Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

Post by Dilettante_ » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 5:05 AM UTC

opan wrote: post #295

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 post…

Post by OhioMan2943 » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 5:09 AM UTC

protocolture wrote: post #321

OhioMan2943 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 posi…

I see, props for admitting you are part of the problem. Next time dont do that.

Post by owisd » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 5:16 AM UTC

aspbee555 wrote: post #97

SilverElfin wrote: post #62

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?

this is why "think of the children" is always used in these instances, it gets right past peoples defenses and if you try to argue against privacy invasive/life invasive/completely useless regulations/regulations ripe for abuse (by design) then you are somehow the "bad guy"

Post by viraptor » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 5:40 AM UTC

forgotoldacc wrote: post #282

viraptor wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requiring photo IDs is not the only solution. Things don't have to be implemented that way. I can be both for privacy in this case and limits on social media. Australia already requires you to register for voting and other things, so the trivial solution here is: give out anonymous time-limited tokens from the gov site, with no logging. Essentially a signed timestamp + random number. > People who asked for social med…

So instead of using a photo ID so that everything is logged, register your every interaction online with the government directly. The government which also has your photo ID on record. There's zero difference. Either way, the government will have you monitoring your every single little comment online and having it forever tied to your person. And that'll have a chilling effect on individual liberties.

Post by superfish » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 5:43 AM UTC

Dilettante_ wrote: post #341

opan wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 post…

>it's not the same people complaining in both instances I just learned a brand-new term for this: It's called the "Goomba Fallacy"[1] [1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Goomba_fallacy