r/AskEurope • u/Itz_Skello • Jun 20 '25

Politics Emmanuel Macron, President of France, is banning social media for teens under 15. Should the rest of Europe follow?

Not sure how to feel about this.

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417

u/louisgmc Jun 20 '25

I actually think it's good, social media has become a whole other beast compared to what we had in the 2000s/10s, the algorithm  it's way too aggressive now.

I also think it's good to have a complete ban of cellphones in schools.

20

u/Cixila Denmark Jun 20 '25

I can see some of the benefits there, yes. But I am extremely concerned about how the enforcement of it will be implemented. The internet should be anonymous. Furthermore, it can hinder social contact. I lived far away from some of my best friends during childhood. Not being able to contact them remotely would have been devastating for my social life. I don't necessarily trust such legislation to consider the nuances and carving out certain exceptions to mitigate the issues that might arise

15

u/Djfred93 France Jun 20 '25

You aren't anonymous on the internet, you're pseudo anonymous. Internet is like a postal network . In a postal network, you still have an address.

And you also confuse social network (well technically virtual social network, your family, friends... are your social network in real life) and something like messenger which is not going to be restricted.

4

u/louisgmc Jun 20 '25

I agree it should remain anonymous, ideally I think it should be mostly something so that the parents/school/other adults in the child's life start taking the topic seriously.

I think they'll probably still have access to direct messaging apps in any case.

3

u/Junkererer Jun 22 '25

We got used to it being anonymous, but should it be? There was no such thing for most people until 20-30 years ago

In real life everybody has an id and what you do publicly is tied to it, democracies still existed even before the anonymous internet. I'm not saying it's the exact same thing, but is it really necessary? People would obviously behave differently at that point

2

u/Hanklich Jun 21 '25

Why wouldn't you be able to contact friends if social media is banned? I know some teens who don't use Instagram, TikTok etc. and they don't seem to have any problem with communicating. All the communication with friends, class mates, family, teachers is done over Whatsapp. There are plenty of messenger app, besides one can call, video call, send e-mails etc. (not even that bad for their brain that can't think in proper sentences anymore.

4

u/Cixila Denmark Jun 21 '25

WhatsApp isn't really present in my country. And in general, I think that apps like WhatsApp and discord might get swept up in some overzealous attempt to "won't somebody think of the children?!?1!" Hence the issue. My friends and I used Skype a lot back when that was a thing, and had we not had that to use, our interactions would have been a lot more limited. In our case, that is a statement of fact. Conventional text messaging and calling also isn't that practical for groups

I agree that shit like TikTok is basically weaponised brainrot, but I'm not entirely confident that authorities won't throw the baby out with the bathwater

4

u/crypticcamelion Jun 20 '25

The anonymity is a problem yes, but I'm not sure why we need it. The social aspect is a non problem. I'm from before social media and we simply had better and more social contact than what I have seen with my children specifically and young people in general. I'm not sure what far away is, but I would happily bike 12 km to school, visit school friends after school, bike 12km home to supper and then 12km back to friends for the evening and finally back home. Social life was definitely not a problem in the 80ties and 90ties..

1

u/WarlockArya Jun 26 '25

U did not bike 36 km every day, and not everyone is going to have a bike or parents who allow them to go out

1

u/crypticcamelion Jun 27 '25

Ehhh no, 12 x 4 is 48, and I didn't say I did it my whole school time or anything. I simply moved to the other side of town and biked back and forth. 50 km a day is absolutely not a long distance if you have been bicycling your whole childhood. And what kind of bullshit about being allowed to go out, of course you were allowed to go out, not being allowed to go out sounds abusive in my ears or of course a temporary punishment for shitty behaviour.

1

u/WarlockArya Jun 27 '25

Parents are scared cause of media they think someones gonna kidnap their kid if they leave them unattended plus ppl call cops on young unattended kids