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

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

#831

Post by AnonymousPlanet » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 9:01 AM UTC

gary_0 wrote: post #343

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…

This worldwide push for online ID verification is absolutely not in good faith, and I'm shocked at how few people on "Hacker" News are seeing it for what it is. Imagine going on 1990's or 2000's Usenet and telling those folks they'd have to upload government ID to prove they weren't children and keep using the system. Virtually everyone would have shouted this Big Brother shit down until it was their dying breath.

Parts of Usenet actually mandated real names. The idea was to make discussions more civilised. It didn't. And on top of that people were now subject to stalking and doxxing. I remember a poster who had a link to a defamation site in his signature. The site was targeted at another frequent poster in that newsgroup, detailing his address and his alleged intellectual failings.

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

#832

Post by rusk » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 9:03 AM UTC

re-thc wrote: post #829

manindahat wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an argument and worth monitoring, but IMO it's not a strong enough argument to stop this. This sort of ban is the same as existing laws banning the sale and consumption of alcohol or driving until kids are of age they will (on average) have sufficient maturity to handle the responsibility. Something we accept. Kids are not banned from digital communication. My daughter can still send text messages and make ph…

> I believe that the line in the sand over which platforms this applies to is the ones that You know a law is broken when its definition is defined by random people "knowing" where and how it applies. > This sort of ban is the same as existing laws banning the sale and consumption of alcohol or driving No it's not. Is every social media platform banned? How is it defined? This is the equivalent of going into a superm…

Like the worlds richest man claiming to be a free speech absolutist. Because you just know the sappy fuck has your best interests at heart.

> You know a law is broken when its definition is defined by random people "knowing" where and how it applies.

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

#833

Post by egorfine » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 9:08 AM UTC

Father of four here.

I will do everything in my power to keep my kids' connected to their social networks. I have a strongly opposing view: social media is one of the best inventions and there is no way or need to protect people from participating.

With all the negative effects they bring the society has to learn how to live with it instead of pretend fighting.

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

#834

Post by kubb » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 9:10 AM UTC

nomel wrote: post #632

kubb wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authoritarians use social networks to undermine democratic principles so not exposing kids to that takes power away from them. Or did I misunderstand something?

Authoritarians also use state influenced media to undermine democratic principles.

Yeah but with social media they can also undermine them outside of their state.

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

#835

Post by OhioMan2943 » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 9:11 AM UTC

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…

Congrats for arguing for... enabling child exploitation?

The esafety report stated it was not allowed for sites to screen all users ages, and that all services had to provide a non id method of age verification.

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

#836

Post by lm28469 » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 9:11 AM UTC

eimrine wrote: post #310

lm28469 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has some educational content, most of it is brain rot like everywhere else though. Open a brand new youtube account and check out what's being pushed by default, you either get room temperature IQ political analysts or "shorts" with softcore porn thumbnails to bait people for a click

Open a new YT account then feed it with [1] for few hours at least then you will unleash the full power of Youtube... unless you missclick even once into some popular blog typically they very clearly aimed at low-IQ people which accidentably might be your kid or somebody else like you know who I mean. But to prevent that slippery slope at least partly, just increase the feeding time of your YT account with the best r…

Sure, but then again that's not how most people use youtube in real life. You can trick it into temporarily not being a slop provider but it's a constant battle, and not one a 10-15 years old will engage in, which is to be expected, kids are kids and can't fight multi billion dollar companies hiring the top behavioural scientist of our era to create the most addictive ad delivery mechanism possible

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

#837

Post by heavyset_go » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 9:14 AM UTC

lovich wrote: post #463

indymike wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everyone must prove their age online now" creates a trail of identity that kills anonymous speech dead. Anonymous speech is very important to maintaining freedoms... such as freedom of speech and freedom of association.

Hard disagree on anonymous speech. Individual humans should have free speech but that is divorced from anonymous speech. With anonymous speech you don’t even know if you’re talking to a person or a program. If you want to say something, then say it with your identity. You don’t get to be anonymous when saying something to my face so why should it be allowed across a screen?

Just thought I'd share the EFF's take[1] on the importance of anonymity and its long history with free speech:

> Anonymous communications have an important place in our political and social discourse. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the right to anonymous free speech is protected by the First Amendment. A frequently cited 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission reads:

> > Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

> The tradition of anonymous speech is older than the United States. Founders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym "Publius " and "the Federal Farmer" spoke up in rebuttal. The US Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized rights to speak anonymously derived from the First Amendment.

> The right to anonymous speech is also protected well beyond the printed page. Thus in 2002 the Supreme Court struck down a law requiring proselytizers to register their true names with the Mayor's office before going door-to-door.

To build on that, the Fourth Amendment protections against general warrants stems from the fact that general warrants were used to identify and persecute anonymous authors, many of which were founders and framers.

[1] https://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity

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

#838

Post by hermannj314 » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 9:24 AM UTC

morshu9001 wrote: post #304

barbazoo wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ban kids yep, done > implement identity verification checks nope, not done so what's your point?

How are kids banned without an ID check?

>>> Companies have told Canberra they will deploy a mix of age inference - estimating a user's age from their behaviour - and age estimation based on a selfie, alongside checks that could include uploaded identification documents.

An algorithmic bouncer guesses your age and if he isn't happy you have to feed him proof until he is happy.

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

#839

Post by DeathArrow » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 9:26 AM UTC

If they scare teens of Instagram the danger is some of them will go to places like 4Chan.

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

#840

Post by bigfudge » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 9:30 AM UTC

samename wrote: post #483

bigfudge wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The attempt is to remove the market do exploiting the attention of children for profit. This doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth it. What’s more, the idea that this puts children at the mercy of authoritarians is laughable. The US tech industry has shown us beyond doubt that they are perfectly ok with genuine authoritarians in charge, provided the dollars keep rolling. Fuck them, and good on ya Australia.

What about future governments in Australia? This is ripe for abuse and scope creep. It also ties a uniform ID to an account, simplifying tracking and surveillance by corporations and governments. Plus, this is asking everyone in the country to give up their biometrics (face scanning is one implementation) or link your government issued ID to your social media account (look at the UK to see how this turned out - peopl…

I don't know the details of the implementation, but this sounds like an argument for strong data protection laws (and so no data retention) rather than inaction.

Also, I'm really struggling to think of examples where people have been arrested for "tweets against the government". The Linehan case? Most of the ones I can think of are like that — so basically culture war bullshit and overzealous policing of incitement laws.