Growing up now is growing up online.
-
@mttn brain rot content is not something unique, it has always been there. Arguably it is one of byproducts of growing up. Take the commercialization out of the equation, let parents do the actual parenting and kids will be okay.
We survived meaningless flash games, dumb music videos, weird console games (and arcade games before that), eurobeat music (and also rap, disco and whatever else that actually feels like AI slop before AI was even invented), meaningless comics and stupid fandoms. Most of us were happy doing that.
What I do see as a problem is how we try to fight commercial surveillance by replacing it with the government one.
@notsoloud @EUCommission @DrJLecter

@shuro
In 2003 technology wasn't quite ready to feed us endless streams of brain rot individually tuned for maximum addiction. 200 badger mushrooms a day would have hit differently I think.Apart from that I agree about parenting and commercialization.
-
Growing up now is growing up online.
Young people in Europe spend much of their lives in digital spaces where they connect, learn and express themselves.
But they can also face risks like cyberbullying, disinformation and harmful content.
We want to ensure a safer online environment for them:
The Digital Services Act
The EU Action against cyberbullying
Mental health support
The EU strategy on child sexual abuse online
Age-appropriate protections@EUCommission instead of limiting citizens, control the networks. Why the Chinese TikTok pushes STEM content and the western version pushes brainrot? It means the network can moderate dangerous content, but they don’t want to do so in the West.
Enforce Meta and TikTok to limit brainrot and you solve 90% of the issues without adopting Soviet-style laws. -
@mttn @EUCommission That doesn’t mean it has nothing to do with fascism, it means it also has to do with the other extreme end of the political spectrum. Right now fascism is on the rise in many European countries, including my own, which is what I’m referring to. Thank you for mansplaining my own toot. That’s always very helpful and appreciated.
@Karolina @EUCommission How is that mansplaining??? Ahaha what the heck dude.
"It means it also has to do with the other extreme...", nop, the literal definition of fascism is far-right, you're contradicting yourself. So not only are you wrong, you also claim that I do "mansplaining" which is completely absurd considering I have these discussions more with men than women.
You're not the center of the world, just because I replied to you doesn't mean I only reply to women. -
@mttn
If you ban TARGETED/PROFILED advertising there will be no way to legally gather loads of information that can be (and currently is) abused.
It is the single 'simple' action with a foreseeable huge cascading impact on internet privacy, security and safety.
Opponents always leave out the TARGETED/PROFILED part to have proponents look as dumbass.
TARGETED/PROFILED are the keywords.
Advertise as much as you want without TARGETING/PROFILING tools.
@notsoloud @DrJLecter @EUCommission@mttn
What a ban on targeted/profiled ads can bring:
-privacy: obvious, i hope...
-safety: attacker can't abuse the profiling tools to choose a target pool (minors, elder, fragile,...)
-security: compounded from the above. Targeted ads lets an attacker know which employees of what company or governement has substance/family/mental/whatever issues and target them with specific social engineering tecniques to gain access to restricted material.
@notsoloud @DrJLecter @EUCommission -
@Karolina @EUCommission How is that mansplaining??? Ahaha what the heck dude.
"It means it also has to do with the other extreme...", nop, the literal definition of fascism is far-right, you're contradicting yourself. So not only are you wrong, you also claim that I do "mansplaining" which is completely absurd considering I have these discussions more with men than women.
You're not the center of the world, just because I replied to you doesn't mean I only reply to women.@Karolina @EUCommission Also I don't even know why you bring your gender into this, it has no role in this discussion, I couldn't care less if you are a woman, a man, non binary or an alien from Mars.
Grow up. -
@pgo @notsoloud @DrJLecter @EUCommission It's not the advertising part that is the problem, it's the service itself that is fundamentally built to know everything about you, whether it includes advertising or not.
@mttn
You willingly leave out the targeted/profiled keywords.
Have a nice day.
@notsoloud @DrJLecter @EUCommission -
@shuro
In 2003 technology wasn't quite ready to feed us endless streams of brain rot individually tuned for maximum addiction. 200 badger mushrooms a day would have hit differently I think.Apart from that I agree about parenting and commercialization.
@notsoloud @shuro @EUCommission @DrJLecter
The thing is, in 2003 we didn't quite know how to optimize watch time. Companies have become VERY good at this, and it is what lead us to today.
There was no such thing on the internet as optimizing watch time in 2000 like we have today. -
Growing up now is growing up online.
Young people in Europe spend much of their lives in digital spaces where they connect, learn and express themselves.
But they can also face risks like cyberbullying, disinformation and harmful content.
We want to ensure a safer online environment for them:
The Digital Services Act
The EU Action against cyberbullying
Mental health support
The EU strategy on child sexual abuse online
Age-appropriate protections@EUCommission what about protecting the adults? When will online advertising agency be made responsible for the ads they are delivering. Meta knows that at least 20% of them are scams but they rather keep the revenue than rejecting them.
-
@mttn
You willingly leave out the targeted/profiled keywords.
Have a nice day.
@notsoloud @DrJLecter @EUCommission@pgo @notsoloud @DrJLecter @EUCommission
Yes, services are fundamentally built to target/profile you today, again, unrelated to advertising because they do it inside the service itself to show you non advertising content.
I included these words, happy?
The meaning of my message didn't change at all whether they were included or not, which makes this such a ridiculous reply.
You too, I wish you a good day. -
Growing up now is growing up online.
Young people in Europe spend much of their lives in digital spaces where they connect, learn and express themselves.
But they can also face risks like cyberbullying, disinformation and harmful content.
We want to ensure a safer online environment for them:
The Digital Services Act
The EU Action against cyberbullying
Mental health support
The EU strategy on child sexual abuse online
Age-appropriate protections@EUCommission Make legally enforced clarity of finance sources for all lobbyists. Then you will know Meta is behind the push for everyone to be IDd (claiming to be for child protection). Online privacy is a key right in a democracy, do not remove it.
Enforce controls on what big-tech can do with data on individuals, existence of unwanted targeted ads is proof of private data abuse.
Outlaw efforts to make systems addictive. -
@EUCommission
Hope one of those will include banning Meta et al. from doing business in Europe... -
@Karolina @EUCommission How is that mansplaining??? Ahaha what the heck dude.
"It means it also has to do with the other extreme...", nop, the literal definition of fascism is far-right, you're contradicting yourself. So not only are you wrong, you also claim that I do "mansplaining" which is completely absurd considering I have these discussions more with men than women.
You're not the center of the world, just because I replied to you doesn't mean I only reply to women.@mttn @Karolina @EUCommission You’re trying to say surveillance is not exclusive to fascism, but you’re writing that it has nothing to do with fascism. These statements are not the same. This has been pointed out to you and you’re just plain wrong.
Know when to stop and take a hint. -
@EUCommission the parents of children need to take responsibility too by educating them well, and to teach the proper norms and values. Folks online also should play a role in this by being friendly and behaving decent. It takes a village to raise a child, in the physical world right, so why not in the digital world. Also, children should be able to make mistakes even online.
Parents AND Teachers.
My own experience was a long time ago before any microprocessor and we could see the world changing. I don't expect today's politicians to be any better at coping with change than they were then.
Politicians don't have a high standard to live up to, and so many fail. Why should we trust you?
-
@mttn @Karolina @EUCommission You’re trying to say surveillance is not exclusive to fascism, but you’re writing that it has nothing to do with fascism. These statements are not the same. This has been pointed out to you and you’re just plain wrong.
Know when to stop and take a hint.@presidiet @Karolina @EUCommission
What do you mean "take a hint"? That person said (although bear in mind I was blocked, and I'm now unable to read these messages again) that this surveillance was caused by fascists, which is just not true.
The current surveillance we're getting in 2026 in Europe, it's completely unrelated to fascism, that's a fact, whether you like it or not. -
@presidiet @Karolina @EUCommission
What do you mean "take a hint"? That person said (although bear in mind I was blocked, and I'm now unable to read these messages again) that this surveillance was caused by fascists, which is just not true.
The current surveillance we're getting in 2026 in Europe, it's completely unrelated to fascism, that's a fact, whether you like it or not.@presidiet @Karolina @EUCommission And honestly I find it just difficult to take this discussion seriously now, considering that the person used their gender to accuse me of something that I never did, when gender was never the or in discussion in the first place.
Any credibility for a factual discussion goes out of the window with that kind of behavior. It's just not okay for someone to attack or accuse someone else like that on the basis of nothing.
They clearly didn't even look at my profile. -
Growing up now is growing up online.
Young people in Europe spend much of their lives in digital spaces where they connect, learn and express themselves.
But they can also face risks like cyberbullying, disinformation and harmful content.
We want to ensure a safer online environment for them:
The Digital Services Act
The EU Action against cyberbullying
Mental health support
The EU strategy on child sexual abuse online
Age-appropriate protections@EUCommission the linked article states:
”While young people are digital natives, their impulse control and understanding of threats is sometimes lacking.“Lacking impulse control and understanding of threats is not a trait specific to young people. Else there won't be hate speech, manipulation through rage bait, fear bait, etc. won't work and people wouldn't react on any scam/malicious e-mail (or could be manipulated to vote for Brexit).
”Some platforms exploit this with features specifically designed to keep users hooked for hours and algorithms may also push harmful content directly into a child’s feed, while collecting their personal data for long-term profiling and targeted advertising.“
You know the core issue but you're not addressing it.
You want to take care of minors because they're not able to see and handle these threats but adults are supposed to now (and properly react on) the very same threats.”Actions to protect young people online are favoured by the majority of Europeans, with over 9 in 10 supporting mechanisms to restrict children’s ability to access age-inappropriate content.“
Well, hiding behind ”the majority“ is a comfortable position.
… and it allows you to avoid addressing who is actually in charge to give minors access to these platforms - their parents or legal guardians.Last but not least, this initiative is imbued with the same spirit Mrs. von der Leyen showed about 20 years ago when she was in charge of introducing measures against (online) child abuse.
Her only proposed solution was implementing virtual stop signs to block sites showing criminal contents.
No measures were proposed to prevent actually occurring acts of violence against children.
Today you are about to repeat this farce on European scale.
Don't do that!
-
Parents AND Teachers.
My own experience was a long time ago before any microprocessor and we could see the world changing. I don't expect today's politicians to be any better at coping with change than they were then.
Politicians don't have a high standard to live up to, and so many fail. Why should we trust you?
@Wolf_Baginski @EUCommission teachers too indeed, but parents and direct family play a bigger role imo.
-
@presidiet @Karolina @EUCommission And honestly I find it just difficult to take this discussion seriously now, considering that the person used their gender to accuse me of something that I never did, when gender was never the or in discussion in the first place.
Any credibility for a factual discussion goes out of the window with that kind of behavior. It's just not okay for someone to attack or accuse someone else like that on the basis of nothing.
They clearly didn't even look at my profile.@mttn @Karolina @EUCommission She did not say it was caused by fascists.
Mansplaining depends on the genders on those discussing and the tone in which it is done, not the topic of discussion
You’re not the arbiter of what constitutes a factual discussion and a very poor party to it.
Im getting the sense that you’re constitutionally incapable of not having the last word so I will mute you now and let you start your tirade.
Bon voyage -
>Age-appropriate protections
This sounds way too much like "we know tobacco products are designed to be more addictive than necessary, so we're banning their sale from under 18 year olds".
Please consider that everyone wants a safe environment, and you can't just let social media companies act predatory because all the victims are of voting age.
@iju To make Internet safe for “young Europeans (aged 16–29)”... let’s force the businesses check the age of everyone who looks under 30?
No. This does not sound like a plan. There must be better ideas?
-
@mttn @Karolina @EUCommission She did not say it was caused by fascists.
Mansplaining depends on the genders on those discussing and the tone in which it is done, not the topic of discussion
You’re not the arbiter of what constitutes a factual discussion and a very poor party to it.
Im getting the sense that you’re constitutionally incapable of not having the last word so I will mute you now and let you start your tirade.
Bon voyage@presidiet @Karolina @EUCommission
I speak or write the same tone with everyone, and like I said, they blocked me, I can't go back on what they said, it says "profile unavailable". This discussion is therefore pointless.
That being said, the accusation is baseless and disrespectful, especially in the age of the internet where you can just look at one's profile and see what's going on.
It's pretty obvious that the person wasn't interested in the facts, because they were easy to uncover here.
