I wholeheartedly disagree. When we consider a policy, it's not enough that the narrow outcome is good. What also matters are the broad outcomes and whether or not the policy is principled.
We presumably all hate Alex Jones. Does that mean the goverment saying "Alex Jones is banned from communicating publically" is good policy? Even if we agree the direct outcome is good (which I do), the principle of "the governement can silence people it doesn't like" is profoundly dangerous. In such a case I would argue we should all resist such a policy, even if we like the outcome (Alex Jones being silenced) because the principle (the majority can use the governement to silence a minority) is terrible. This isn't even accounting for the messy second order effects, e.g. radicalising Alex Jones supporters.
I think that applies to social media too. I don't like social media. However even more than that I'm scared of people using the government to limit what other people what they can and can't do for "their own good". This isn't a principle I think we can get behind. I think it's a principle that has motivated a lot of misguided acts in the past (e.g. criminalisation of drugs, sex work, taking the kids of first nations people in Australia, ...).
The categorical imperative should be used here. "Arrest people I don't like" fails the categorical imperative. However, "check things that destroy society and make everyone worse off except for a select few if left unchecked" easily passes the bar.
Nothing is absolute. There is a spectrum without an obvious optimal point. The recent neonazi rally in the UK did a lot of damage that could have easily been prevented.
Why does most of Europe have such a higher standard of living?
So I agree that "check things that destroy society and make everyone worse off except for a select few if left unchecked" might indeed pass as a valid categorical imperitive.
Putting aside the slew of problems with Kantianism, the main issue here is one of epistemology. You think social media is destroying society. Some people think a departure from traditional family values is destroying society. You might be pretty sure you're right, but they're pretty sure they're right too.
I'd argue it's better we all just agree these questions are ambiguous and should in principle be outside of the power of the state to mediate. Especially since people are free to not use social media if they don't want to, or to have traditional families if they do want to. Otherwise we're all just fighting to impose our vision on everyone else. And even if you are right - that social media is destroying society - these policies aren't going to stop social media. Even if they could in theory, they will in practive be shoddily designed and implemented and have lots of other messy consequences (e.g. requiring me to upload photos of my face to use things, trusting that companies forced to handle that data will not only not misuse that data, but also be unhackable).
> Why does most of Europe have such a higher standard of living?
I'm not sure that's true, but even if it is the answer is much more complicated than that they have proactive goverments.
Murder is directly and non-consentually harming another person. Having a traditional family or using social media are choices you can, in our current world, make or not make for yourself. That's an important - and I think pretty philosophically clear - distinction.
And FWIW if the killing was consensual (i.e. euthenasia) then I think it should be legal.
With that position you would have made an excellent bishop or mufti in the 19th century. But today your position needs justification and you will probably not be able to convince a democratic majority to do away with hard earned and liked freedoms.
So, the actual laws are targeting things more specifically than just "social media". Some are talking about intentionally addictive content algorithms, or personalized algorithms. Others are naming specific named companies.
Don't confuse social media with social networks. Social media is media - they select what you watch, like a TV channel, but personalized for each user. You might get a narrow choice from several options they selected. Social networks are just tools for communication.
I used the word "algorithm" so I'm going to preemptively point out that it means something in relation to social media that's more specific than what it means in computer science.
I don't hate social media. It's very amusing to me to hear about how much people hate social media... on social media. I really think people need to stop using social media for a couple of months and see what it's like to not use it.
Personally I find the lack of social media use to be a downside. I never used Facebook and I do occasionally think that I missed out on a lot of stuff because of it.
Which is true. Irma/Yivi [1] in NL/BE proves that to be the case. But it always works with a trusted third party. The client, after confirming auth with the human, generates a unique key for the platform. The platform asks the trusted third party to verify this key, and then a scope is defined. For example: 'is this person 18+?' the response to the platform is then 'Yes' or 'No'.
No, they don't have to (this is a common myth and FUD). That data can remain encrypted and private. For example, the token could be signed with the private key from person and TTP. They do know when people visit a website (or other entity requiring auth) but anyone with network access does.
All the platform gets to know a person 18+ is visiting their platform. In their data analysis, they could add such information to the rest of their data analysis such as IP, but this wouldn't be within scope (illegal in EU). Just worth it to mention in case a platform gets compromised.
So:
Username Bob, age 18+ (verified), from IPv4 1.2.3.4, visited PronHub, at 2 AM, with browser XYZ.
vs
Username Bob, from IPv4 1.2.3.4, visited PronHub, at 2 AM, with browser XYZ.
If Bob isn't logged in, they have to auth every time they visit.
And this is going to happen due to nefarious actors. LLMs (AI), as well as state actors in countries behind the other fence of Iron Curtsin in the New Cold War.
How can the third party not know I visited pronhub when pronhub verifies a token with the third party handed to me by the third party?
This may protect my privacy towards pronhub if I am not logged in. But not my privacy against the third party where I need to be logged in and who likely knows my real identity.
The third party is never trustworthy. Such a system is the death of all things good in effect - it makes a single party very attractive to compromise. Compromise is so easy in practice that imagining a group of people is preventing it at any kind of scale is purely magical thinking.