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

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

#291

Post by Aurornis » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 2:13 AM UTC

intothemild wrote: post #267

modeless wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Because it's YouTube kids. Not YouTube YT kids uses a separate app, with a different UI. It's branded as YouTube Kids. And once your kid hits a certain age, they do not want to be on the kids version. Another approach... Is to mark their kids account as a kids account or something, and have that just be on the regular YouTube website and app. Or what every parent really wants. To whitelist content your kid can watch…

> Because it's YouTube kids. Not YouTube

> YT kids uses a separate app, with a different UI. It's branded as YouTube Kids. And once your kid hits a certain age, they do not want to be on the kids version.

This doesn’t sound like a YouTube problem.

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

#292

Post by koolba » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 2:19 AM UTC

frereubu wrote: post #185

vineyardmike wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wh…

I want the Netflix version of this. An account that is completely empty except for shows that I add. And not for kids, I just want an empty library that I can fill myself.

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

#293

Post by heavyset_go » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 2:22 AM UTC

Tadpole9181 wrote: post #253

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you didn’t realize that making teens verify their age online meant that everyone had to verify their age and identity online, that’s just a dangerous level of stupidity. The issue is everyone wants some quick and easy solution when the truth is we’re going to need to get much more intentional as a society about this. Take phone bans. Everyone wants to ban phones from schools/classrooms, but the truth is in a lot o…

There are zero knowledge proof systems that nobody would have a problem with because nobody ever knows who is accessing the content, only that they are allowed or not. Ironic to call people aware of this stupid.

Zero knowledge proofs don't matter, these verification systems already exist and they require you to show live video of your face to confirm you're the actual living person that matches your credentials.

You could have a completely anonymous tech solution to this, but it doesn't matter, because platforms and governments want video proof of life and identity, and they want to keep the data.

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

#294

Post by BLKNSLVR » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 2:23 AM UTC

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…

The amount of bathwater is increasing rapidly, whilst the baby is about the same size.

And it's almost purely bathwater that gets put in my face on the YT front page. The occasional baby pops up.

(as someone who rarely logs in, and only with a couple of throw away-ish accounts because I don't like being tracked and don't like YT/Google - so this will affect my perception of the baby:bathwater ratio)

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

#295

Post by opan » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 2:23 AM UTC

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…

The simple answer to these situations is usually that it's not the same people complaining in both instances. I see similar things in places with anonymous posting where people assume everyone was in agreement on x, then later they hear something different and try to frame it like a flip-flop or a gotcha. People are never all in agreement.

To add to that, often no news is good news, or rather people won't bother posting about how they're glad minors can use social media freely, but once restrictions are in place they will quickly complain (because they prefer the old way).

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

#296

Post by _carbyau_ » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 2:27 AM UTC

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…

The issue I have is this is all for naught. All it does is make things more complicated.

Some with kids will praise and use it as intended. Many with kids won't. Those without kids won't. All in return for the ultimate in monitoring.

And then people will work around it in various ways. Use forums or chat-group apps that don't comply with the law as intended. Share videos in other ways.

This whole shebang is pointless for enforcement and scary for authoritarianism - worst of both worlds.

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

#297

Post by Tadpole9181 » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 2:32 AM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #293

Tadpole9181 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are zero knowledge proof systems that nobody would have a problem with because nobody ever knows who is accessing the content, only that they are allowed or not. Ironic to call people aware of this stupid.

Zero knowledge proofs don't matter, these verification systems already exist and they require you to show live video of your face to confirm you're the actual living person that matches your credentials. You could have a completely anonymous tech solution to this, but it doesn't matter, because platforms and governments want video proof of life and identity, and they want to keep the data.

Don't ignore the context of this discussion.

Someone just said anyone who believes in privacy and content restrictions is stupid. Except those two concepts are compatible.

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

#298

Post by Tadpole9181 » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 2:34 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #276

Tadpole9181 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are zero knowledge proof systems that nobody would have a problem with because nobody ever knows who is accessing the content, only that they are allowed or not. Ironic to call people aware of this stupid.

There's always smart ways to do things. The government will choose the cheapest and hire the most generic IT consulting firm to do it which won't get close. Or if they don't do it themselves, they'll just fine big companies unless they follow an overbearing and forever expanding checklist of requirements where the companies lawyers will be forced to choose the most extreme options or risk exposure. Meanwhile kids wil…

The parent called people stupid. That was uncalled for and I'm educating them.

I don't support these policies myself.

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

#299

Post by Aurornis » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 2:48 AM UTC

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…

> A couple months ago, I saw people everywhere online (including HN) saying they love the idea of social media bans for kids.

The common theme in these statements is that people see “social media” as something that other people consume.

All of these calls for extreme regulations share the same theme: The people calling for them assume they won’t be impacted. They think only other people consuming other content on other sites will be restricted or inconvenienced, so they don’t care about the details.

Consider how often people on Hacker News object when you explain that Hacker News is a social media site. Many people come up with their own definition of social media that excludes their preferred social sites and only includes sites they don’t use.

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

#300

Post by southernplaces7 » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 2:49 AM UTC

Idiocy beyond reason. The Australian population seems to have fallen to the same mental illness of their UK cousins, of letting the nannying state pry into every facet to their lives and treat them like stupid little children, even in very basic elements of giving teenagers and kids some modicum of autonomy (with a nice mass potential surveillance cherry on top).

For one thing, among all its garbage content, like the rest of the internet, YouTube is also full of absolutely excellent videos for children of all ages, which can range from outright entertaining to deeply educative to a standard that you'll be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

That any rational, mentally functional human being believes the state should have a hand in controlling all of this because of some nebulous bullshit about "misinformation" and other moronic scare words is incredible. Controls of this sort are too stupid for rational support even on a practical level, never mind the poisonous philosophy of state control over expression and opinions that underlies them.