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Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

reuters.com

501–510 of 580 posts

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

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

depends on the age range. and that's the problem. I don't want Youtube's input aside from being a dumb pipe. I want them to hand me the remote so I can manage my feed.

> depends on the age range.

How's that?

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

#502
post #421

YouTube Kids is exempt from the ban, this one should have been banned first because the sheer amount of smoothbrain content. Channels like cocomelon and AI-generated songs with weird visuals are played on infinite loop with a mobile stand holding the phone in front of the child's pram while the parents pay no attention- and the children are hooked onto it as if they are hypnotized. These videos in early stage of chil…

> These videos in early stage of childhood has a very strong impact on environmental awareness and vocabulary of the children. I just managed to navigate the entire preschool age range without my children seeing a single cocomelon video on youtube. Its surprisingly easy, and makes me really wonder why people are complaining. Its as if they feel like they have to show these videos to their kids or something. Dont peop…

The argument is, apparently, that keeping your pre-school children away from these things is just too hard in this day and age. Your wee child will be ostracized if they don't have unfettered access to the Internet...

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

#503
post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need regulation for any of that? Devices with parental controls exist already. Special browsers with parental controls exist, just for kids. Do you think Jane Smith, L3 civil servant, will do a great job of taking over product management for the entire software industry despite having a BA in English Lit and having never heard of JIRA? There's no need for any regulations here and never was. It was always a…

Because most parents are oblivious to the danger, and are not taking action on their own. Meanwhile the unrestricted internet can be just as dangerous to a child's development as alcohol or drugs, if not more. The regulation should just specify a few standards that parental controls must meet, such as the standard that every new action in any app must first be approved by a parent, and it should regulate that minors…

Yeah or maybe most parents don't care because they think you're wrong? Many people with young kids now grew up with the internet as kids themselves. They remember their parents going through the exact same moral panic about the internet in the mid 90s, they remember using it anyway with no restrictions whatsoever ... and they remember they grew up just fine.

When I was a kid I was logging in every night, talking to random strangers online, I even met up with a few as the years passed. Everything was fine. If you were right that it's as bad for a child's development as drink and drugs I should have ended up a burned out husk. Not only did I not, none of my friends did either and they all also had unrestricted access to the internet.

Regulations aren't the answer. They hardly ever are. Half of HN's content these days is just people being faced with the negative consequences of regulations they themselves supported and then doing a No True Socialistman meme: "good regulations haven't been tried yet!"

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

#504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Social media is undermining the fabric of our societies and destroying a whole generations emotional development and institutionalising a culture of infectious insecurity. I support this- YOU are undermining the fabric of society. With the excuse of "protecting children" you're trying to destroy the last semblances of privacy and the ability to dissent. Fuck your using children as a shield. You're hurting them like…

I don't want privacy to be gone. I want a free internet to still exist for those who are educated enough to bypass firewalls and monitors, I would kill to have a knowledge gated internet again, but I want barriers to harm for children. Why do we card kids for R18+ games but not the internet. It's fundamentally stupid and unhealthy for our society. If everyone moved back to non algorithmically addictive forums and sel…

Your censorship is fundamentally stupid and harmful for society.

You're an authoritarian throughout and through and want to impose your tyranny through "keep you safe" like every tyrant.

You're the useful supporter and as much to blame as the corrupt politicians who enact these things.

Who on earth are you that you want to tell everyone else how to live. So conceited that you think you should rule over other people's kids.

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

#505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they said the same thing about books, "young people are hypnotised!" It really doesn't matter what "they" said about books. We are talking about screen time. And screen time has measurably harmful effects on child development. It leads to worse outcomes across the board. Sleep disorders. Obesity. Mental health disorders. Depression. Anxiety. Decreased ability to interpret emotions. Aggressive conduct. And this is t…

aggressive conduct lol, i think youre getting away with yourself there. how come adults are immune to it? i mean youre on social media right this second (decrying it but lets ignore that), how hasnt it affected you in that way? or is this "good" social media?

The post you are trying to refute has a source which is a study that found "It can obstruct the ability to interpret emotions, fuel aggressive conduct, and harm one's psychological health in general."

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

#506

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 funny thing is hearing adult people shouting aloud that kids suffer from social media use and bla bla bla let the same people have been ruining their own relationship with their life partners, family and even their whole life for years by spending way too much time in front of TV, computer…

I think you are 100% right. Let's ban social media for all ages and wipe this scourge from the planet.

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

#507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's wild that they passed a law without consideration to it's mechanics or feasibility. It's not. Much of the world's governments (particularly those that follow the UK system) implement smaller laws and then delegate the implementation to statutory instruments/secondary legislation, written by experts and then adopted by ministers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_and_secondary_legislat... (Australia include…

Except in Australia experts don't come into it, except for sham inquirys that are held as a matter of course. In this case, basically all the tech experts and child safety experts were saying that a blanket ban is not a workable policy, and could create harms in certain marginalised demographics where teens may rely on social media for support, yet the Government ignored them all and ploughed ahead. The only changes…

> The only changes to the legislation came from some political horse trading with the Opposition to get it through the Senate.

Well that is the normal process of things, surely? I mean, (politics is the art of the possible) * (nobody really likes seeing how the sausage is made).

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

#508
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But they do have genuine discovery utility, the issue is more of having them tuned for engagement above all else.

Heroin also has genuine medical utility.

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

#509

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 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. If you truly believed that this was going to be the solution that governments were going to use, yes you’re still an idiot. Ok, maybe incredibly naive to be charitable. But still have you paid even the slightest bit of attention to pretty much anythi…

And anyone who believes in universal healthcare? Idiot. Voting rights and holidays? Idiot. Civil rights? Idiot. Want to stop climate change, damn, idiot.

Wow, so intellectual you are to say nobody can hold ideals.

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

#510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not tech savvy because they didn't need to be. That will change. One thing that has not changed from our parents generation to our generation to the upcoming generations is that teenagers will be troublemakers, push boundaries, get caught doing a number of things that displease you, and get away with many more things that you won't find out about for decades - if ever.

Please.... They do not care enough about YouTube. Touch their snap and you may have a point. But I doubt it.

I'm not sure why you're being dismissive. I have no doubt that these sorts of restrictions are coming for something they actually use and care about.

And speaking more broadly, teenagers are in the process of growing into adults. With that comes the forging of their own identity, and part of that journey is trying things and discovering who they are - in no small part outside of your watchful gaze.

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