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Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

reuters.com

221–230 of 1001 posts

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#221
post #120

These platforms are heavy censored with a direct line to governments. This will push kids to other platforms with less censorship. That's a major benefit. As we go down this road platforms will need to be banned for everyone. For example VK wasn't on the list and they won't implement age checks. They and many other sites will need to be banned until you are left with a white list of acceptance sites. Add in age verif…

Kids will learn how to overcome the ban. VPNs will become the standard. This gives governments an excuse to ban VPNs in the name of 'thinking of the children'. That might be the point though.

> This gives governments an excuse to ban VPNs in the name of 'thinking of the children'. That might be the point though.

...then the rest of the world will see what the people of China and Russia already know: bans on VPNs cause them to explode in popularity and development pace.

There's a reason that the most sophisticated VPNs and tunneling tech are built to evade the GFW.

I recently visited a remote part of Siberia, and I was amazed at the ubiquity of VPNs. Grandmothers who grew up in shamanic traditions knew how to get around apparent traffic shaping (even on youtube!) to listen to their traditional music. It was quite inspiring.

I'm not saying bans are a good idea - I'd much rather the adults in the room read the writing on the wall and bring about peaceful dismantling of legacy states in favor of a censorship-resistant internet.

But it is coming either way.

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#222

I feel like everyone in this thread is assuming this is a good faith move by Australia to help kids in school and with socialization. I think phones and social media are harmful, but I get the sense there's a political motive behind this. We've been hearing politicians complain for years that they're losing the youth when it comes to long-standing foreign policy positions, etc... And suddenly they ban social media. R…

Maybe. Do you forget that people use to not have phones or social media and they still had independent thought? Just because kids aren’t introduced to videos and comments about politics at a young age, doesn’t mean they’re going to be brainwashed by the ruling government. Societies operated just the same before social media.

Edit: Dont get me wrong, there could be ulterior motives, but kids will have other ways to educate themselves on the happenings of the world beside social media

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#223

A paragraph from an email Reddit sent me presumably because I created my account in Australia: > Users confirmed to be under 16 will have their accounts suspended under the new Australian minimum age law. While we disagree with the Government's assessment of Reddit as being within the scope of the law, we need to take steps to comply. This means anyone in Australia with a Reddit account confirmed to be under 16 will…

If you gave them an email address, it's possible they were able to verify you with 3rd party data brokers without your knowledge.

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#225
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about we break up the tech industry instead? This muskian "I am above laws so I'll break up the USA/EU" is asinine and societies should come down on it like a ton of bricks.

I agree. It’s just there has not been a pro-EU vote in any form or capacity by any EU population. So the stopped doing referendums but the EU grew only even more unpopular- and lately with VDL and KK, its as if its a cruel joke we all expect for it to end soon.

What are you talking about? Lots of countries have voted to join EU. Any country can leave when they want. EU is still popular in most countries.

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#226
post #64
post #8

Quite 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).

Thinking about this this will of course fail. Because teens will do what they did before online: make their own social networks. But by necessity these will be small. I hope that's what will happen. That this is only really a problem for FANG, for the tech industry and doesn't actually prevent social media.

Funny, but I (and I believe many who support this law) would say that's a good thing. The problem is not (and never was) social interaction online, it is large corporations designing their algorithms to be as addictive as possible to tie kids as early as possible to their services.

I have had to recently get back to using Facebook (after creating the account ~15 years ago and leaving it dormant for >10 years), due to several sports clubs using it as their only means of communication. It's scary how good these algorithms have become, I often only want to look up something related to the club and end up being roped into 1h of doomscrolling. And I'm an adult with significant better impulse control than most teenagers.

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#227
Controlling access to any substance is a long process, and the motives aren’t always clear at the beginning.

I’m not sure why Australian policymakers chose to take this step now, but regardless of the motive, it feels like a meaningful starting point. Social media’s engagement-driven echo chamber model has contributed to a deeply divided world, and governments stepping in can at least make parents’ jobs a little easier.

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#228
post #8

Quite 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).

I can't see this as decisive.

* The ban only targets ten services.

* The ban applies only to actually logging into the service - everything can still be viewed when logged out. Users are still being tracked while logged out.

* Reddit (and possibly other services) are complying simply by using heuristics to detect under-16 users - they're not even employing any reliable verification measures.

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the ban does is stop kids from having accounts, if the service allows anonymous usage then they can still find somewhere to doom scroll. My teen son has been blocked from Snapchat, and was this evening doom scrolling on Tik Tok until I blocked it on our home network.

I'm curious to understand why your approach to TikTok is banning it. Why do you think this is the right solution? Are you concerned at all about your son's ability to cope independently from oversight and control?

I'm actually glad to read about a parent taking responsibility. There's nothing important about Tiktok that won't wait until the child is 16/18.

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually do think people directly see the negative public health impact, its so visceral in so many parents lives, and that that is the driving force behind all of this. I love being cynical, but I actually do buy these efforts as being purely "for the kids", kind of thing. Sure, there are knock-on effects, but I do buy the good faith-ness of phone bans in school and of these social media bans for kids.

It's very unfortunate. As a parent, I feel like it requires regulation at the national level because I can't win against Meta (FB, Insta), Google (Youtube), Snapchat and TikTok.

Interesting, my experience is completely opposite; I'm not losing to them at all.

Honest conversations with your kids from an early age are key.

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