Mastodawn

@EUCommission Most of these are great and I cheer them on!! No really, most of these are great!

But again... we're trying to pretend that adding surveillance to porn consumption is somehow going to accomplish something.
You really think that kids won't find ways around that? like you know..... A VPN....

Whenever you see political things that 'protect minors' always think about if it's a cover for something....

Luna

@thibaultmol There's a reason why it's always protection of minors or combatting terrorism that's used as an excuse for surveillance, because you can't really be against it. You can't really argue you want to expose minors more, or want to help terrorists. That's why they're the usual excuses.

As long as any government, EU or other, has some say over what platforms can and cannot do, the only true freedom lies in building one that is not known to the Eyes of the State.

@queerthoughts tbf, I'm for the things they're trying to enforce mentioned on that page.
It's just the surveillance part needs to be fcking scrapped.

Luna

@thibaultmol Well, all of those issues are simply related to commercial social media and the companies behind them. And those companies don't exactly have a record of nicely complying with these measures.

The obvious solution is to target commercial social media so hard that non-commercial alternatives become viable. But the EU will never do that, as it means they would lose control.

The protection and surveillance measures are linked, they'll always exist together. Not even to mention the grave impact on the autonomy of the youth this has.

Torge Rosendahl Jul 18, 2025

@thibaultmol @EUCommission making it difficult / complicated is sufficient to some extent. There will not be a perfect solution.

Side note: I love to see that someone has put thought into the HOW of age verification. Looking forward to seeing an implementation of this...

@torgeros @EUCommission all solutions will be a centralized system (probably a commercial platform) that has to host identity (including imagery) data of everyone it auths....
but hey, it's fine... companies never get hacked.. oops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Equifax_data_breach

2017 Equifax data breach - Wikipedia

@torgeros @EUCommission Protecting kids against predatory practices by big tech (as some of these measures mentioned) is great though and doesn't require privacyinvasive solutions! Not letting big tech influence them using manipulative methods to consume more content/get more radicalized and such (because of algorithms) is great

george Jul 18, 2025

@thibaultmol @EUCommission they thought about this and that's why they want to break encryption all together and force services keep metadata on users

Okuna Jul 18, 2025

@thibaultmol @EUCommission worse: They will choose questionable vpns which will blackmail them later, hence increasing the problem

Ikaros Alpha Jul 18, 2025

@EUCommission In the mean time please respect the privacy of *EVERY* European citizen!

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Jul 18, 2025

These guidelines, apart from the age-assurance which can't be implemented without enabling surveillance, would be just as good for adults as for minors. So, why the age-assurance?
@EUCommission

GNU Solidario Jul 18, 2025

@EUCommission Childhood protection should have no borders. #EU should also protect the children in #Gaza from being murdered, yet is not happening.

jan Ki | 奇

@EUCommission
"Prohibiting accounts from downloading or taking screenshots of content posted by minors"

How is this supposed to be implemented?
Even viewing/displaying such content requires a download. Given this premise, young people are now prohibited from sharing any creative output, which is a shame

At the same time, you have platforms like Roblox and Fortnite that benefit commercially from selling content made by minors, which is essentially child labor. Is this included here?

fdr Jul 18, 2025

@EUCommission you are trying a technical solution to an education/social issue. It will not work and will be used against citizens and consumers

Jenkins. Tom Jenkins. 🤮🤢🤮Jul 18, 2025

@fdr @EUCommission this

Jenkins. Tom Jenkins. 🤮🤢🤮Jul 18, 2025

@EUCommission „our children“ deserve vor allem eine sichere Zukunft

Kenner Jul 18, 2025

@EUCommission kids should not have access to the internet without supervision

@kennergf but even if they have supervision, without some of the (not all of them) guidelines, they'll still get to see ads and not be able to block certain types of content (if they choose to)

GordonHost Jul 18, 2025

@EUCommission let's keep the internet free and open. The internet is no place for kids in the first place. It should be the parents responsibility to provide protection to children. There are enough tools available as is.

Miyu 🇪🇺Jul 18, 2025

@EUCommission It is great guidelines I really approve! It can contribute to more healthy social media, though why limit it to minors? Adult population is also exploited by social media corporations and is vulnerable to the addictive patterns. I think the guidelines should be valid for all group ages, and proper regulations should be introduced so that social media begins again to be social, instead of being a propaganda and manipulation tool that ruins lives.

Less age verification and potential privacy breaches, more addressing issues that affect everyone.

Also, "Prohibiting accounts from downloading or taking screenshots of content posted by minors" can't be easily enforced technology-wise, bad actors will just know how to skip this, and I don't think it's that important, it can create more inconvenience as sharing memes, their art possibly is the usual stuff that happens.

Paul Jul 18, 2025

@EUCommission i’ve said it before and I will say it again. This is the responsibility of the parents. The way you are interfering in family matters starts scaring me.
And an additional negative effect of you mingling into family matters is that parents may stop asking their children how and what they do online because the parents assume the EU has somehow “taken care” of that.

@Paul_Harts ok, but do you agree that kids shouldn't see gambling ads and popups?
And that kids should be able to block someone if they don't want to see/talk to them?
(I made a reply on this post where I outlinded how there is def problem with one aspect of the page they link) but in general there are a lot of things that even with parental supervision would still be shown because there would be no law prohibiting social media companies from showing it to kids

Paul Jul 18, 2025

@thibaultmol every parent - like me - has tons of options to limit who sees what. You have parental controls on:
Your modem,
Your router,
Your mobile, and the ones of your kids,
Your tablet, and the ones of your kids,
Your computer, and the ones of your kids,
You have 100+ add blockers, some of them for free.

So; plenty of options to protect your children.
There is totally no need for the EU Commission to interfere.

Okuna Jul 18, 2025

@EUCommission and when done we negotiate with Trump and take all this away

Okuna Jul 18, 2025

@EUCommission what they dont get: kids need a save space to communicate. Who and how do they, if they know they are surveilled?

August

@EUCommission What lobbyist have made you come to this conclusion?

We like the cause - protecting children and combating terrorists, but at what cost?

Now every citizen in EU won’t have privacy, and the guidelines makes it easier for big corporations and data brokers to farm our data - because that’s what this is really about.

Ben Carver Jul 18, 2025

@EUCommission In that case please consider taking a critical, adversarial when necessary, line against the deskilling, surveilling, polluting (info- and eco-spheres) by AI in everyday life. So much depends on the Union's response to this technology.

Lion Smurf Jul 18, 2025

@EUCommission what is this?