Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by BLKNSLVR » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 11:21 PM UTC

Tenemo wrote: post #205

ivanmontillam wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish there was a version of YT in Android that did not come with YT Shorts. As a YT Premium user, I should be able to disable it, or at least not make it the first thing it opens when I tap on the app icon. I mean, a legit app, not a 3rd party one that'll get my Google account banned eventually. I had to delete it, using: $ adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.youtube It lasted a month for me t…

There is, I'm a long-time user of ReVanced-patched YouTube. Comes with all sorts of plugins, tweaks and knobs. In the options, there's a Shorts section, a couple example options: "Hide Shorts in home feed", "Hide Shorts in search results", "Hide Shorts in subscription feed". I do not see any Shorts, ever. Not only that, apart from not having ads, Revanced YT also has customizable SponsorBlock integration, which skips…

+1 for ReVanced.

It feels like how YouTube felt before the enshittification.

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

#222

Post by jasonfarnon » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 11:29 PM UTC

Ancalagon wrote: post #139

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…

Ads as effective parental controls is wild, hilarious, and somewhat dystopian to me.

Why? Back when I was a kid and TV/radio were the only options, it's the ads that often got me to shut it off and do something else as often as not having anything to watch. I would wager advertiser data reflects this. Conversely I noticed a trend sometime in the 2010s my grandkids would watch shows that didnt break to commercial after rolling the end credits but instead segue to a new episode in a mini-view, and they would never leave.

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

#223

Post by jbarham » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 11:33 PM UTC

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…

> I pushed for anonymous temporary age verification tokens generated through a government app.

Cute. Let's see the reviews for an existing Australian government auth app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.gov.mygov.m...

And the kicker is that the above app doesn't even need to exist since myGov could just use industry standard TOTP two-factor auth like the dozens of other services I use.

Aussie politicians once again conforming to their lucky country stereotype:

"Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise."

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

#224

Post by jasonfarnon » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 11:35 PM UTC

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.

" lest Western parents actually parent their children."

I don't understand this argument I keep hearing. What is your understanding of parenting that doesn't involve controlling what they are exposed to? It sounds like you want to say, parents should parent in any way that doesn't burden non-parents. Why would that be in a democracy?

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

#225

Post by fhub » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 11:36 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #206

frereubu wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

Why is everyone saying this doesn't exist? It's right there on the linked page! It's called "Approved Content Only" and I assure you that it exists, it's a real feature, it works just like you want, I use it myself, my kids watch Primitive Technology and Smarter Every Day and they can't watch videos I don't whitelist. It does have a few issues. It's not reliable in showing everything you allow, sometimes things are m…

YouTube Documentation on this feature - https://support.google.com/youtubekids/answer/6172308?hl=en&...

The embedded walkthrough video on how to set it up is really quite good.

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

#226

Post by OhioMan2943 » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 11:40 PM UTC

jbarham wrote: post #223

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…

> I pushed for anonymous temporary age verification tokens generated through a government app. Cute. Let's see the reviews for an existing Australian government auth app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.gov.mygov.m... And the kicker is that the above app doesn't even need to exist since myGov could just use industry standard TOTP two-factor auth like the dozens of other services I use. Aussie politic…

I'm not saying aus government online portals and services aren't top tier dog shit- but doing an age token through mygov is the best approach, hopefully with enough pressure to make it non shit.

The alternative is an acceleration of the negative cultural trends and atomisation we have now.

You don't get to cry about the negative effects of social media but also cry about censoring it/protecting an impressionable population from it at the same time.

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

#227

Post by ryandrake » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 11:43 PM UTC

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.

Whitelisting and YouTube Kids are not viable solutions for the 12-16 age group, which is the group this legislation is targeting.

Whitelisting: There is way too much appropriate content out there to whitelist it all. It's totally infeasible for a parent, unless you're planning to only approve a handful of channels, which makes YouTube pointless.

YouTube Kids: Teenagers are not "kids" and are not going to go onto YouTube Kids to watch Baby Shark and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or whatever other kiddie stuff they have there.

Something else entirely is needed here.

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

#228

Post by Barrin92 » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 11:44 PM UTC

hollerith wrote: post #214

Barrin92 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are tons of good reasons to disallow minors from participating in the free online commons. there isn't unless you're a neurotic helicopter parent who wants to infantilize people up until they're adults. I'm only in my early thirties but I thank god that I have a dad who bought me Doom when the store owner didn't want to sell it to me, we shocked the crap out of each other with gore sites in school and when ou…

I think most people abandon views like yours when they become a parent. Are you a parent?

Very recently actually yes. Not that it mattered if I wasn't, because I was a kid and I know how important freedom was to my development, as does everyone who had it, that's sufficient to be inoculated against this safetyism.

And yes most people now have abandoned it, that's exactly what I'm complaining about. Not just with their kids mind you but even with themselves, that's why we have people in their late 20s and 30s who talk about how they're learning "adulting". Like, we have an entire generation now of people well into adult live who act like angsty teenagers because what they should have learned at 14 they learned ten years later

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

#229

Post by lstamour » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 11:47 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #206

frereubu wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

Why is everyone saying this doesn't exist? It's right there on the linked page! It's called "Approved Content Only" and I assure you that it exists, it's a real feature, it works just like you want, I use it myself, my kids watch Primitive Technology and Smarter Every Day and they can't watch videos I don't whitelist. It does have a few issues. It's not reliable in showing everything you allow, sometimes things are m…

Edit: I just noticed the list of supported countries (in my link below) includes Canada but excludes the French-speaking province of Quebec. It seems a bit spiteful to go so far as to ensure a service can be legally delivered in such a long list of countries and then exclude Quebec. Hm, I was about to use Puerto Rico as an example, but it’s not in the list as well, but perhaps it’s considered part of the United States here.

Now back to the comment I’d written at first:

It does seem to be, in typical large corporation fashion, a bit too complicated to set up. For example, there are three ways to add parental supervision, including a mode where you can transition from YouTube Kids to the full YouTube experience while still preserving those controls until a child is 13: https://support.google.com/youtubekids/answer/10495678?sjid=...

That said, all it would take is an open web browser and a not signed in YouTube account for kids to bypass these controls. But I suppose that’s not actually the point - the point of channel filtering is to reduce the harm recommendation engines and spammy content might have. The gotcha is that recommendation engines are everywhere now, spammy content is pervasive, and even AI responses in Google are arguably now a source of noise to be filtered.

I will say, however, it’s great to have an ad-free family plan for YouTube. I wish you could add more accounts to it, but for now I’m getting by with YouTube brand (sub-)accounts to create separate lists of subscriptions, histories and recommendations while still staying ad-free in apps.

And tools adults might find useful, I expect kids and teens would find useful too - for example, browser extensions to customize your YouTube experience.

As long as we have an open web for e.g. YouTube, we do have independent options, if geeky enough to pursue them. :)

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

#230

Post by modeless » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 11:49 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #227

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.

Whitelisting and YouTube Kids are not viable solutions for the 12-16 age group, which is the group this legislation is targeting. Whitelisting: There is way too much appropriate content out there to whitelist it all. It's totally infeasible for a parent, unless you're planning to only approve a handful of channels, which makes YouTube pointless. YouTube Kids: Teenagers are not "kids" and are not going to go onto YouT…

Sure, a whitelist makes YouTube less useful to a teenager, but it's hardly "pointless". Even a few whitelisted educational videos and channels could have huge value. You can send videos and channels to your kids' whitelists straight from your phone as you come across them and build up a huge library over time. My kids have dozens of channels and thousands of videos to choose from now, and I add more frequently as I naturally come across them in my own causal browsing.