Friendly warning: readers of the article are greeted by a picture of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, πάνω-πάνω.
There must be many people out there, who seriously believe that this social media ban is an attempt of doing something beneficial for the people. If all it takes is telling you what you want to hear, then to you, specifically, I have a bridge to sell to. It has all the features you appreciate, is exactly how you like it and will benefit you massively. Also makes for a great view!
After all this time of degenerating and programming the brains of both children and adults alike, this move is more likely meant to make sure that this absurdly effective way of mass manipulation isn't used against their own best interest. Not ours. Theirs.
If this makes no sense, consider a more relatable perspective: It is like the difference between exposing a generation of children with the achievements of "Great People" and anything that sparks curiosity, compared to exposing them to entertainment and fun.
Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/does-china-really-force-tik...
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In China, kids use Douyin, not TikTok; it’s a separate app with its own rules and algorithm, though owned by the same company (ByteDance). In youth mode, the feed for minors is curated to push educational, cultural, science, history, and patriotic content, plus “positive energy” themes like academic or athletic achievement.
For Western teens, the default feed is much more entertainment‑driven: viral dances, humor, trends, aesthetics, drama, etc., though there is educational content if you actively seek it.
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You may, all for yourself, decide which side actually is the one that's bad for the people.
Just so you know, this reads as an emotioned response against being told what to do. Kind of like a five year old throwing a tantrum. If you don't want readers to take that away you might consider rewriting it.
You don't say? Does anyone like being told what to do?
Adults can work within a world where this is the case without acting like a child. If they can't, they might consider working on it so they can effectively get what they want.
The arguments in support of this are pure emotional “fur die kinder” slop straight out of the 1930s, and you don’t beat emotion with facts. The world is heading to a very dark place because of information technology and some of us have ancestors that suffered under the 20th century’s (Stasi/Gestapo/McCarthy/Red Guards/etc) and know what the outcomes of totalitarianism, even that unaided by modern computers and AI surveillance, are.
The arguments against it read like The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.
Engage in cooperation with finding solutions or people will ignore your stonewalling and you won't get anything you want.
I’ve come to conclude, albeit not emotionally accept, that totalitarian parties and states will outcompete (what a euphemism) more liberty minded systems because of the sea change in the technological environment that cheap compute, storage, and asymmetric encryption have caused. The only question will be how aligned the interests of those winners are to or against mine.
To translate it into your terms, I don’t think the people pushing this will be satisfied with anything less than a Chinese government level apparatus against the people and that that is the only solution they will accept regardless of any others that are put forth in good faith or otherwise. They have no incentive to pursue any other goal.
Vae Victus.
> I don’t think the people pushing this will be satisfied with anything less than a Chinese government level apparatus against the people
What would it take for you to change your mind?
It would be very difficult.
Let me give you an example. This whole age verification thing has been going around for a while, at least since 2023 when the brits passsed the OSA. The EU actually had a political bloc that was worried that age verification would become ID verification de facto and so developed a ZKP system to cryptographically prove "User is over 16" without disclosing ID. This would be a solution that would likely be mostly acceptable to people on this site. In response to this technology being developed, Macron has come out and said that any free speech without government moderation (aka censorship) is "bullshit" and Merz said this week that every person online needed a real name attached to their profile and that there would be "consequences" for speech. They realized that a solution to the "think of the kids" pretext is close to being ready so they moved the goalposts so that they could continue to push for the Chinese system they really want.
I'm in the US so I don't have a direct stake in this and I expect the first amendment will at least significantly slow similar nonsense from coming to this side of the pond but I am perfectly capable of seeing where the equilibrium is going.
The people we're talking about here are the citizens of the EU?
Yeah my example is all EU.
Is it like an inference or the people of the EU have voiced support like, "We want Chinese government level surveillance"?
No the inference is more along the lines of “getting chinese level surveillance and political control means what the people want suddenly doesn’t matter a whole lot anymore”. Until they get that they need to do something to keep the population on side so they use the boogeymen of child abusers or right wingers as a pretext, but the politicians’ true goal will never change for the reasons I’ve detailed above.
If i had a choice, I definitely wouldn't let my younger self access Reddit at such a young age. Properly fucked me up.
If you had a choice would you sign your younger self up for a future with no internet anonymity or privacy?
False dichotomy.
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