Florida passed a similar law, and a bunch of other states are attempting to but are blocked by federal courts. Will be interesting to see if the tech industry allows it, or decides to break up the federal government before it becomes too powerful.
Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
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Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#72Why ban social media when ad-supported media is the culprit? Remove the incentive (to get users to doom scroll, to polarize, to impulse buy…) and you change the behavior.
I remember when social media was sane 15+ years ago. The problem is the business model, not socializing. It's crazy to ban it when being a teen is the beginning of socializing!
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#73RIP freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of the press.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hugely decisive! Feels more like a policy for idyllic hypotheticals. "Suppose we could ban social media..." well, hey, they actually did it. I'm very interested to see how their socializing evolves in response to such a shock. Do the social behaviors of pre-internet times re-emerge? "Third spaces" reappear overnight? We shall see!
I think one must also re-evaluate how in modern times a parent can be charged (by a perfect stranger) for the crime of neglecting their child when allowing them to rove unrestricted outside (within reason). I've heard of this happening in both the US and Australia, the HOA mindset really needs to die.
I think a huge part of that is context. Age, location, time of day, etc. I’d be curious to see numbers on this, usually it’s just asserted as “back in my day we played outside and got dirty all day!” but then I hear those same (usually now grand-) parents talk about all the tv shows/movies they watched as they espouse their views on modern media!
My assumption is a lot of those people who proudly proclaim that lifestyle were raised in (segregated) suburbs and have rose tinted glasses. But I’m also making assumptions like them, so again I’m curious to find info on this.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hugely decisive! Feels more like a policy for idyllic hypotheticals. "Suppose we could ban social media..." well, hey, they actually did it. I'm very interested to see how their socializing evolves in response to such a shock. Do the social behaviors of pre-internet times re-emerge? "Third spaces" reappear overnight? We shall see!
I think one must also re-evaluate how in modern times a parent can be charged (by a perfect stranger) for the crime of neglecting their child when allowing them to rove unrestricted outside (within reason). I've heard of this happening in both the US and Australia, the HOA mindset really needs to die.
Where are you from? Sweden? Denmark? Fun fact for Europe: America is quite a dangerous country. At the very least, this is why parents fear the outdoors. And much of our nature is polluted. There are cases of this. I agree it's wrong, but it's good to understand the background.
And as far as the internet: I am part of the younger generation and I welcome this change. I see how it affects my generation every day.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#76As an Australian experiencing this first hand and considerably older than 16, absolutely nothing has changed. It seems like all the social networks are doing age estimation of accounts and only taking action on those that fail and are detected as underage. The change is otherwise completely invisible if you're an adult user. Obviously I'm only a sample size of 1, but I've not heard of any other adults being adversely…
Apropos social media and age, I have some relatives with the last name of Aam. (Åm or Aam is an old farm in the Volda area of Sunnmøre, Norway). If you try searching them in Facebook, you get a message telling you your search has been stopped and you should seek help you sicko, searching for... "Age abuse material" maybe? I don't know why it freaks out on those three letters, but it does. This was in the news a year…
You have to see if it's in a corporation's interest for false positives or false negatives. For you and AAM, it costs Facebook almost nothing for a false positive on "age abuse material" so I would expect them to continue to flag your family name as a false positive.
With snap and others, I would expect them to focus on reducing false negatives and give the benefit of the doubt to the kid who is under 16. Worst case, you say "Mea Culpa" and update your algorithm accordingly to any cases that you missed but the state has found.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#77As an Australian experiencing this first hand and considerably older than 16, absolutely nothing has changed. It seems like all the social networks are doing age estimation of accounts and only taking action on those that fail and are detected as underage. The change is otherwise completely invisible if you're an adult user. Obviously I'm only a sample size of 1, but I've not heard of any other adults being adversely…
>Pretty well executed - I'm impressed. It seems like a handful of sites havent even switched over. Most are just estimating. Theres no clear indication that the execution has been anything but botched, unless convenience for older people was the only metric.
The execution didn't finish; it started. Big policy changes typically take time to solidify, and it'll probably take a bit to get a reliable read on its trajectory. But there is international momentum on this, so making predictions based on whatever percentage of people that were supposed to have their accounts deactivated actually did the day of (if we even have that data, and I doubt that we do), is probably not going to be useful.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#78[dead]
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#79Quite a decisive move by the Australian government. I don't know if it's a move in the right direction or not but the research clearly shows that around the time social media became mainstream, teens' and preteens' mental health took a nosedive (Especially girls).
maybe it's a step in the right direction but you can't regulate away ALL parenting. I know kids in the 5th grade getting brand new Iphone 17s! i've even seen one kid at the age of 7, getting their own Ipad. some parents even force their kids to use play on their iphone, just so they don't have to keep an eye on their kid anymore. My jaw really dropped to the floor on that one.
at some point, you just have to say that parents need to start parenting again. i'm a parent, and i can tell you it's not that bad.
How are you going to prevent kids and teens from joining everything that's bad for them online??? I think regulation is just band-aid.
the ideal solution would be to have parents say "No screens" until a certain age, unless it's supervised, or on a managed device that just lets them get their homework done.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#80Why ban social media when ad-supported media is the culprit? Remove the incentive (to get users to doom scroll, to polarize, to impulse buy…) and you change the behavior. I remember when social media was sane 15+ years ago. The problem is the business model, not socializing. It's crazy to ban it when being a teen is the beginning of socializing!
Socialising != Social media. Teens can still use messenger, WhatsApp, phonecalls, text or even....face to face!