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By zikalify · Posted
Meta pushes for EU-wide digital majority age, wants parental approval for teen app downloads by Paul Hill There is now a debate going on in the European Union to decide whether children should be allowed to access any social media websites before a certain age. Now, Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, has come out in support for an EU-wide Digital Majority Age that would require parental approval for younger teens to download apps, including social media. The company cited a poll from Morning Consult which shows that around 75% of adults believe parents should have a say in whether their child can download apps. Meta points out that it’s not in favor of government-mandated social media bans, instead it wants to see parents have more power over what their kids do and don’t access. For Meta, this move would shift the burden of age verification from itself to app stores. Coming out in support of this also makes it look more responsible, an image improvement it definitely needs after all the controversies it has gotten into over the years. Meta has also not been quiet about the fact that it thinks the EU is overstepping in regulatory matters; just yesterday, Meta said it was appealing a fine from the EU and complained about excessive regulations it faces. Meta says that age verification must be implemented at the app store or operating system level so that parents get to control what kids attempt to install across the board. It said that the implementation should be easy-to-use and privacy-preserving and work consistently. Interestingly, Google just open-sourced its zero-knowledge proof libraries, so this could be used to help parents verify their age to allow an app install on their kid’s device in a privacy-preserving manner. So far, we’ve seen countries specifically trying to bring age verification to adult sites, but perhaps the EU member states pushing for a Digital Majority Age across the whole of digital with verification done in a privacy-friendly way, may be the best solution. Meta has already done significant work on trying to protect younger users in the form of Teen Accounts which come with built-in protections, time reminders, and notification limits. With these accounts, parents have control over the settings. While this is fine on Facebook, it doesn’t protect kids on other social media websites or platforms like Reddit, Discord, Telegram, and forums. The proposed OS level or app store level parental check may be more effective at protecting kids from a wider range of sources than just Meta products. Image via Depositphotos.com -
By Accuphase · Posted
To be fair, those are relatively old versions now that would require updates. -
By EdwardFranciscoVilla · Posted
Simply the BEST email client I use it every single day . Phenomenal . It works with Gmail Aol for all out there to try it out ! -
By Ccl Ncc · Posted
All I want is fast charging... -
By binaryzero · Posted
It's been best practice for years to disable it anyway... TS disables 2.0, installs Pwsh 7.whatever
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