The UK government's turn towards authoritarianism on these sorts of things is extremely worrisome! Invest in a VPN to keep yourself safe.
Where do you suggest for VPN egress?
The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy
21–30 of 156 posts
Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy
#22My 15-year old niece who recently visited her cousins in Australia assured me that the recently enacted Aussie law did not affect her ability to access socials while in Australia, nor has it affected her U16 cousins, who still have their accounts. Apparently the age checking there only applies to newly created accounts.
Is there a plan to start fining the social media companies themselves? Or raise their liability thresholds? This is sort of like the illegal-immigration debate. If you’re serious about fixing it, go after employers. Same for underage social media users. If you want to actually solve it, you have to penalize the platforms.
This is the plan in the UK, yes: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=4500988470135094
Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy
#23Like most I've been listening to this same old argument for nearly 30 years. Old enough now to know it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to even be 50% effective to mark a substantial improvement, a significant chunk of young people won't even need a technical restriction beyond being told the behaviour is against the law because it's bad for them.
But keep goading with "it's technically impossible" and watch what's left of the Internet turn into a government licensing fest, because it is entirely technically possible. Imagine how much cleaner and shiny the nation's pipes would be if we simply throttled any ciphertext flow that couldn't be matched to an Ofcom license holder. They'd never do that. No country in the world has done that, right?
Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy
#24My 15-year old niece who recently visited her cousins in Australia assured me that the recently enacted Aussie law did not affect her ability to access socials while in Australia, nor has it affected her U16 cousins, who still have their accounts. Apparently the age checking there only applies to newly created accounts.
Is there a plan to start fining the social media companies themselves? Or raise their liability thresholds? This is sort of like the illegal-immigration debate. If you’re serious about fixing it, go after employers. Same for underage social media users. If you want to actually solve it, you have to penalize the platforms.
they will apparently be fined around AUD$50M if they fail to do due diligence (not sure how the legislation phrases. I am not sure if any social media company has at this stage. Unfortunately we have a dictator as a so-called e-safety commissioner backed up by an equally useless PM who seem to think all parents are unable to monitor themselves or their kids online behaviour
Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy
#25[deleted]
Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy
#26Crazy to think that all of that happens in the country of George Orwell that was probably too in advance for his time with 1984 and the Animal Farm.
It was supposed to be a kind of satire of his own time, but it was in the end a perfect prediction of what is coming to us now.
Scary to see how far will go the Pigs that are in command in UK, France, Canada, ...
Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy
#27My 15-year old niece who recently visited her cousins in Australia assured me that the recently enacted Aussie law did not affect her ability to access socials while in Australia, nor has it affected her U16 cousins, who still have their accounts. Apparently the age checking there only applies to newly created accounts.
Is there a plan to start fining the social media companies themselves? Or raise their liability thresholds? This is sort of like the illegal-immigration debate. If you’re serious about fixing it, go after employers. Same for underage social media users. If you want to actually solve it, you have to penalize the platforms.
[deleted]
Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy
#28> Again, every detailed study on the subject has found that the number of teenagers who have negative experiences on social media is tiny. The study they linked is just self reported data from an internet survey. I'm sure that 13 year olds who don't get enough sleep because they're endlessly scrolling through ads, influencers, and disinformation don't see any problem with it the same way that a survey of alcoholics w…
It's interesting to see UK-based influencers all citing these weak studies (internet surveys) about how social media is not so bad for children, or bemoaning the huge loss for children whose access to educational videos will be cut. While the financial motive is clear, they must all believe it to an extent, because social media made their careers and changed their lives. The reality is that the vast majority of kids…
>> The reality is that the vast majority of kids aren't interested in learning video editing or movie directing
Also the idea that they can't do these things without social media or YouTube is absurd. The people actually interested in learning something new will go down even deeper rabbit holes, try things themselves, and come out better than they would have following some YouTube tutorials.
Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy
#29Like most I've been listening to this same old argument for nearly 30 years. Old enough now to know it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to even be 50% effective to mark a substantial improvement, a significant chunk of young people won't even need a technical restriction beyond being told the behaviour is against the law because it's bad for them. But keep goading with "it's technically impossible" and wat…
At what cost though? Everyone will now need to submit real ID to access social media.
Smaller social media sites will probably just shutdown since it’s unlikely they can afford the whole verification process.
Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy
#30Like most I've been listening to this same old argument for nearly 30 years. Old enough now to know it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to even be 50% effective to mark a substantial improvement, a significant chunk of young people won't even need a technical restriction beyond being told the behaviour is against the law because it's bad for them. But keep goading with "it's technically impossible" and wat…
At what cost though? Everyone will now need to submit real ID to access social media. Smaller social media sites will probably just shutdown since it’s unlikely they can afford the whole verification process.
The same was true of food safety. Aunt Tracey might not be able to sell cupcakes from her home any more (made in the oven next to where the cat likes to sleep because of the heat), but we centralised things enough that when BSE and Salmonella outbreaks happen, which nowadays is extremely rare, we know how and why almost immediately. If the cost of ridding ourselves of animal torture, terrorism and child pornography is a few hundred fewer Mastodon instances I could most certainly live with that