this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2025

155 points (99.4% liked)

Europe

8083 readers

1536 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.

(This list may get expanded as necessary.)

Posts that link to the following sources will be removed

on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons)
on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
on Hungary: Euronews

Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com

(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)

Ban lengths, etc.

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

federalreverse@feddit.org

poVoq@slrpnk.net

anzo@programming.dev

EuroMod@feddit.org

155

Denmark plans to severely restrict social media use for young people (apnews.com)

submitted 3 days ago by throws_lemy@reddthat.com to c/europe@feddit.org

35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 35 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] ceenote@lemmy.world 64 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Restricting social media for old people would prevent more harm.

[–] lysol@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I mean yeah, but there are legit issues with social media for kids as well, especially with trash like tiktok.

Restricting how the algorithms of social media platforms work instead of restricting the age would be much better though, but that would mean rich people earning less money. And we can't have that right?

[–] vandsjov@feddit.dk 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Restricting how the algorithms of social media platforms work instead of restricting the age would be much better though

Problem is also bullying among peers. As I read somewhere, bullying in the school is (mostly) just in the school. Bullying online is everywhere at all hours of the day when you have a phone.

[–] hanrahan@piefed.social 4 points 3 days ago

That's kind of where it all started

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-12/emma-mason-reflects-on-tilly-legacy-social-media-ban-australia/106116832

Fifteen-year-old Matilda "Tilly" Rosewarne was relentlessly bullied by her peers on social media, and on February 16, 2022, Tilly took her own life.

[–] zehnkirchen@feddit.org -3 points 3 days ago (2 children)

...because...?

the young ppl will receive more brainwashing overall? the kids have no experience to measure the info with? the teens make zero use of verification depth?

na, i am sure social media causes a much bigger harm to kids as you also can see from who is getting treatment. but the hate filled steep thesis without any arguments tells me how tarded you are.

[–] Havatra@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

"tarded"? Exemplary childish personal attack there.

I think what they were referring to was the people doing the brainwashing, and general indiscriminate use of online services where they disregard consequences outside of their bubble.

It's a hard thing to measure, of course. But I think long-term the effort is better focused on the young indeed, and not the old farts at the end of their life.

[–] zehnkirchen@feddit.org -2 points 3 days ago

It’s a hard thing to measure, of course.

It is not. many univerrsities did the job and came to a conclusion. you didnt. yet you have a strong useless opinion. congrats!

[–] vandsjov@feddit.dk 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

…because…?

I'm guessing the commentator is thinking about the Karens and Trumps out there, that uses these media to attack others, but often with a bigger reach and things that have much bigger implications.

[–] zehnkirchen@feddit.org -2 points 3 days ago

nice idea but no. you think a karen is making the decision that a certain amount of ppl hears her hatespeech? nope. it is not. it is american CEOs. none else. if you want a better place AND have social media, remove the boards and stockholders of the s&p500 from earth and there you go.

[–] Broadfern@lemmy.world 56 points 3 days ago (1 children)

“We can’t forcefully scan your chats directly yet, so we’ll force you to hand over your ID.” Seems like it’s happening all at once, all over the globe the past year or so.

[–] frank@sopuli.xyz 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It is supposed to be anonymous with our MitID system, which is already in place for almost everything. How it works (on paper at least) is that the social media site would send a question to MitID, like "is this person at least 16?" And MitID just responds with yes/no

So again, in theory, no social media site should be getting your ID here. Only the government, which absolutely has it and is in fairly high trust from the people in Denmark.

[–] hypna@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The rub there is that the government probably now has a record of every site you have an account on.

What we really need is a system that's anonymized in both directions. Where the website can verify the specific claim, age, nationality, etc, but the issuer of the verification, aka the government, can't track where that verification has been used.

I think this should be possible, but it's different from the way standard identity providers operate, and I haven't heard of any of these government identity providers operating this way. That may be because it's easier, and it may be because governments like the idea of knowing everything we do.

[–] zehnkirchen@feddit.org 7 points 3 days ago

Love it. Social media is bullshit. It is not "social" at all....a proper german translation would be "gesellschaftsmedien" and that tells you it is worth shit. what should we do with the ppl ill with stockholm syndrome that are caught up the in smut of US corpos?

saw tantrums of teenagers for not being able to procrasinate and get childish dopamin kicks. as children can not control their temper this was absolutely necessary and I think we should ban corporate social media all over europe.

[–] cliffracer_cloaka@piefed.social 6 points 3 days ago

Damage is done and we won't see the big picture of WWIII. We weren't using some toy, we were ammunition in a new kind of weapon.

[–] Muffi@programming.dev 5 points 3 days ago

Social media is fine, we just need to remove the profit incentive from it.

[–] realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah why educating kids on the dangers of social media when you can restrict them ...

[–] Fusselwurm@feddit.org 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I can educate my children all I want – if their peers are on Social Media nonstop, they will be too.

[+] realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip -6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I don't get the point. Because their friends are on social media that absolves you from educating your kids?

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 6 points 3 days ago

bad reading comprehension

[–] Fusselwurm@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No. Kids will do what their peers do. As a parent, I have limited influence – unless I want to do other things that are detrimental in their own way like… confiscate their smartphones & ground them.

[–] realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

As a parent, I have limited influence

Nonsense. If there is one person that has all the influence, it's you as a parent.

confiscate their smartphones & ground them

Idk why parents think punishing their child is the only thing that works lmaooo.

How about you learn what your child is doing online and talk about it if it does something it shouldn't do. Set up a local DNS (like PiHole) and every evening, check what your child is doing. If it accesses sites it shouldn't access, talk about it. There's also plenty of software out there that lets you monitor your childs phone usage. Kid is 12 hours a day on tiktok? Install TimeLimit, restrict the time. Done.

You made the decision you have a child - now take the responsibility and stop relying on the government or companies to educate your children.

[–] Fusselwurm@feddit.org 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

You made the decision you have a child - now take the responsibility and stop relying on the government or companies to educate your children.

"your children, your problem"? No. Raising the next generation is widely understood to be a burden shared between parents and wider society. Point in case: public schools and kindergardens are essential for modern society, and they are largely funded by taxpayer money, not by parents.

We shouldnt just hope that parents successfully fight the hydra of online dangers by doing DNS filtering & running ad blockers on all devices their children can get their hands on.

We are perfectly able to block minors from entering brothels, or from buying cigarettes and booze. Why should we not be able to do the same for internet usage?

[–] realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 0 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

public schools and kindergardens are essential for modern society

Yes, because those are supposed to instill essential skills like reading, calculus, history etc. They aren't supposed to tell kids "Hey kiddos being on tiktok 12 hours a day is bad don't do that" - that is your job as a parent.

We shouldnt just hope that parents successfully fight the hydra of online dangers by doing DNS filtering & running ad blockers on all devices their children can get their hands on.

You're right, we shouldn't hope - we should expect. Dumping a child into the world and not taking care of it is irresponsible beyond belief. If you can't raise a child, don't have one.

Why should we not be able to do the same for internet usage?

Because the requirements are significantly more extreme.

Blocking a child from a brothel requires a security guard to take a look at the child and maybe check the ID if he's unsure. That's it. Blocking a child from tiktok requires age verifications across the entire internet - which are then bound to an ID, probably stored somewhere and will then be used to eliminate online privacy completely.

It's also denmark planning this - so the very same country that proposes and heavily advocates for chat control. So just another case of trying to control the internet under the guise of "BuT tHiNk Of ThE cHiLdReN".

[–] Fusselwurm@feddit.org 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Age verification without disclosing all your private data is absolutely doable.

Platforms saying "Yeah just put in your passport data" is cheap, and "we should not block anyone's access to anything on the internet" from privacy advocates is lazy.

[–] realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 1 points 4 hours ago

Age verification without disclosing all your private data is absolutely doable.

Not reliably, which is not what governments want. They want ironclad methods to determine who does what online.

and “we should not block anyone’s access to anything on the internet” from privacy advocates is lazy

Personally, I consider it significantly more lazy to have a child, not give a single flying fuck about what it does in the world and expect the entire world to raise your child - but I guess we're just having different perspectives.

[–] vandsjov@feddit.dk 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Nonsense. If there is one person that has all the influence, it’s you as a parent.

I'm glad for you that your children are not influenced in any way by anything other than you. My kids get influenced just by walking though the mall, especially when walking past a toy store or an ice cream place. But that part is easy to handle. When it comes to online stuff, then it is harder, unless you sit with your kids all the time. My kids are not old enough for internet things and I will try my hardest to prepare my kids, but I'm not naive to think that I can 100% make sure my kids aren't influenced by stuff online. It's a battle against billion dollar companies and it won't be easy.

[–] realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 0 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I never said children will never be influenced under good parental care. That is impossible to avoid. Of course your child will be influenced by things online and offline, no question. But if you notice your child is drifting into the wrong direction, you can sit them down, talk with them and try to correct that. I know I drifted into the wrong direction as a kid but my parents still got me into a pretty successful life by raising me correctly.

It’s a battle against billion dollar companies and it won’t be easy

Nobody said having a child is easy. But you decided to have a child and now you bear the responsibility.

[–] vandsjov@feddit.dk 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I never said children will never be influenced under good parental care. That is impossible to avoid.

You literately wrote "If there is one person that has all the influence, it’s you as a parent."

But you decided to have a child and now you bear the responsibility.

It really irks me that you keep saying that. I'm happy that you have been lucky with your children, but but now you shit on people that for one or another reason have children that turn out badly. There can be so many reasons why this happens and sometimes it is out of control for parents to prevent or fix it. Do you think that it is the parents full responsibility, that their 13 year old child committed suicide because of bulling?

[–] realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

You literately wrote “If there is one person that has all the influence, it’s you as a parent.”

Yes, because it's true. The kid spends most of it's time in your care. But that doesn't mean you can negate all the other influence. But you can and should keep track of what is happening in your childs life.

but now you shit on people that for one or another reason have children that turn out badly

I'm not really trying to shit on people, sorry if you get that impression. There are reasons why children turn out bad despite you doing your best - especially if the partner leaves and you're a single parent. It's nearly impossible to feed yourself and your child while still paying 100% attention to what it does.

However, my impression is that many people want to have children but not take care of them. That's what I see in my daily life. Kids come home from school, get something to eat and then the parents put them in front of a TV or a tablet so they can keep themselves busy while the parents do whatever. And don't get me wrong, it's not even wrong to do that every now and then. Everyone needs a pause. But in many - especially poorer - families, this is common practice and it's no surprise the kids turn out as they do.

Do you think that it is the parents full responsibility, that their 13 year old child committed suicide because of bulling?

If bullying gets to a point where it's so bad the bullied kid feels the need to kill itself, there's so many things wrong before that. It's not like a child is bullied once and immediately jumps off a building, that is a long process that goes on for weeks or months and the changes that happen to the child are noticeable to adults in the childs life. Doesn't want to go to school anymore, scared to go out etc. - if you're a somewhat attentive parent, those change are noticeable. My mum, for example, almost always ate lunch with me when I came home and talked with me about the day. If I was bullied, she would've noticed within days.

So no, they don't carry the full responsibility. But they are certainly partly responsible, even tho that might sound cruel to you.

[–] vandsjov@feddit.dk 1 points 2 hours ago

Seems that we somewhat agree - good to know that you also think that it's not as black and white as you started out with in this discussion.

[–] msokiovt@lemmy.today 0 points 3 days ago (3 children)

It's backfiring in Australia, so why would it work over there?

[–] cliffracer_cloaka@piefed.social 18 points 3 days ago

I love the sources you provided!!

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 16 points 3 days ago

What do you mean by backfiring?
The only thing I've read about were some influencers loosing some amount of their followers and engagement, and thus possibly money.

[–] zehnkirchen@feddit.org -1 points 3 days ago

LOL. how old are you?

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today -4 points 3 days ago

probably to stem the anti-zionist rhetoric, and to prevent criticism against right wing groups.