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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

#191

Post by OhioMan2943 »

Adding some context which is sorely missing:

Our government intends to spruik this at the UN and get other countries on board.

Our government has said there will always be a non id method

Youtube will still be accessible it is just the account making/usership which will be banned

Posting my threaded comment higher up:

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 and institutionalising a culture of infectious insecurity. 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 make up your mind on if 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

It's interesting to see that the press conference felt so uniquely grounded in reality and authentically emotional- maybe that's because they are directly challenging the delegitimising impermanent reality of social media-

Yes they did bring families with children who had passed from social media abuse on stage but it felt genuine. Doesn't mean your privacy concerns aren't real but they don't always trump protecting a childs emotional development.

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

#192

Post by giantg2 »

exasperaited wrote: post #184
giantg2 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

"but the primary/secondary split culturally leads to much, much smaller primary legislation."

Maybe if starting from zero, but not with the established culture.

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

#193

Post by spicyusername »

__d wrote: post #169
spicyusername wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in this case the content is basically totally unmoderated and mediated through an algorithm designed to keep the childrens attention permanently, so I would say the circumstances are at least a little different than back then.

Yes. And yet. It’s like every generation gets fixated on something new which can be perceived as moral decay and societal harm, and then rails against it. Making it even more popular with the younger generation, of course. I’ve seen the same thing play out with rock music, television, computer games, and now social media. There’s likely examples back throughout history. I think you can mount an argument against all o…

YouTube isn't social media, though... It's basically just television with a massive amount of really really bad channels.

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

#194

Post by XorNot »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #79
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…

> People who asked for social media bans for kids got what they wanted. They'll have to live with the consequences for the rest of their lives. We all will. I guess I'm fine with not visiting any of these age-restricted sites. They're not the thing I would miss if the whole internet shut down. (In fact, there's precious little I would miss — maybe just archive.org?)

It's going to be every website. There will be no place they will stop. You think a forum like this one where it's conceivably possible someone in a bad category could interact with someone under the age of 16, however unlikely, won't be regulated?

"But sir! The largest websites on the internet implement Government ID Age Check. Just federate with one of those, why are you complaining so much? Don't you want to protect the children or stop anti-Semitism or something?"

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

#195

Post by viraptor »

modeless wrote: post #159
ElCapitanMarkla wrote: post #133

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…

YouTube kids has a feature to only show whitelisted channels and videos. It's been there a few years now. You can share videos to your kids directly from the YouTube app.

But that also opens all the yt kids content, doesn't it? At least I couldn't find any way to whitelist within the kids app too. And there's just WAY too much brainrot crap in it to allow open access for my kid.

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

#196

Post by hapticmonkey »

ElCapitanMarkla wrote: post #133

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…

It's pretty clear to me that Youtube shoving endless low quality content towards kids is their intended business model. It's what drives the most engagement. It's why they don't let you permanently disable YouTube Shorts. It's why they don't let you block channels easily any more. Or dislike videos. They're AB testing themselves into a low quality slop firehose.

There's some truly great content on the platform, some of it even for kids. But it gets drowned out by mountains of algorithmic slop.

I have stopped giving my kid access to Youtube. instead I set up my own media server, filled it with pirated TV shows and Movies I can curate, and give them access to that on the TV and iPad in their allowed screen times.

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

#197

Post by squigz »

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…

Why would you assume these 2 groups of people are the same...?

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

#198

Post by modeless »

viraptor wrote: post #195
modeless wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube kids has a feature to only show whitelisted channels and videos. It's been there a few years now. You can share videos to your kids directly from the YouTube app.

But that also opens all the yt kids content, doesn't it? At least I couldn't find any way to whitelist within the kids app too. And there's just WAY too much brainrot crap in it to allow open access for my kid.

No. There is a true whitelist mode that only shows content you choose.

Kind of weird that there are so many comments here lamenting the lack of this feature when it actually exists just as requested.

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

#199

Post by curiousgal »

OhioMan2943 wrote: post #191

Adding some context which is sorely missing: Our government intends to spruik this at the UN and get other countries on board. Our government has said there will always be a non id method Youtube will still be accessible it is just the account making/usership which will be banned Posting my threaded comment higher up: I'm an australian who completed the esafety survey which helped guide this policy. I pushed for anon…

Last I checked it was the parents' primary job to protect a child's emotional development. And yes some kids might not be fortunate enough to have caring parents but I'm pretty sure that alone would fuck them up more than social media. But hey let us continue to make the world a safe space lest Western parents actually parent their children.

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

#200

Post by OhioMan2943 »

curiousgal wrote: post #199
OhioMan2943 wrote: post #191

Adding some context which is sorely missing: Our government intends to spruik this at the UN and get other countries on board. Our government has said there will always be a non id method Youtube will still be accessible it is just the account making/usership which will be banned Posting my threaded comment higher up: I'm an australian who completed the esafety survey which helped guide this policy. I pushed for anon…

Last I checked it was the parents' primary job to protect a child's emotional development. And yes some kids might not be fortunate enough to have caring parents but I'm pretty sure that alone would fuck them up more than social media. But hey let us continue to make the world a safe space lest Western parents actually parent their children.

I wish it wasn't the case but have you seen how emotionally retarded (correct use of the word) this generation of children is? Compare it to even 20 years before. We wouldn't need to do this if more parents actually did their job. By the nature of the social media monoculture it's harder than ever to shield kids from anti intellectualism. Each school basically has the same culture- good and the bad.
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