Live data from Hacker News

Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

reuters.com

181–190 of 580 posts

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

#181

I don't really understand why Youtube won't let me create a profile, on my paid family account that I'm paying $29 NZD a month for, which lets me whitelist channels. I'm happy for my kids to have free access to certain channels on youtube, but the mind numbing shorts, and shit they find on random channels just does my head in. And it seems to be getting worse, I'm not sure if its that they are getting older and able…

> I don't really understand why Youtube won't let me create a profile, on my paid family account that I'm paying $29 NZD a month for, which lets me whitelist channels The answer is to this question is always: it is too niche a product feature for a giant corporation to prioritize. This product would require constant work to keep in sync as UIs and features change. It would be one more feature to regression test again…

The PS kind of undermines the rest of your point.

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

#182

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.

They aren't banning viewing videos, they're banning kids having an account I believe.

I'm sure their approach to enforcement will be something along the lines of relying on the websites to sort it out and fining them if they don't. The govt doesn't need to enforce the age check themselves or even provide or suggest a mechanism.

I imagine any smaller players in this market will just stay away from having an official presence in Australia.

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

#183

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 australian who completed the esafety survey which helped guide this policy. I pushed for anonymous temporary age verification tokens generated through a government app.

Social media is undermining the fabric of our societies and destroying a whole generations emotional development. I support this- in part because I know those who want to get around enough or be private will always find a way, but it has a positive, reality affirming effect on the public.

Watch the press conference from our PM and comms minister from yesterday to understand that this is coming from a place of compassion or control. They have said repeatedly they will always ensure a non id method is ensured. I know there are flaws in that though. https://youtu.be/SCSMQUmrh38?feature=shared

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

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We would still have whiplash even if implementation were left to another congress because it would still barely pass. Not so, not if it were left to cross-party committees. By and large even the US system seems to have functional committees when you ignore a few grandstanders. Unfortunately the US system seemingly tends towards creating massive legislation, partly because of the absence of this secondary legislatio…

"The primary/secondary legislation approach tends to head off that possibility because secondary legislation that is genuinely unwieldy tends not to get out of committee." Cause and effect is off here. If the primary legislation we already have makes it out of committee to be loaded down after, then having secondary legislation would also be loaded down after. Splitting into two stages isn't the fix. Fixing the two p…

> If the primary legislation we already have makes it out of committee to be loaded down after

But it wouldn't be. I mean, you can't retrofit this onto the US system now anyway, but the primary/secondary split culturally leads to much, much smaller primary legislation.

Our system still produces bloated things like the UK tax code, but the general thrust of UK primary legislation is that it is absolutely small enough to be read fully and debated.

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

#185

I don't really understand why Youtube won't let me create a profile, on my paid family account that I'm paying $29 NZD a month for, which lets me whitelist channels. I'm happy for my kids to have free access to certain channels on youtube, but the mind numbing shorts, and shit they find on random channels just does my head in. And it seems to be getting worse, I'm not sure if its that they are getting older and able…

> I don't really understand why Youtube won't let me create a profile, on my paid family account that I'm paying $29 NZD a month for, which lets me whitelist channels The answer is to this question is always: it is too niche a product feature for a giant corporation to prioritize. This product would require constant work to keep in sync as UIs and features change. It would be one more feature to regression test again…

That feature isn't what I think the parent comment is asking for. What you've linked to is specifically YouTube Kids, and it's groups of channels whitelisted by the YouTube team. What I think the parent comment is asking for, and I want too, is full availability of all YouTube channels, but the ability to block everything except whitelisted channels. I agree, it's too niche a product. But I often think that people whose response to complaints about kids' access to inappropriate content is "you need to parent your kids" is fine, but I need the tools to do that! A tool like this would be a godsend.

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

#186

I don't really understand why Youtube won't let me create a profile, on my paid family account that I'm paying $29 NZD a month for, which lets me whitelist channels. I'm happy for my kids to have free access to certain channels on youtube, but the mind numbing shorts, and shit they find on random channels just does my head in. And it seems to be getting worse, I'm not sure if its that they are getting older and able…

> I don't really understand why Youtube won't let me create a profile, on my paid family account that I'm paying $29 NZD a month for, which lets me whitelist channels The answer is to this question is always: it is too niche a product feature for a giant corporation to prioritize. This product would require constant work to keep in sync as UIs and features change. It would be one more feature to regression test again…

Of course if it made a bunch of money it would be a top priority though.

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

#187
post #182

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.

They aren't banning viewing videos, they're banning kids having an account I believe. I'm sure their approach to enforcement will be something along the lines of relying on the websites to sort it out and fining them if they don't. The govt doesn't need to enforce the age check themselves or even provide or suggest a mechanism. I imagine any smaller players in this market will just stay away from having an official p…

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.

"The govt doesn't need to enforce the age check themselves or even provide or suggest a mechanism."

I suppose it will be up to the courts to decide what is reasonable as an age check. However, the government has said that they don't want to include full ID checks, which is why one would assume they would provide guidance on how to comply.

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

#188
post #179

testing ground for whats coming out of Europe. the most annoying part of all of this is that the people voted for it by voting Labor again. we are fkd.

This law was popular with the Liberal & Greens parties sadly - was likely regardless of who won the election.

It is absolutely not supported by the Greens [1].

"The Greens have also called for:

    A ban on the targeting, harvesting and selling of young people's data

    A Digital Duty of Care on tech platforms

    EU-style guardrails to limit the toxicity of algorithms and extreme content

    The ability for users to turn down and opt-out of unwanted content

    The full release of the Online Safety Act review.

    Investment in education for young people and their families to help develop digital literacy and online safety skills, and equip them with the tools and resources they need for positive and responsible online use.
" [2]

[1] https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/greens-condemn-pass...

[2] https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/blunt-social-media-...

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

#189

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.

> There are tons of great instructional videos. Yes, but its also unregulated and full of shit, Moreover its designed to feed you more stuff that you like, regardless of the consequences. For adults, thats probably fine (I mean its not, but thats out of scope) for kids, it'll fuck you up. Especially as there isnt anything else to counteract it. (think back to when you had that one mate who was into conspiracy theorie…

[deleted]

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

#190

I don't really understand why Youtube won't let me create a profile, on my paid family account that I'm paying $29 NZD a month for, which lets me whitelist channels. I'm happy for my kids to have free access to certain channels on youtube, but the mind numbing shorts, and shit they find on random channels just does my head in. And it seems to be getting worse, I'm not sure if its that they are getting older and able…

Yup. Id pay money to lock down the 24/7 Bluey youtube channel for the kids... at least until the next trend comes along.

https://www.youtube.com/live/cN4EPsfBnq0?feature=shared

Post reply on HN