Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

Post by jezzamon » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 7:08 AM UTC

stephen_g wrote: post #314

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…

From here in Australia, nobody was really asking for this here. Best I can tell it came from a single but sustained pressure campaign by one of the Murdoch newspapers. Then the Government gamed some survey polling to make it look like there was support for it (asking questions that assumed an impossible perfect system that could magically block under-16s with no age verification for adults). Still, over 40% of parent…

Post by baq » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 7:11 AM UTC

goopypoop wrote: post #331

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…

"parent your kids" doesn't mean "ask youtube to be better", it means "teach your kids to choose better"

Post by AlecSchueler » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 7:18 AM UTC

jjani wrote: post #368

RankingMember wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the concern about how this will be implemented (e.g. selfie and ID submission) is well-founded. I also think that letting tech companies make billions by feeding our youth mental junk food is a problem. I'm not sure where the middle path is, but I think it'll need some real thought to figure out.

> I'm not sure where the middle path is, but I think it'll need some real thought to figure out. Bans on recommendation systems. Doesn't need much thought to figure out. Instant 90% harm reduction.

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 7:35 AM UTC

vasco wrote: post #365

jay_kyburz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an everyday Australian, I'll take a few guesses. (I don't support these new laws) 1. we don't have as an antagonistic relationship with our government and we trust that most of what will be banned will be gross stuff we don't want weirdos watching. 2. I think most people feel social media really is breaking young people, and its easier if all kids are banned than just trying to ban your own kids. It's really hard…

> It's really hard to explain to a kid Laws created based on parent's inability to explain something to their kids are invariably shit.

Post by Aerroon » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 7:48 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.