Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban • Hacker News Board

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

#451

Post by whimsicalism » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:35 PM UTC

KaiserPro wrote: post #442

pizza wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The platform operators have a responsibility to remove garbage from their site. I don’t see how it’s better if adults are the recipients of these alleged harms. And I definitely don’t see how the platform operators are going to clean up their act if — rather than being penalized — they can pretend that the problem has vanished into thin air because a specific category of vulnerable users is now de jure disappeared.

> rather than being penalized The problem is, currently doing any kind of content filtering, as in making illegal stuff hard to find, and having a moderated semi walled garden, plays right into the noisy fuckers brigade. If I were to design a TV programme which is aimed at 11-16 year olds, where I just play soft porn every 15 seconds, offer guides on how to do financial scams, and encourage the children to hide away…

I'm glad when I was a teenager the adults in my life were less concerned with protecting me from wrongthought. Are modern teenagers more or less credulous consumers of information than adults, I wonder.

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

#452

Post by jonwinstanley » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:36 PM UTC

multiplegeorges wrote: post #447

skwee357 wrote: post #408

The next step is to outlaw social media in general, and maybe the world will become a bit better. Edit: in case someone decides to disagree with me, here is a non-exhaustive list of issues that social media has created: isolation from the real world, unrealistic expectations in terms of looks/status/success, dehumanization by turning people into likes-dislikes, dehumanizations by creating influencers whose sole purpo…

There is nothing that social media provides that a private group chat with your closest people doesn't fulfill. It could be banned with nothing of value lost.

The whole world seems to be hooked on TikTok, reels and shorts for entertainment.

Reversing that would take some doing.

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

#453

Post by Sevrene » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:36 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #346

Sevrene wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we should normalise children on platforms where the content contains political agitation, sexual and violent content, crypto and fintech scams, etc. Especially when this content is packaged up to them and commodified. These platforms make more money than the ATO (Australian Tax Office) brings in a year. I think they have the moral obligation and means to create safer spaces- either inside or seperate fr…

> I don't think we should normalise children on platforms where the content contains political agitation Why not? Why won't you give political agency to young adults? I'm saying this as a kid who grew up in Romania, just after Ceausescu had been executed, so throughout the '90s, I do very well remember all the political news and commentary coming my way (I was a teen), but I can't say that it bothered, not at all, it…

Small things I want to add or say:

- It's not young adults, it's 15 and under. Personally I would classify 17-20something as young adult (it's a bit subjective isn't it).

- The younger children don't really care about politics honestly. Curious if you have an age that you're ok with only ensuring irl politics for children? I think age to vote is a much bigger concern for me here in terms of civil liberties.

- Parents can still make that choice for their child (unclear how this will work to me yet, to be fair).

- I've become convinced no one really practises 'politics' online. People barely even debate anymore. They argue, they perform activism, they aggitate, its what gets attention (thanks to social media). I'm worried people think this is normal, it's not- political discourse used to be much more productive. I remember when fallacies were actually brought up logically on the internet and people actually cared about the accusation.

- I did explicit rp with adults as 7 year old on MSN chatrooms back in the day :')

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

#454

Post by petcat » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:36 PM UTC

yladiz wrote: post #434

zmmmmm wrote: post #405

A lot of the criticism is based on the concept that it won't be technically watertight. But the key is that it doesn't have to be watertight to work. Social media is all about network effects. Once most kids are on there, everyone has to be on there. If you knock the percentage down far enough, you break the network effect to the point where those who don't want to don't feel pressured to. If that is all it does, it'…

In the EU you don’t need to upload your ID anywhere, the service can use the government’s portal for ID verification. In the case of age verification they can get a yes/no response if the age is above some threshold. This is opaque to the service so they wouldn’t get any additional ID details.

> This is opaque to the service

The "service" is irrelevant. I think most people would trust Porno Hub to be discreet about their visits. That's in their business interest. But now they have to tell your government about all the times you're visiting Porno Hub.

And nobody should trust their government.

Also, keep in mind that western governments share with each other. There will come a time when Australians will try to enter USA but they'll get flagged at the border because the AUS government shared that this particular individual visited Porno Hub and a few other age-restricted websites 7,000 times in the last 30 days. Red Flag!

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

#455

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:38 PM UTC

Alternative to archive.md, archive.ph

Text-only:

https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1S3fVC...

https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1S2nVb...

    echo url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/world/asia/australia-social-media-ban-under-16.html \
    |curl -K/dev/stdin -Agooglebot > 1.htm
    firefox ./1.htm
    links -dump 1.htm|sed -n '/Effect/,/region./p'

More

https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1S5G8h...

https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1S5sYp...

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

#456

Post by indymike » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:40 PM UTC

phantasmish wrote: post #437

indymike wrote: post #406

Father of five here, and founder of a social media marketing company (exited). Our kids are up against problems we didn't have during the great expansion of social. The three big things: 1. State level actors and well funded not for profits are fighting an information war to influence our kids. And they are very good at it. Down to having troll farms to talk one on one. Every time something new happens in the world,…

I'm not sure why a person would want to let their kids hang out any place where that stuff you report is common, if it's at all possible to avoid it. I'm gonna continue to run with "no social media", which has worked so far. They can message people they actually know IRL, somewhere without a feed full of crap from people they don't know. That's plenty. Like I can't think of any analogous place in physical space I'd l…

> I'm not sure why a person would want to let their kids hang out any place where that stuff you report is common,

A great percentage of serious crimes (from rape to fraud) are committed by family and friends of the victims. Should we not leave our children with our family alone?

The best move is to teach your children how to not be victimized. It is part of "being responsible for yourself". My parents taught me how to be safe in a bad neighborhood because sometimes you have to go there. They taught me how to pick good friends who wouldn't do bad things to me. They taught me how to spot the precursors to bad things. They let me hang out unsupervised. Because they taught me how to be responsible for myself. Why not teach your kids how to navigate the internet safely.

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

#457

Post by morgengold » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:40 PM UTC

jonwinstanley wrote: post #452

multiplegeorges wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing that social media provides that a private group chat with your closest people doesn't fulfill. It could be banned with nothing of value lost.

The whole world seems to be hooked on TikTok, reels and shorts for entertainment. Reversing that would take some doing.

There will definitely be hellish withdrawal symptoms.

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

#458

Post by feb012025 » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:40 PM UTC

stevage wrote: post #290

feb012025 wrote: post #161

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…

> We've been hearing politicians complain for years that they're losing the youth when it comes to long-standing foreign policy positions I have literally never heard this. The ban doesn't stop teens consuming social media content like tik tok. Your argument seems like quite a stretch.

I'm very surprised you've never heard anything like this.

Here's Hillary Clinton onstage a week ago: https://x.com/prem_thakker/status/1995961131215847749

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

#459

Post by roenxi » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:41 PM UTC

zmmmmm wrote: post #405

A lot of the criticism is based on the concept that it won't be technically watertight. But the key is that it doesn't have to be watertight to work. Social media is all about network effects. Once most kids are on there, everyone has to be on there. If you knock the percentage down far enough, you break the network effect to the point where those who don't want to don't feel pressured to. If that is all it does, it'…

Well, yes but the other problem is this is putting authoritarians in charge of more stuff. I had a comment comparing this to allowing people to eat too much food and that is literally where the logical outcome of this sort of thinking goes - it happens in practice, that isn't some sort of theoretical risk. The more the government decides what people can and can't want to do the worse the potential gets when they make mistakes. And this is further normalising the government making decisions about speech where they have every incentive and tendency to shut down people who tell inconvenient and important truths.

The risks are not worth the rewards of half-heatedly trying to stop kids communicating with other kids. They're still going to bully each other and what have you. They're still going to develop unrealistic expectations. They're probably even still going to use social media in practice.

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

#460

Post by Tadpole9181 » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:41 PM UTC

petcat wrote: post #454

yladiz wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the EU you don’t need to upload your ID anywhere, the service can use the government’s portal for ID verification. In the case of age verification they can get a yes/no response if the age is above some threshold. This is opaque to the service so they wouldn’t get any additional ID details.

> This is opaque to the service The "service" is irrelevant. I think most people would trust Porno Hub to be discreet about their visits. That's in their business interest. But now they have to tell your government about all the times you're visiting Porno Hub. And nobody should trust their government. Also, keep in mind that western governments share with each other. There will come a time when Australians will try…

To be entirely fair, a government that would abuse your vague "am I allowed to access porn" history seems well into the territory of a government that would just make it up. A nefarious, powerful entity has no real requirement to be honest in their maliciousness.

They also have more direct means of accessing more specific data via ISPs, audits, banks, etc.