Canada

Weird at how we’re not talking about the technology behind social media aka algorithms that are provoke a specific emotion. Since it’s those algorithms that is hurting children and society.

Age verification not mentioned. Wake me up when it is.

So, mass surveillance for everyone under the guise of "think of the children!" while billionaires are trafficking and raping them.

As someone who was a teenager when the internet became a thing, I agree there should be a debate on the topic. Because as I see it, our brains got broken differently after the internet.

There is a healthy way to approach this. There is a minimum age for social media. Buuuut.... I'm not the one who should be saying what that is.

I'm still confused as to how this has anything to do with the population at large. Monitor your fucking kids.

Really hate the way the internet is moving and the increasing control governments are enforcing and reaching for.

Oh great it's time for that again. So many things they might try to do to protect the children. So few of them that would not do more harm than good.

Please let this government fall before they fuck it up too badly, and the same to its successor. Delay is all we can do, and hope we can hold them off long enough for the utter stupidity of "age verification" systems to become obvious to even the politicians as its failure in e.g. the UK continues to play out.

Stupid as fuck

While I agree kids should not have Facebook or IG, I don't really think it's up to the government to decide. Parent your kids.

As a millenial I grew up on the internet and I watched my own children navigate an ever evolving internet, especially social media. My home did not allow social media before 16 as I agree there is an age limit. The problem is how do we verify this? Requiring ID for anything on the internet is a slippery slope that politicians seem all too happy to throw us down.

I'd really recommend the book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. It addresses the exact thing that this policy is trying to tackle.

In short, regarding many of the comments already here, the current (but unenforced) internet 'age of consent' is 13, essentially the exact age where girls and boys are most vulnerable to developing addictive habits and where (in-person) social connection is most needed.

The "just parent your kids" argument falls flat, because kids will find a way around even the most savvy of digital parental controls.

The "f off govment" argument really doesn't help either. Should we eliminate minimum age requirements for the purchase of other addictive substances like tobacco, alcohol and marijuana? Of course not. Kids addicted to social media exhibit the same symptoms as those addicted to other things, and the health effects can be even more detrimental. Why should it be regulated any differently?

My biggest concern is how they're going to implement age verification, because there are many privacy-invasive wrong ways, but a few privacy respecting right ways as well.

Does this mean going back to a BBS and FidoNet?

Even if they somehow implement this in an anonymous way (let's be real, it's the government), it would have to be through government services and a lot of people that use social media, specifically Indigenous people, well, let's just say, do not trust the government. So, if this is implemented in a mature, reasonable way without any involvement from the private sector; you are still excluding a significant portion of the populace just by having the government involved.

This should never have even been brought up. It's idiotic.

Good but unenforceable.

Politically this seems like a bad move. I imagine if this passes that it will be a sticking point that the conservatives can fixate on, sort of like the carbon tax

The minimum age for social media should be 105..

Change my mind.