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

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

#481

Post by _Algernon_ » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 11:49 AM 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.

"It takes a village to raise a child".

This is basically the village stepping up albeit in the dumbest way imaginable.

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

#482

Post by ulrikrasmussen » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:07 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…

> Youtube will still be accessible it is just the account making/usership which will be banned

Then what difference will it make in practice? Do the legislators really think that kids being able to comment on videos was the most harmful thing about the platform? YouTube will still be able to give you suggestions and send you down a rabbit hole of smoothbrain content even if you use it without an account.

> 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 positive, reality affirming effect on the public.

It sounds like you admit that this has mostly signal value.

I really don't understand how you can support this.

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

#483

Post by junga » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:08 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #264

jjangkke wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I mentioned that any attempt at identifying users to access or write content is a trojan horse for a wide surveillance yet HN users downvoted and flagged such comments and were zealously supportive of "prottecct kidz" In the late 90s and early 2000s we as teenagers had access to unfiltered internet and unregulated. The harm to us were largely moral fanaticism, this was when they also tried to ban video games bec…

> In the late 90s and early 2000s we as teenagers had access to unfiltered internet and unregulated. The harm to us were largely moral fanaticism, this was when they also tried to ban video games because of violent content and now we have complete censorship and control over what games can sell or not on steam. I get your point but I don't agree. I mean, politicians back then were actually right in assuming that dang…

I agree. To the downvoters: do you mind elaborating?

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

#484

Post by exe34 » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:11 PM UTC

alt227 wrote: post #415

exe34 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You when your kids reach 18: "why do my kids not talk to me anymore? oh woe is me, what have I ever done wrong!"

This is like the swansong of every parent ever lol.

Yes, people exaggerate, but I have not gone to see mine in person since 2009 and I have not talked to them since 2016. In fact at uni, I initially didn't understand why anybody would want to go home for Christmas - it was many years later that I realised that my childhood wasn't normal.

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

#485

Post by prmoustache » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:12 PM UTC

uyzstvqs wrote: post #472

prmoustache wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An easy solution is to limit their access to the device. If they can only use the devices in your living room when you are sitting next to them you keep full control. Admitedly at some point they are reaching teenage years and they should have a right to privacy so even having access to a timeline of actions seems like a no go to me. The same way they can wander off in the street on their own, write private letters t…

Definitely. I remember the era of the living room desktop PC, and that was a pretty easy and effective solution. But the primary benefit of parents giving smartphones to their kids these days is the ability to stay in contact while away from each other. For teenagers, yeah I agree that message content and such should not be shared with the parent. The level of detail in the timeline should be configurable at the disc…

Kids don't really need a personal smartphone until they reach at least secondary school which put them quickly unto the early teens years.

During a transition period between 11 and 13 I applied a simple solution: smartphone stay in a drawer at home unless some communication with people is important for school work, parental control disallowed install of apps, data plan was limited to the bare minimum.

My eldest daughter is nearing 15 and now parental control has been off for a year. I can see she is not installing every dumb app possible she has a bit more liberty but screen hours is still caped and the smartphone stays out of the bedroom during the night. This is probably a rule that will sty for a while as she is sharing her bedroom with her smaller sister.

Again, rules will gradually relax with time. Key is to allows them to reach autonomy. Being divorced with the shared custody, with different rules in each household made it a bit more complicated, for example my EX didn't wanted to follow my rule of no screen time during at least a 2h time window every day where all devices are off or in a drawer, including for adults living in the household. So far I think she and her sister understand that it is OK feeling frustrated/limited and not being considered cool at school. Also that being cool at their age only gets you so far and most popular kids in my teenage years where those that ended up the worse at adulthood: early pregnancy, early addiction issues, most didn't get so far into studies and didn't have the luxury to be in a situation where they can steer their own path professionally, at least not at the extent I could. Having the example of 2 different houses, with their own mother having her own struggles help as well as sad as it can be.

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

#486

Post by flenserboy » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:12 PM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #194

JKCalhoun wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who asked for social media bans for kids got what they wanted. They'll have to live with the consequences for the rest of their lives. We all will. I guess I'm fine with not visiting any of these age-restricted sites. They're not the thing I would miss if the whole internet shut down. (In fact, there's precious little I would miss — maybe just archive.org?)

It's going to be every website. There will be no place they will stop. You think a forum like this one where it's conceivably possible someone in a bad category could interact with someone under the age of 16, however unlikely, won't be regulated? "But sir! The largest websites on the internet implement Government ID Age Check. Just federate with one of those, why are you complaining so much? Don't you want to protec…

yep. the whole purpose of this is to stop people from communicating with each other, and only consume approved vetted sources. they'd probably prefer to keep tech out of people's hands entirely (why would serfs need that?!?), but it is too useful for the purposes of surveillance and control.

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

#487

Post by ygritte » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:16 PM UTC

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #367

ygritte wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can it be niche if it would be front and center for every responsible parent?

>responsible parent >responsible Yeah, that's niche.

Fuck.

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

#488

Post by A1kmm » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:23 PM UTC

jay_kyburz wrote: post #432

j1elo wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's needing to submit a selfie and ID photo to be verified, saved, and permanently bound to your every single action online. And leaked every 6 months, now including your ID photos and real name instead of an internet pseudonym, and lots of other sweet details that make extortion schemes a child's play

It would be cool if the post office could issue you an ID card, but for a pseudonym of your own choosing, so that when the data leaks, you can just trash it and get a new one. You could just show the dude at the post office your real id and he can check the age, but not actually write it down or link the two identities digitally. Even cooler would be if you create a different identity for each service so when they do…

> but not actually write it down or link the two identities digitally

What is to stop you just selling the ID card with zero consequences? Unless it has a photo on it of course, in which case that itself is an identifier you can't easily rotate.

Better is to use zero-knowledge cryptography to prove that you have a real ID's private key in your possession. Leaking the private key would be the same as giving away your real identity. Now you could make a proxy service that generates the proofs for money without it being traced back to you - but maybe a countermeasure to limit but not eradicate abuse would be for the protocol to include a proof you haven't used the same real identity to prove your age on that service in at least x days (that does mean you could be tracked for x days until you prove your age under another pseudonym).

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

#489

Post by bodhi_mind » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:25 PM UTC

This reminds me of Amazon fire’s kids program.

It’s absolutely worthless to whitelist content when the default “age appropriate” filters have thousands of content that need to be blacklisted one by one and then new ones are added all the time.

I even built a chrome extension that loops over them to disable but they just keep coming.

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

#490

Post by pembrook » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:25 PM UTC

Outsourcing more and more of our parenting responsibilities to politicians...what could possibly go wrong?

But hey, I guess the elites in developed countries always know what's best for the children. What would we, the stupid unwashed masses do without them!

I would think the Australian government should instead focus on fixing its batshit insane housing policy and leave the Big Brother stuff to each individual family. But I'm weird I guess.