alt.hn

6/3/2026 at 9:56:32 AM

Japan declines to join movement to ban youth from social media

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16615541

by BaudouinVH

6/3/2026 at 10:27:41 AM

For context, Japanese mobile lines for children include net filtering by default. Also, mobile lines require positive ID to get, so you can't simply get a burner mobile line. A phone number that can send or receive phone calls or SMS is tied to a real world identity, and transferring is illegal.

So, a neat way of requiring ID checks is to simply offload these things to carriers with phone number validation.

In contrast, the US is an example of a country where getting a phone number with no stringent ID check is trivial and it can easily do SMS and phone calls without a second glance.

*ID verification was recently tightened to require reading the IC card data from My Number Card (the national identity card) or in-person KYC for non-IC card users (like a copy of family registry).

by Shank

6/3/2026 at 11:49:14 AM

> In contrast, the US is an example of a country where getting a phone number with no stringent ID check is trivial and it can easily do SMS and phone calls without a second glance.

And the funny part: you buy it from the at&t store, you start receiving dodgy calls and texts almost immediately because those numbers are recycled.

by throw1234567891

6/3/2026 at 1:16:57 PM

There are people who make a living by intentionally getting recycled numbers and then suing telemarketers that call or text them.

A search for "professional TCPA plaintiffs", reveals some interesting links:

https://www.leadgen-economy.com/blog/serial-tcpa-litigators-...

https://www.consumerfinancialserviceslawmonitor.com/2023/09/...

by rationalist

6/3/2026 at 2:44:28 PM

TBH I can't see any problem with this approach.

by chadgpt3

6/3/2026 at 4:16:43 PM

Me either. I'm tempted to call them "heroes".

by rationalist

6/3/2026 at 10:33:59 AM

Australia just banned social media for under 16s. Living here, the conversation feels very real.

by VJ-2-108

6/3/2026 at 11:25:11 AM

Kids under a walled garden until they hit adulthood. Enjoy your surveillance systems on everyone and no way to behave themselves with their own criteria. A recipe for a disaster and to get adults back to the consumer world of the 90's. No more MSN or AOL like networks for teen creating their own contents, nothing like MySpace or similar. Just tons of bullshit from corporatons to get their money stolen from.

Kids at 14 will be really good crackers and hackers in order to escape the media hell the late 90's and early 00's where across the world. In that era I suffered shitty movies, shitty music, even shitter console ports... until 2003 or such. We had no issues on PC's with P2P sharing good media and libre gaming, generating a semi-enlightened generation of people, something the corporate goverment it's really scared of.

When your content are good webcomics, indie music instead of the ones from Pentagon brainwashing machines called the Marvel saga from Disney, suddenly there are no more idiots joining the Army. Ditto with labor laws, or shitty famiy issues in Spain where everyone cheers them with a coat of dark humour in sitcoms, such as the -mandatory by law- care of the elderly from either their children or relatives (son-in-laws). Yes, TV's did brainwash us with tons of outdated Southern Europe lore as if it were normal, such as the RPG panic in TV and printed press -in the 90's they almost were The Gospel AKA the only valid source of information- while dumping ton of money on alcohol advertising for the young adult in mostly teen related series.

What's the point of this in Spain? Well, easy: they wanted to create a society built upon bars, cheap tourism and to slay down any IT based backgrund so Spain was the cheap source of shitty holidays for Middle Europe.

You know, the constructions lobbies in Spain among the tourism and restaurant/bar ones manage tons of money there. Remote work: no offices needed, estate and constructions companies losing billions of money. The only CEO from a UK multinational against remote work was the Spaniard one. It was fired over months. Period. UK companies don't give a shit on Spanish mafias related to construction and such.

It's the exact same bullshit you are getting with Meta wanting ID control everywere, so they can exploit age related media with verified users instead of bots making FB/Meta useless for advertising. It's all about money and controlling the society.

So, I'm tired of this crap, really tired. I'm fighting at 39 the same crap I fought at 19 with software freedom and non bullshit media.

To hell with these nuts. They want to drive the lifes of teens to create controlled adults. Dear Austrialian media CEO's, you are doomed.

by anthk

6/3/2026 at 11:51:05 AM

You think your children are “yours”? No, you’re a custodian. You raise their future workforce. Don’t step out of line.

by throw1234567891

6/3/2026 at 1:06:54 PM

How about people belong to neither their parents nor the government, but they still have to be raised in some way by someone?

by chadgpt3

6/3/2026 at 1:20:12 PM

I’m not an idealist myself. Simply telling where we are. It’s always been like that.

by throw1234567891

6/3/2026 at 1:08:54 PM

Lmao, brutal truth but yeah.

Wake up folks - there’s nothing you can do. People know Zuckerberg is a horrible human but carry on using his products anyway.

The vast majority of people just don’t care as long as they have enough goods around them to keep them distracted.

The smart people accept the reality and try to get ahead of it.

by ejeje1

6/3/2026 at 12:44:17 PM

There's a difference between the internet in the 90s and today, though.

If those of us fortunate enough to have experienced the early-ish days of the internet grew up using 5 platforms, we probably wouldn't be so nostalgic.

Beating back big tech and their grip has to be priority number 1 into reclaiming the intenrnet.

Nobody bats an eyelid at how gambling sites block out kids. We should be pushing for a world where big tech ad platforms have to play by the same rules as them. Create -EV in society, and get severely regged.

The issue is going to be when draconian rules filter down to the smaller independent sites. i.e. iris scan for 4chan, or get a few rubber stamps across gov departments to open a message board, etc.

Responsiblity has to increase with scale. We can't let nation state tier entities run algos on the youth, it's just madness.

The changes are happening, and shouting 'noooooooooooooo' isn't going to help anybody. Let facebook et al burn under regs, fuck em. The battle is in trying to protect and support the independent internet.

by gaiagraphia

6/3/2026 at 1:10:41 PM

Correct.

The right framing is govt vs big tech.

If you support the latter over the former you are an idiot.

by ejeje1