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Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

reuters.com

351–360 of 580 posts

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

#351

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…

> Yes they did bring families with children who had passed from social media abuse on stage but it felt genuine.

There is a name for this tactic - emotional blackmail

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

#352

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?

Mass Internet censorship in the Western world started in 2020 with restrictions on Covid information and discussion. This is just the logical conclusion.

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

#353
Leaving aside the merits of the ban for a moment...

This is politically beneficial because Google and Facebook squandered historically broad and strong goodwill, and they made themselves a target in the culture wars.

Google would have survived just fine with its historically light touch on ads.

Both would have been ok without monetizing data collected from users.

Both would be successful allowing users to pick aspects they wanted (e.g., shorts or not), rather than coercing them.

Unfortunately, there's no market feedback for missed future opportunities, and weak positive benefits from PR that dampens and side-steps negative sentiment, so there's no correction.

Had Google taken the privacy tack that Apple did, we might all be storing our most critical data on their servers (given their high data center standards), and thus inclined to do most business on Google cloud.

Both companies have founders still directing a majority of shares. There's no excuse of corruption by short-sighted shareholders.

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

#354

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?

Sharpening contradictions of capitalism leading to an impasse, forcing its servile governments to clamp down preventively on workers rebellions around the western world. So yes, there are analysis for this and analytical/scientific tools to understand those phenomenon

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

#355
post #348

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?

There are multiple studies showing the negative impact of social media on teen's health. It's not about censorship but about forcing companies that don't care at all to be held accountable. I'm not sure the approach taken by Australia will be effective (i'm not sure how it can be implemented), but i don't see the problem with doing something against harmful companies like meta, tiktok, x/twitter One of the study http…

If you don't want your kid using the internet then don't let them. No need to throw the whole society under the bus.

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

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, not every interaction. Given a token without user id, companies can check it's valid without contacting any government service and without knowing your identity.

And then the government sees where those tokens are used and they can easily monitor your every action, and revoke your ability to use certain sites if they don't like what you're saying.

North Korea wishes they came up with an idea this good.

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

#357

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…

I still want it.

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

#358

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?

Because the kids are imploding.

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

#359
post #353

Leaving aside the merits of the ban for a moment... This is politically beneficial because Google and Facebook squandered historically broad and strong goodwill, and they made themselves a target in the culture wars. Google would have survived just fine with its historically light touch on ads. Both would have been ok without monetizing data collected from users. Both would be successful allowing users to pick aspect…

I think there's a lot of wishful thinking in your post. Alphabet is the 5th biggest and richest company in the world. From a capitalistic perspective, they made everything right and the point you bring are negligible.

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

#360
post #353

Leaving aside the merits of the ban for a moment... This is politically beneficial because Google and Facebook squandered historically broad and strong goodwill, and they made themselves a target in the culture wars. Google would have survived just fine with its historically light touch on ads. Both would have been ok without monetizing data collected from users. Both would be successful allowing users to pick aspect…

Page and Brin have consistently escaped blame for things that Zuckerberg and Musk are excoriated for. It turns out that you just have to lie low, instead of jumping up and down for attention in the press or on social media, and people will obligingly forget that you exist and have effectively full control over your giant, society-dominating company.
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