Initially, the government will increase the age limit in the Personal Data Act. You must then be 15 years old to consent to giving up personal information when creating a user in social media.
Eventually, they also plan to legislate an absolute age limit.
No later than 2023 suggested Christian People’s Party to raise the age limit, but the proposal was voted down in the Storting. Now another proposal is up again.
Monday let Screen use committeewho is appointed by the government, presented his report about screen use among children and young people. Here it emerged that they not supports an age limit set by the authorities.
– Fear of being manipulated
– Now the Screen Use Committee was supposed to give the government, parents and children advice and recommendations, but there was very little advice and recommendations.
Petter Bae Brandtzæg, professor of media innovation at UiO and chief researcher at research institute Sintef, thinks so. He basically is before an age limit in social media.
– There are many challenges with privacy, security, mental health, distractions and sleep, especially for young people. It must be ensured that children and young people are not exposed to commercial pressure and loss of privacy by regulating some form of age limit, he believes.
In 2016, the Swedish government considered raising the age limit on social media to 16 on the basis of a new EU directive. The member states could themselves choose where they wanted to set the limit between 13 and 16 years. Then Brandtzæg was critical of a new age limit, because it does not work in practice. He believed that children and young people are being deprived of an important social arena.
The proposal did not go through in Sweden in 2016, and the age limit is still 13 years. Now the social liberal party lifts The Liberals again the proposal about to increase the age limit, in practice through age verification such as BankID.
Since 2016, technology and society have developed, Brandtzæg believes. Nevertheless, the discussion is the same.
Brandtzæg believes it is natural for society to be alarmed by social media and screen use among children and young people. The screen has become a central part of life, for better or for worse.
– We are afraid of being manipulated and losing control. These platforms know very, very much about us. They have collected enormous data, and we know little about what they use the data for. The media platforms also do not stand up in the debate about their impact on society, he says.
He believes that we should also raise the debate about screen use in school, and discuss the entry of technology into our lives.
– There we have to think twice about how we should behave, he says.
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– Naive and risky approach
The Screen Use Committee says in the report that it is up to the media platforms to set their own age limits based on an assessment of the content. The authorities should instead ensure that they comply with the age limits.
That is why Minister for Digitization and Administration Karianne Tung (Ap) has summoned the largest companies that own Google, Meta, TikTok and Snapchat to a meeting in the ministry in a few weeks.
– Here I want to give a clear message that I expect the companies to take greater responsibility and contribute with better solutions than what we have today and contribute together with the authorities in the fight to ensure that children and young people are safe online, she writes in a e-mail to Dagsavisen.
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Brandtzæg believes that it is too complicated to leave the responsibility to the parents and children alone, but also does not trust the platforms to regulate the age limit.
– I think it is a naive and risky approach to entrust the responsibility to the platforms when we know that their main goal is profit and user growth, often at the expense of the best interests of society and children. History has shown that they prioritize keeping users through algorithms and content that can be problematic for children’s development and mental health, according to Brandtzæg.
He refers to the leaks which showed that the company Metawhich owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, allegedly kept secret internal research which showed that Instagram had a detrimental effect on teenage girls’ body image. It revealed The Wall Street Journal in 2021. Meta replied however, that the leak was a coordinated effort to paint a false picture of the company.
– That they get more power over people’s social lives and decide what children are exposed to is worrying and a challenge for democratic control, says Brandtzæg.
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Digital outsiderness
In the government’s action plan for safe digital upbringing they point out that current legislation regulates social media to a small extent. As of now, children under 13 can easily lie about their age when creating a user.
As many as seven out of ten 9-12-year-olds use social media, even though the age limit for consent in the Personal Data Act is 13, according to The Norwegian Media Authority examination “Children and media 2024”.
Therefore, among others, the Norwegian Media Authority believes that the government must ensure age verification on media platforms. Methods for age verification can, for example, be facial analysis or an electronic identity such as BankID.
The Consumer Council and the Norwegian Data Protection Authority has been critical of BankID as a verification method. They see it as an intrusion into consumers’ privacy, and have pointed out that it is possible to bypass the verification by using someone else’s ID. It can also lead to digital alienation, both for younger and for adults who cannot get hold of BankID, writes Digital.
In addition, age verification can help keep young people away from the news media and the public debate, says Marius Sjølyst, head of “Press – Redd Barna Ungdom”, to NRK.
Digitization and Administration Minister Karianne Tung wants to investigate solutions for an age limit, and is therefore going to challenge the companies to contribute. She works closely with the EU by introducing new rules for digital services and a common European digital wallet.
– It is important that we ensure children and young people’s freedom of information and expression. We must ensure that an age limit also takes care of this, so that young people can still get involved and use their voice. We will return to how this is to be resolved, writes Tung.
Meta takes action
In Australia, too, the government will now introduce a new 16-year age limit on social media.
In the US, UK, Canada and Australia, Meta will start weeding out users with behavior typical of other younger users.
At the same time, Instagram is launching so-called teenage accountswhich limits the content, and who can contact the account. The accounts also involve time limits and sleep mode. To verify their identity, users over 18 can upload ID or use facial recognition.
This measure will also apply to EU users during the year, writes Meta.
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These are the Screen Use Committee’s findings:
- Using screens can make it harder to fall asleep and lead to poorer sleep.
- Features of social media can lead to poorer mental health.
- Screen use can challenge children and young people’s concentration and learning.
- The platforms themselves should set age limits on the services.
- Screen use should be severely restricted for children under the age of two, also in kindergarten.
- There must be a good balance between screen use and other activities.
- Screen use should be cut during school lunch breaks, students should have printed textbooks in addition to screens at school, and they should be protected from harmful online content.
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