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France may take additional steps to prevent minors from accessing social media platforms. As its government advances a proposed ban on social media use for anyone under age 15, some leaders are already looking to add further restrictions. During an appearance on public broadcast service Franceinfo, Minister Delegate for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Affairs Anne Le Hénanff said VPNs might be the next target.
"If [this legislation] allows us to protect a very large majority of children, we will continue. And VPNs are the next topic on my list," she said.
A virtual private network would potentially allow French citizens younger than 15 to circumnavigate the social media ban. We've already seen VPN's experience a popularity spike in the UK last year after similar laws were passed over age-gating content. However, a VPN also offers benefits for online privacy, and introducing age verification requirements where your personal data must be submitted negates a large part of these services' appeal.
The French social media ban is still a work in progress. France's National Assembly voted in favor of the restrictions last week with a result of 116-23, moving it ahead for discussion in the country's Senate. While a single
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The appeal of promising network technologies can be jaded by pressure to adopt untested ideas. When I look over the comments I've gotten from enterprise technologists this year, one thing that stands out is that almost three-quarters of them said that entrenched views held by company executives is a "significant problem" for them in sustaining their network and IT operations.
"Every story that comes out gets me a meeting in the board room to debunk a silly idea," one CIO said. I've seen that problem in my own career and so I sympathize, but is there anything that tech experts can do about it? How do you debunk the "big hype" of the moment?
For starters, don't be too dismissive. Technologists agree that a dismissive response to hype cited by senior management is always a bad idea. In fact, the opening comment that most technologists suggested is "I agree there's real potential there, but I think there are some near-term issues that need to be resolved before we could commit to it." The second-most-cited opening is "I've already launched a study of that, and I'll report back to you when it's complete." There's usually a grain (yeah, often a small grain) of truth underneath the hype pile, and the best approach is to acknowledge it somehow and play for time. Hype waves are like the tides; they come in and they go out, and many times management will move on.
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