Post

@EUCommission

Then maybe address it the right way, you write the following:

the negative impact of social media on their mental health (93%),
cyberbullying and online harassment (92%)

These two are addressed if you go after the real problem, Big tech and their algorithms, not restrict citizens rights by making us send more information to them.

assuring mechanisms to restrict age in appropriate content (92%).

This is plain and simple parenting, all my children have iPhones, none of them have social media because I speak to them about the issues and set boundaries, now none of them want it.

@EUCommission
In case you hadn't noticed, age verification is a trojan horse. Please make the perpetrators pay instead of EU citizens.

https://edri.org/our-work/why-age-verification-misses-the-mark-and-puts-everyone-at-risk/

@EUCommission I'd be glad if children would be protected offline.

Despite a duty of protection, schools often don't protect children from continued bullying.

@EUCommission
As an adult, I also want to feel safe and protected from harmful content, cyberbullying, and addictive online designs.

@EUCommission and you immediatly ban them from internet to sell your "age verification" surveillance tool for palantir.

Traitor

@EUCommission children are massively protected when providers are clean. Data mining, addictive design, fake information, hallucinated answers and trends created by generative IA. Start from there. Do not sugarcoat the seriousness of this topic by bringing a wrong solution such as age verification, please.

@EUCommission i think this is bullshite

@EUCommission Are you trying to sell us mass surveillance again EU?

@EUCommission Then hold service providers accountable. Dont destroy privacy to increase totalitarian control.

@EUCommission yea, I want children AND adults protected from exploitation and harm. But age verification is not going to help, it just gives commercial organisations and governments access to everyone's private information, making the whole mess worse, and not enabling children and adults to discover and use the tools they need to keep them safe, and also endangers all that information. Just one example, an abused child may not be able to access appropriate help without an abusing parent knowing

@EUCommission

“Tech providers are responsible for the safety of their products and their safe use”
And this principle applies for *everyone*

The products must be made safe - for everyone.
The providers must be made responsible - for everyone.
The profiteers must be accountable - to everyone.

The solution isn’t to wall children off from the world, it is to go back to building safe, decent, accountable society - starting with the wealthiest and most powerful.

@EUCommission
But not to be confused with surveillance

@EUCommission
Protecting children, in addition to being a high priority for most people, is also one of the fastest and reliable ways of eroding human rights and freedoms. And the vast majority of measures proposed to protect children don't even do so effectively, they are just disguised schemes to increase the power of the state and the wealth of the already wealthy by leveraging some of the strongest human emotions to manipulate people into agree with policies not in their best interests.

@EUCommission the systems and policies that a designed to protect vulnerable people should apply to all people.

@EUCommission
Then enforce the laws already! And please stop this age verification bs...

@EUCommission Thanks to EC for our daily "Think of the children" dose, just in case. Perfect illustration today: the smartphone, the kids and the lock, what a nice way to set them (and the rest of us) "free".

@EUCommission absolutely!. Now start by scrutinizing Meta and Alphabet products designs and business models and ban those that expose children's safety and imperil their right to grow up free, safe and protected.

Don't ever forget to put the burden on the perpetrators, not on the victims. That's the way it works, not the other way around.

@EUCommission 92% wanting something is a one thing, but how many % do agree on which method?

@EUCommission without privacy there’s no checks on the people in power. Privacy is the foundation of accountability, without it, power goes unchecked. Think of journalists or politicians who can’t do research without sitting power knowing about it if there’s no privacy, look at China etc.

@EUCommission Yet, instead of sanctioning Meta, X, etc. for their anti-democratic, predatory algorithms and business practices, you are engaging in age discrimination and victim blaming. Talk to the ones affected by your legislation, instead of pushing it on them without their participation in the process or their consent.

Stop big tech from preying on all of us, instead of blocking children from accessing the services of our modern world

#age_verification #discrimination #ageism #cyberfascism

@EUCommission please fix this with ISP’s and good parental modes on the ISP, and teach parents to be less digital illiterate, and teach them about parental mode on their ISP’s, not by letting everyone upload an ID to a central database or by scanning every message on a hidden list of keywords and hashes, that list can thus be abused…, unless its block chain and only independent childrens safety agencies are allowed to add hashes to it for example

@EUCommission Yes, so please enforce regulations against the platforms rather than imposing restrictions on children. If what the platforms are doing is bad for children, they're bad for everyone else as well.

Right now I'm far more concerned for my parents' safety online than for my kids' safety. Age isn't the problem.

@EUCommission
The best way to protect children in digital and online environments is to end big tech's sacrosanct right to make obscene profits in any unregulated environment. Block commercial activity in insufficiently regulated systems, and legislate quickly in these cases! Enough of spending years looking at each other and approving the rule when the novelty has worn off, it is obsolete, and the big business is already elsewhere.

@EUCommission If this involves age verification, you've been suckered by lobbyists for ad-tech firms.

@EUCommission Absolutely hold company responsible. Protect freedom of information and access.

@EUCommission awww poor children! and the kittens! Don't forget about the kittens, they need to be protected as well!

@EUCommission typo alert: "all people deserve"

@EUCommission Complete right. But be aware, Age Verification will solve not a single problem that is listed on this site, but it will break a lot of basic laws and kill privacy.

@EUCommission I'm sure this was a very comprehensive poll that was in no way biased towards your insane policies. After all, no one is *against* children's protection. But everyone with half a brain is against the totalitarian regime you're building under the guise of "protecting the children".

@EUCommission

If you are serious about this, start regulating platforms.

Instead of subjecting everybody to "verification" processes that lock adolescents out. Processes that merely enable platforms and their "partners" to collect more and more data about #EU citizens, destroying even the tiny bit of privacy that is still left.

#AgeVerification

@EUCommission ah.... Safety, the best way to erode people's rights. Well played.

@EUCommission Absolutely! Let's start by protecting them from online creeps insisting to knowing their age, or other personal information for that matter!

@EUCommission Yes absolutely, but not with age verification please.

Hold providers like Meta and Alphabet to account.