillance-enabling authentication are misuse themselves.

by bigbadfeline

2/1/2026 at 8:13:03 PM

> By the way, fossile fuels are partly responsible for the greatest uplift in human quality of life. Pesticides are essential in creating a sustainable food output.

Yeah, and they are not sentient beings we owe something in return to.

When they were useful we used them. Now that they’re more harmful than useful we stop using them.

I don’t understand the moralizing around that.

by hshdhdhj4444

2/1/2026 at 9:48:36 PM

And Carrie Nation was hypocritical for entering bars. The world isn't black and white enough for such gotchas to work.

by kelseyfrog

2/1/2026 at 6:50:28 PM

maybe this person is really trying to make this point

by simianwords

2/1/2026 at 9:27:58 PM

Social media algorithms definitely should. Fourteen year old girls do not need an AI to make them even more miserable.

by PearlRiver

2/1/2026 at 5:51:18 PM

What you probably mean is recommendation systems shoukd be banned

by trueismywork

2/1/2026 at 1:34:55 PM

None of those things are banned completely nor are only harmful in society.

Both of them are regulated but it is understood that they are critical to society without which a lot of stuff won’t happen

by simianwords

2/1/2026 at 1:46:43 PM

What won't happen in society without social media?

by i7l

2/1/2026 at 2:17:50 PM

Social media has existed for centuries, in the old days it was village rumors.

by pjmlp

2/2/2026 at 9:42:30 AM

It's fine if you like that definition, but that is not what we currently use when talking about "social media bans".

by 1718627440

2/1/2026 at 5:39:25 PM

Not at anything resembling the instantaneous global reach of today.

by i7l

2/1/2026 at 7:02:43 PM

The world was different then, but printed press and later the telegraph certainly helped.

Or centuries in between where folks used to go village to village telling tales for a few coins.

Meaning there was always something kind of widespread, even if it wasn't at the scale of computer networks connected world wild.

by pjmlp

2/1/2026 at 2:23:19 PM

Our conversation

by simianwords

2/1/2026 at 4:25:37 PM

> The parties want an "enforceable European minimum age of 15 for social media, with privacy-friendly age verification for young people, as long as social media are not sufficiently safe

I will never trust that a solution will actually be privacy friendly. Even if someone could imagine a technical path to it, I just don’t trust governments to care about privacy. Eventually it’ll mean that we can’t speak online with anonymity.

by SilverElfin

2/1/2026 at 10:40:41 PM

Factually incorrect, because there is no "new Dutch government" yet. At the moment those plans are just an agreement between three parties who are hoping to form a minority government.

They first need to convince enough other parties to get a majority on the vote to allow them to actually govern, and then they also need to go scavenge for enough votes for every single piece of their plan - which will inevitable result in a quid-pro-quo with the other parties.

There are a bunch of festering problems the Dutch politicians have been avoiding for years now which really have to be solved by the next government. No matter the solution, it is going to be deeply unpopular. This minority coalition is going to have very little political capital left to spend on its own plans, so I highly doubt they'd waste it on something like a social media ban.

You've got to remember: their program is nothing more than a moonshot. There is no way they are ever going to realize all of it, and none of them care enough about social media to make it a hill they are willing to die on.

by crote

2/1/2026 at 2:59:13 PM

No. Ban smartphones. Better for more of society.

by Am4TIfIsER0ppos

2/1/2026 at 3:25:52 PM

Please don't take away my pocket super computer that helps me navigate because too many people can't keep their fingers off Twitter and TikTok.

by danielbln

2/1/2026 at 10:53:52 PM

Its called a map. They come on paper.

by Am4TIfIsER0ppos

2/1/2026 at 4:09:57 PM

Yeah. I feel the same way with many other things. This is why we cannot have nice things. sighs

by johnisgood

2/1/2026 at 10:19:18 PM

Should we also take away their television? Do comic books make people dumb too?

I get the argument, but it's just not a solution

by ramon156

2/1/2026 at 10:52:04 PM

Yes it is. The internet is something you should sit down to use. Adults or children should not be followed by it everywhere they go.

by Am4TIfIsER0ppos

2/2/2026 at 8:04:33 PM

Ok grandpa

by weezing

2/1/2026 at 3:03:00 PM

"The current EU minimum age stands at 13."

by andsoitis

2/1/2026 at 2:13:50 PM

[dead]

by JohnnyLarue