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Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

reuters.com

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Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#101

Post by foobarian »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #98
28304283409234 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My teens, and each one I have encountered through them, cannot discern a pixel from a wallsocket. They are tech consumers. Not tech savvy. My dad (82) is more tech savvy.

My 13yo wanted to install some dotnet disassembly or injection tool so he could download mods and inject new code into existing games on steam. All his friends were doing it and I'm the mean dad because I won't let him download any random code from the internet and run it. They don't know what they are doing, but they know how to follow instructions on github.

If this were my kid I would rejoice and thank my lucky stars

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#102

Post by SlowTao »

28304283409234 wrote: post #37
non- wrote: post #29

Teens are old enough to find their way around any content bans. This seems like a good way to introduce teens to VPN's and skirting content regulations early. It's also dumb because YouTube can teach you almost anything, I'd say it's the "best of the worst" when it comes to social media on the internet.

My teens, and each one I have encountered through them, cannot discern a pixel from a wallsocket. They are tech consumers. Not tech savvy. My dad (82) is more tech savvy.

For now. Maybe this will be the incentive to get them to dig into how these things work.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#103

Post by andy99 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #74
ncruces wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent (who also btw uses Google products every single effin day) I just can't agree. This is entirely Google's issue to fix. Yes, YouTube has amazing educational content. I'd really like to make it available for my kids to see. YouTube, however, makes it completely impossible to permanently filter/hide/disable the bane that is YouTube Shorts. I don't let my kids on TikTok not because it's Chinese, but because i…

Yeah, no amount of effort allows me to shut off YouTube Shorts. Imagine you're the one running a business where you keep repeatedly trying to shove some feature down your user's throat. What's that called in business school? I don't know, I never took any Business courses. That I have no where else to go to see the content I want to see smells like a de-facto monopoly.

> Imagine you're the one running a business where you keep repeatedly trying to shove some feature down your user's throat.

> What's that called in business school?

Pretty sure it's called inflating metrics. Things that get pushed on you (see many AI features, my pet peeve, especially at google) are not wanted (or they wouldn't need to be pushed) but someone has a big stake in showing uptake, e.g. promises made to investors that this would drive revenue.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#104

Post by ImJamal »

hasperdi wrote: post #78
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thought was that a version of YouTube that: 1. Had no opaque algorithmic feeds 2. No comment sections 3. Have a "show me more content like this" button, but again, no auto algorithmic feeds 4. Filter out age inappropriate content. would be great for teenagers. I think the problem for YouTube is that it would be great for everyone else, too, so they'd get bombarded by "Hey, I want that version" requests, which woul…

This exists. It's called YouTube Kids

It doesn't meet requirement #4 (Filter out age inappropriate content). You can find many articles and videos, over the years, about all the inappropriate stuff making it into YouTube Kids.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#105

Post by SlowTao »

like_any_other wrote: post #86

If only there was some kind of parental control software available, there would be no need to further expand state surveillance and repression. Unfortunately, this is the only way, that the government only reluctantly resorted to, after much public outcry, and after having tried many other non-invasive, freedom- and privacy-respecting measures, that have all failed...

Yep, it seems like a failure on all parties. Government, civil and corporate.

Hyper optimization of attention to drive up profits for the sake of share holders while ignoring the externalities was a terrible idea but in a capitalist system, they are the winners.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#106

Post by jay_kyburz »

SilverElfin wrote: post #62

Why are so many countries like Australia, UK, EU, etc suddenly pro censorship. Aren’t these all liberal democracies? I would think these policies would be very unpopular. Is there some analysis of how this came to be normalized?

I'm an everyday Australian, I'll take a few guesses. (I don't support these new laws)

1. we don't have as an antagonistic relationship with our government and we trust that most of what will be banned will be gross stuff we don't want weirdos watching.

2. I think most people feel social media really is breaking young people, and its easier if all kids are banned than just trying to ban your own kids. It's really hard to explain to a kid why they are not allowed to watch you tube when every other kid is.

Update: Also, the only thing this law is going to do is to force every parent in Australia to create accounts for their kids.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#107

Post by nullc »

decimalenough wrote: post #94
ncruces wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent (who also btw uses Google products every single effin day) I just can't agree. This is entirely Google's issue to fix. Yes, YouTube has amazing educational content. I'd really like to make it available for my kids to see. YouTube, however, makes it completely impossible to permanently filter/hide/disable the bane that is YouTube Shorts. I don't let my kids on TikTok not because it's Chinese, but because i…

You can completely disable Shorts by turning off your YouTube history. No idea why, but it works and it's blissful. Plus you can still like videos, subscribe to channels and curate your own lists if you want to bookmark stuff to come back to.

unfortunately turning off history kills all forms of suggestions, including ones like "you're subscribed to these things, so perhaps you might also be interested in...", which is the form of recommendation I want the most since it's driven by what I chose to be watching rather than what I've previously watched.

I had assumed the behavior was malicious compliance on Google's part against California law that said no history had to actually mean no history.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#108

Post by jjangkke »

forgotoldacc wrote: post #46

A couple months ago, I saw people everywhere online (including HN) saying they love the idea of social media bans for kids. They love the idea of keeping people under 18 safe from the dangers of porn and mature games and other unclean things as well. Now governments around the world are acting in unison to happily give those people what they want, and people are suddenly confused and pissed that these laws mean you n…

When I mentioned that any attempt at identifying users to access or write content is a trojan horse for a wide surveillance yet HN users downvoted and flagged such comments and were zealously supportive of "prottecct kidz"

In the late 90s and early 2000s we as teenagers had access to unfiltered internet and unregulated. The harm to us were largely moral fanaticism, this was when they also tried to ban video games because of violent content and now we have complete censorship and control over what games can sell or not on steam.

Much of the panic on social media amplified by protestants and religious ppl are greatly exaggerated. Porn isnt the danger its the addictive tendencies of the individual that must be educated upon.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#109

Post by anothereng »

simpaticoder wrote: post #8

Completely banning all of YouTube feels like throwing out the baby—valuable educational content—with the bathwater—everything else. It seems more effective for YouTube to offer a dedicated educational platform, like education.youtube.com, with content filters built in. That way, students could access channels like 3blue1brown without exposure to unrelated or less appropriate content like MrBeast or Jubilee. Heck, I m…

I use invidious to watch YouTube and have no shorts.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#110

Post by mathiaspoint »

Gud wrote: post #83
azemetre wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. It means it's no longer profitable to advertise to teens on most corporate social media. Anything that moves the needle toward dismantling the advertising and marketing industries will always be a worthwhile endeavor.

Why would it no longer be profitable to advertise to teens on YouTube just because they can’t have accounts?

Right they'll still have a persistent session that accumulates data for them. Just without the ability to persistent settings, subscriptions etc.
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