Mastodawn

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦

Estonia is correct. The responsibility to keep children safe falls on adults and platform operators, not on the kids. If social media isn't safe for children, it's not safe for adults either, because the safety this is about isn't about the content, but of what the platforms do with our data.
https://thenextweb.com/news/estonia-eu-child-social-media-ban-opposition

Estonia is the rare EU country opposing bans on children’s social media use

In short: Estonia and Belgium are the only two EU member states to have declined the Jutland Declaration, an October 2025 pan-European commitment to restrict children’s access to social media. Estonia’s ministers argue that age-based bans are unenforceable, that children will find ways around them, and that the correct approach is to enforce the GDPR against […]

The Next Web

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Apr 18

Here's a good longer piece explaining why age verification solves nothing for children's safety, puts all of us at risk, violates fundamental privacy protections and lets the bad actors, "social" ad platforms off the hook. By @zackwhittaker
https://this.weekinsecurity.com/papers-please-age-verification-laws-threaten-everyones-online-security-and-privacy/

Papers, please: Age verification laws threaten everyone's online security and privacy

Laws that require adults to upload their driver's licenses or passports to access apps, websites, and VPNs will make the entire web less safe.

~this week in security~

Fubaroque Apr 18

@osma @zackwhittaker Children don't need to be protected from porn. They need protection from religious and right wing idiots. 🤔

Age Verification needs NOTHING the laws enacted mandates (device to person binding).

1.1 Each time user logs in to a trusted institution like bank or insurer site (an ADC), it upon succesful login emits the "ag header" which tells the "realm access level" of the logged-in person as inferred from their date of birth and country of jurisdiction in accordance with local laws.

ag: 0 ; "none"
ag: 1 ; "any"
ag: 2 ; "trimmed"

No user action is needed. Attesting happens every time they log-in to their bank, insurer, or e-gov site for this site main services. The "curated" access level "3", or higher is meant to be set by preschool kid's parent (ag:1) to let sites curate content served.

1.2. If device's "keyring" is not locked in its state and the server certificate was checked to have ADC policy set, then browser can ask OS on the device to set the Ag-Flag bit for the user to the value as received in the "ag" header.

1.3. OS checks whether browser or an ADC proprietary App has a privilege to do so. If trusted, the Ag-Flag sets to the "keyring" accordingly.

1.4 From now on any other application on this device, at the user permission, can read the Ag-Flag state then pass it to the other side of the connection.
[...]

Stop the EU overreach in our devices!

@zackwhittaker
@Gargron
@rysiek

@osma And another article failing to properly mention that an age ban affects *everyone*. Also you, adult, will need to prove your age.

@DePemig @osma Exactly, especially as there’s currently no measure to prove age that can’t be turned into digital infrastructure for authoritarianism easily. It’d be ineffective at protecting children but potentially effective at stifling free speech.

Alec Muffett Apr 13

@osma Estonia is only half correct, because they are still pushing for regulation of the platform as being the solution for child safety.

Marc 🐷🌏🍉Apr 13

@osma
Don't agree. Many parents don't care.

Governments don't allow children to smoke, so why not put a ban on SM for children?

el Celio 🇪🇺 🇺🇦Apr 13

@marc_eu @osma
smoking is not safe for adults either.

Johann z. Baag (ej af Puss-B.)Apr 13

@elCelio Indeed. And at least in Finland, the idea is that we want to ban smoking altogether. Slowly we make it more and more difficult for companies to market and sell smoking products, because we know they are not good for anyone.

Not so with social media. It’s good for anyone to connect with other people. We just want to remove the exploitation.

el Celio 🇪🇺 🇺🇦Apr 13

@zenfin @marc_eu @osma

social media is the new global town square.

how much should it be controlled and regulated by private corporations?

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Apr 13

RE: https://mas.to/@osma/116095472833326752

The editorial control by a corporation is what defines media, including social media. Nothing that is controlled by a private corporation can be a "town square", never mind a global one.
@elCelio @zenfin @marc_eu

el Celio 🇪🇺 🇺🇦Apr 13

@osma @zenfin @marc_eu
yes, this is my point.

Tara L. Campbell Apr 13

@osma Thank you. Once again, governments/politicians will do everything but hold power to account. Far easier to pin the blame on, and control the behaviors of, the victims/vulnerable.

@osma and with us.

Sanctorum Apr 13

@osma You’re almost there… but you’ve missed the core point.

Safety isn’t just about “what platforms do with data” … it’s about power asymmetry. Children are vulnerable because they lack agency, not because adults are equally exposed.

If everything is unsafe for everyone, you dilute responsibility. Adults choose… children don’t.

Regulation should reflect that difference, not erase it.

Count Holdem Apr 13

@osma Filtering is a form of "ban". It's basic #BehavioralScience, which there is far too little of.

Toni Aittoniemi Apr 13

@osma Correct. All this age restriction is just cope to avoid regulating the platforms themselves.

Either aomebody is looking for a payout, or more likely, afraid of the wrath of social media companies could pull on their election campaigns if they ’oppose’ them.

At least somebody still got some guts.

Lorraine Lee Apr 13

@osma Maybe there's something to that "digital republic" mystique.

∫∀⊂∅Apr 13

@osma
I don’t know if we can call a country that turns over their educational system to chatGPT “correct”.
#bigtech #chatGPT #education #estonia #socialmedia #safety