Norway Mulls Social Media Age Limits
No good deed goes unpunished, as the gov't proposes to enforce age limits by double-checking with Norwegians' electronic ID
Every now and then, even legacy media reports on issues of concern, in particular the relationships between social media (ab)use, being virtually permanently online, and their social consequences.
In January 2024, I penned a four-part series on Norway backtracking on what Prime Minister Støre (Labour) calls ‘excessive digitalisation’ in schools, mainly because Norwegian kids sucked at the latest PISA testing round.
This sea change brought about a national cell phone ban in schools for students and teacher, less screen time esp. in primary schools, and a variety of other things. All of this may be (re)read in the below posting, which incl. links to the three earlier parts:
And then in February 2024, we talked at-length about the consequences of such ‘excessive digitalisation’ for teenagers, university students and graduates, and young adults looking for a good partner:
Needless to say, there’s ‘the Science™’ behind all of this:
As you can imagine after this kind of introduction, there’s some ‘news™’ to share, hence today’s posting. As always, non-English content comes to you in my translation, with emphases added, and with a few bottom lines.
PM Støre Wants an Age Limit for Social Media
The government wants to introduce an age limit for the use of social media and announces stricter rules for content aimed at children and young people.
By Mats Rønning, and Kristian Skårdalsmo, William Jobling, NRK, 2 July 2024 [source]
‘It’s a bunch of the world's smartest tech brains against a child’s brain. It’s a raw deal’, says Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre (Ap) to [Norwegian state broadcaster] NRK.
From his family cabin in Kilsund outside Arendal, Norway, the Prime Minister is now for the first time sending out a clear political signal about severe restrictions on children’s usage of social media.
He has holidayed here every summer since he was a toddler. And the issue of screen use engages him as a politician, but also as a father and grandfather:
We need an age limit that we can enforce. And we need to have stricter regulation of functionality and content that is clearly harmful to children.
A Battle of Values
The promise he makes is threefold:
This autumn, the government will set an absolute age limit for the use of social media. Whether it will be 13, 14, or 15 years is yet to be decided [personally, I hope it’s going to be as high as possible].
This age limit will be strictly enforced through the use of electronic identification, which ensures that the user complies with the age limit. However, it may take time to clarify which platform to use [i.e., no online ID, no social media, which is why I call the age limit a Trojan horse (pun intended)].
Content aimed at children and young people will be regulated more strictly, including advertising. This also applies to addictive features such as autoplay and recommendation algorithms [better late than never].
‘We are facing challenges that we cannot solve alone. It’s up to politicians to get to grips with this’, says Støre [typically Norwegian; one may also opt-out, but doing so is un-Scandinavian].
He describes it as a battle of values—the fight against the algorithms that send children and young people out into an endless series of video clips, and which can also expose them to impressions he believes they should be spared:
We do not accept that people exclude, harass, harm, or exert commercial pressure on children. Nor can we accept that digital devices do this. The same rules must apply [good luck enforcing this; my guess is this won’t work in practice, cost the taxpayer dearly, and will be circumvented before it’s in use].
Controversial Electronic ID
The idea of using BankID to enforce politically set age limits on social media, for example, was criticised by the Norwegian Data Protection Authority and the Consumer Council last autumn [go figure as to why: I don’t trust corporations with ‘my’ data, but I’d rather have Big Business have these data than the gov’t (or, in Norway’s case, a public-private partnership like BankID)].
‘Age verification challenges children's fundamental rights, such as the right to participation, freedom of expression, and information gathering’, Consumer Protection Director Inger Lise Blyverket told [Communist newspaper] Klassekampen [lit. Class Struggle] in May [that, of course, is BS].
At the same time, the Norwegian Data Protection Authority emphasised that it is an important value to be able to move freely online and obtain information anonymously. The fact that many people do not have access to BankID, and that strict age control can lead children and young people to choose other and even more insecure platforms, are other objections in the debate.
The Ombudsman is also sceptical that the challenges of children and social media can be solved by setting an age limit:
‘This could jeopardise a number of children’s and young people’s rights, such as the right to participation, freedom of expression, and information’, says senior adviser Hilde Silkoset to NRK [true, none of these rights are age-restricted, but the access to ‘problematic’ consumer goods—think: alcohol, tobacco products, and the like—is also age-restricted, much like voting; I suppose the most useful way forward here appears to be to regulate social media like booze].
She points out that there is currently a recommended age limit of 13 years on most social media, but that parents consent to their children gaining access earlier:
That consent is part of parental responsibility. [true, and here’s the crux: we don’t need anything from the gov’t in this regard, but we do need more responsible parents, and I’d argue that the consequence of this push by the PM will be—more parents thinking that ‘the gov’t will do something, hence I don’t have to’]
Støre Made Up His Mind
All [sic] the objections are well known to the Prime Minister. It’s been several months since ministers in his government first floated the idea of age limits.
Now, however, he has made up his mind: the age limit is coming—and it will be enforced.
[NRK] But are you confident that you will be able to find a way to enforce the age limit this autumn?
[Støre] We have a clear ambition to find out how to do it. It may take some more time before the technical solution is in place [boondoggle alert]. We currently have an age limit that obviously doesn’t work. Should we then think that it’s okay? I think that’s wrong.
Støre admits that it may take longer from the government’s decision in the autumn until the technological platform for age verification is in place, and says the government is closely monitoring the process in the EU and other countries [this is a threat, and he is clearly saying ‘do it my way or be forced to live with whatever the EU says].
[Støre] I’m not going to accept that because we don’t have all the technological answers, we should just say that’s the way it is. We have a law that says that aggressive marketing to children is not allowed. But I see that 9 and 10-year-olds are aggressively persecuted by adverts on their screens that they haven’t chosen themselves [all true, but it’s much, much worse: some kids of that are selling nude pictures to pedophiles on social media].
Restricting Content
Støre also announces stricter regulation of content aimed at children and young people, including those features that involve videos and other content running in endless rows that are designed to hold children’s interest for a very long time [until and unless the gov’t gets crap ‘reading assignments’ out of textbooks, though, that won’t do a thing; my 10yo had such an assignment this past school year in 4th grade: it was about two girls putting on swimsuits in November to make a Youtube video…].
[NRK] When you say you're going to ban content on social platforms, what kind of content are you talking about?
[Støre] It’s violence, murder, scenes and content that is normally forbidden to expose children to. We can’t assume that just because something is good on social media, we also have to live with what is clearly harmful [like the textbooks in primary school I mentioned?].
[NRK is asking, i.e., the state broadcaster: the irony is palpable but also lost on the NRK ‘journos™’] But for the state to control the use of social media and ban content on the internet is reminiscent of regimes that we don’t normally compare ourselves to? [bruahahahahahaha]
[Støre] That's why we need to do this in a very thorough way. The fact that we’re a free democratic society doesn’t mean that nine-year-olds should be exposed to gruesome scenes online and spend four or five hours a day there [true, but then again, look at what PM Støre hasn’t said].
Even on TikTok [sic]
During the interview with NRK, Støre’s own phone is never far away. And a few weeks ago, he launched his own user on TikTok.
[NRK] Do you see a paradox here?
[Støre] Yes, I can understand it. But that’s assuming it happens within the rules and age limits that apply. 2 million Norwegians are on TikTok, and many of them are voters who say they get their information there. I have to deal with this reality.
Støre is clear that adults themselves have a responsibility to take the lead and set limits for their own screen use—perhaps especially during the holidays [I’d argue it’s the other way around: holiday specials are o.k.-ish, but it’s the regular (ab)use that’s the problem].
[Støre] There are good children’s TV programmes that you can get via a screen. But without getting nostalgic, I think it would be nice if children were given more freedom to be out in nature and more freedom from the enormous attraction that this is. [I thought social media is addictive, hence why does he call it an ‘attraction’?]
[NRK] What would you like to say to those who believe that the government is now encroaching on the parents’ area of responsibility?
[Støre] As a society, we have laws that help us as parents and individuals. We haven’t left it up to parents to decide whether a 13-year-old child can drive a car, see gruesome images, have access to drugs, or whatever. We have laws and rules for that, so it’s this interaction that we need to achieve [so, Støre stops short of calling social media an addictive drug, but I suppose we’ll get there eventually (tobacco and heroin were once more liberally sold, too].
Bottom Lines
If I told you that Mr. Støre’s Labour Party is trailing in the polls by a wide margin, it’s perhaps quite understandable why he now floats this ‘proposal’. It’s a ruse, a smokescreen, and pretend-theatre.
The problem, chiefly, is with parents who, because typically both are (must) working to live in high-price and high-tax countries like Norway means that children are mainly wards of the state. Parents typically drop of their kids on the way to work and pick them up on the way back home. After a quick dinner, it’s off to extracurriculars (mainly sports). There’s almost no time left for parents and their children to be spent together.
I know what I’m talking about, because we’re about the only household whose children aren’t staying in school after hours (most do, it’s ‘free’, i.e., mainly taxpayer-funded).
Then there’s the issue of the textbook contents, which was left out. I wonder why? (Perhaps because the education and science minister is a compromised person? In case you’re wondering, he allegedly partially fabricated data that he fed into his ‘research™’, but since his predecessor has been forced to resign over plagiarism, I suppose he’s got a stay on the ministerial bench card akin to the Monopoly get out of jail free card.)
The question—by the state broadcaster, no less—about ‘if we’re doing this, we’re basically doing the same as Russia and China’ is particularly hilarious, if painful to read. I think it says much, much more about ‘us’ in ‘the West’ than it does about Russia (Russia! Russia!) and China.
Truth be told, the main point here may actually be that one Western country plans to ‘do something™’ about social media abuse by teens; the bad thing is the gov’t’s idea to do so by mandating an electronic ID, a ‘Trojan horse’ is there ever was one.
All told, a very much mixed bag (of mainly burning poop), which, it seems, the PM wishes someone else to step onto. Shame on him.
Still, if you insist your children may only ice-skate wearing a bike helmet (happened to my 1st-grader earlier this year) but hand out iPads at the same time, well, here’s a cosmic question: what do you think is ‘safer’? Skating w/o a helmet or an iPad for whose online access one must rely on police blocking certain URLs…
Much like with the WHO-declared, so-called ‘Pandemic™’, it will be the children who are paying the highest toll.
It doesn’t—shouldn’t—be this way.
I fear the only viable real options are either freedom, where the weaker more susceptible will be slaves to the screen;
or the chinese option with state monopoly on servers, a state firewall, all traffic to go through state controlled choke-points, and state-mandated pre-posting/publishing censorship&compliance software.
Both have advantages and disadvantages, and any mix will lack any advantages while having all the disadvantages.
And of course, a cultre centered in and on itself instead of having suffered globalisation and universalist american ideals since the late 1950s wouldn't have been vulnerable in the first place.