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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

#111

Post by SlowTao »

ccppurcell wrote: post #13

It's not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I don't know what the right metaphor is. Throwing the scrap of edible meat out with the ton of rotten flesh? YouTube has got really bad in recent years. There are channels deliberately trying to get through to kids with horrific content. And of course the tobacco, gambling and sugar industries trying to turn our kids into addicts. They are often only one or two click…

This is probably why I havent seen YouTube as being a big issue. The algorithm on my account is so tightened up that non of that stuff bleeds through. So while I don't see the issues directly it is because they are kept away from me.

I do get the very occastionally glimpse when I have to log in fresh and the recommendations on the front page are not great.

This whole situation leaves me very torn. Great arguments on both sides. I just hope it isnt a trogan horse to online digital IDs being linked to all content access.

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

#112

Post by giantg2 »

Its a little bit of a stretch to call YouTube social media. There are tons of great instructional videos.

The real kicker to me is that the government has passed a law restricting access yet they haven't determined how they're going to enforce an age check. It's wild that they passed a law without consideration to it's mechanics or feasibility.

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

#113

Post by jjangkke »

seydor wrote: post #31

This is raising a generation of radicalized teens with institutionalized hatred against the older generation. Will end well

More likely this will force them to be right wing as they get older. Young ppl arent digging left wing stuff as trends show many are shifting to conservatism.

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

#114

Post by tartoran »

yreg wrote: post #96
general1726 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you can just log off to bypass it? That seems short sighted.

Maybe they target content production, not content consumption?

> Maybe they target content production, not content consumption?

How can you do that on the internet?

What Australia did may be a bit shortsighted but it's a step in the right direction together. Other countries did all sorts of measures such banning smartphone use in classrooms and such. We will figure out what works and what does not, but at least something is being done.

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

#115

Post by giantg2 »

general1726 wrote: post #7
WantonQuantum wrote: post #2

It's important to note that this ban is for having an account - it does not ban people under 16 from watching youtube videos.

So you can just log off to bypass it? That seems short sighted.

"So you can just log off to bypass it?"

Nobody knows. The government hasn't determined how the age verification will work. A good guess will be that it will require age verified accounts for anyone in that country to access content on those platforms... or a VPN.

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

#116

Post by __d »

anigbrowl wrote: post #53
AlexandrB wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bathwater is not any specific piece of content but the YouTube discovery and recommendation algorithm. As long as that's in place, there will be incentive to create terrible "slop" content to get into "education.youtube.com" and collect ad revenue. The same thing happened with kids.youtube.com[1] and I don't see a solution other than hand-curating channels for inclusion. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsagate

Well put. I do not agree with the clumsy approach taken by countries like Australia, UK, and Texas, but I absolutely consider youtube and social media problems responsible for the tsunami of lowest-common-denominator slop. Free market/user choice idealists need to face up to the fact that slops is bad and lowers standards rather than elevating them, because the economic incentives tilt in favor of low quality, sensat…

To state it plainly:

We humans, when given enticing bad choices, will often give in to the enticement.

That universal tendency can be overcome by strict application of willpower, which can have long-term benefits.

It is possible to exploit this tendency to make money. And so, by recursive application of this principle, we arrive at 2025.

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

#117

Post by jeffybefffy519 »

giantg2 wrote: post #112

Its a little bit of a stretch to call YouTube social media. There are tons of great instructional videos. The real kicker to me is that the government has passed a law restricting access yet they haven't determined how they're going to enforce an age check. It's wild that they passed a law without consideration to it's mechanics or feasibility.

Is mechanics of enforcement really a government thing tho?

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

#118

Post by jeffybefffy519 »

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…

Youtube has gotten so much worse in the last 6 months tho, introduction of shorts has devalued the platform terribly and it seems like all the good educational creators are moving off it anyway and now its just ripped crap that is often AI produced. Hopefully this move makes some actual competition show up for Youtube, because it sorely needs it.

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

#119

Post by timschmidt »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #92
JKCalhoun wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> That I have no where else to go to see the content I want to see smells like a de-facto monopoly. Not in this case, since the content makers can choose to host the digital files on a computer not owner by Alphabet. Your situation is simply the content maker betting that it is not worth their time to try to earn a return by hosting on a non Alphabet computer. But Alphabet is doing nothing to stop the content maker a…

> But Alphabet is doing nothing to stop the content maker and you from reaching a deal.

They bought DoubleClick, which Microsoft and others felt strongly enough about to warn the FTC that might give Google too much control over online advertising. Seems like Meta is their only real competition on that front these days.

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

#120

Post by giantg2 »

WantonQuantum wrote: post #2

It's important to note that this ban is for having an account - it does not ban people under 16 from watching youtube videos.

This ban includes watching videos. The law says they must take action to prevent underage persons from accessing their services. This means they will likely have to require login and age verify any accounts. The carve out in the article is talking about teachers and parents being allowed to show the content to the kids.
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