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Australia's social media ban has failed

reuters.com

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Re: Australia's social media ban has failed

#31

I've said this to every single person who pushed for this. "Imagine you're a teenager, and your parents and government tell you to not do something... What will happen?" The answer is of course that they keep doing it anyhow. But hide it. As an Aussie, and a parent. What I wanted was that the government mandate that in order for your website or app to launch in Australia, that if you want to allow kids between certai…

Nice idea but how are you going to prevent the kids from creating their own parent accounts while preserving people's privacy and without being too invasive?

You introduce it at a really young age, which is what we did for our daughter. She doesn't get access to anything that doesn't have good parental controls.

So far it's working fine, I expect that to change in the future. But it's also both the carrot and the stick at the moment.

As for creating parent accounts themselves. Imagine you've got a kid, you've created an account for you and the kid.. you have stats, data, usage etc. And suddenly the kids on their device all day, but you see nothing. That's how you know.

Will the kid find a way around it. Probably.. I expect them too. But it's still a hell of a lot better than what we have. Because it puts more control and visibility in the hands of the parents than it does the state and people like Peter Thiel.

Will there be idiot parents who just don't care. For sure. But thats already happening. You can't stop that.

Re: Australia's social media ban has failed

#32
post #7
post #4

The fact that they'll ban kids from accessing every social media except Reddit tells you everything you need to know about the real motives behind this "ban".

I'm not on social media. But reddit seems slightly more intelligent than tiktok, instagram, X. What's the real motive then, according to you?

I am not the parent, but there is a view that this was, alongside the earlier News Media Bargaining Code in 2021, the under-16s ban legislation was at least partially motivated by an interest in benefitting the legacy or mainstream media in Australia.

The Prime Minister's announcement of the policy included, unusually, a callout to one of the major news organisations (Newscorp) for their campaign (called Let Them Be Kids) in favour of such a ban[0]:

> I do want to pay tribute to the campaign that's been run by media organisations on this. I do want to single out NewsCorp for the campaign that they've run, Let Them Be Kids. It's an example of a media organisation being engaged in something that's of concern to the community.

[0]: https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-46363

Re: Australia's social media ban has failed

#35
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not on social media. But reddit seems slightly more intelligent than tiktok, instagram, X. What's the real motive then, according to you?

Reddit is also a dedicated porn website.

if it’s “also” a porn website then it’s not “dedicated”.

Re: Australia's social media ban has failed

#36
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not on social media. But reddit seems slightly more intelligent than tiktok, instagram, X. What's the real motive then, according to you?

Reddit is also a dedicated porn website.

hah. As far as my girlfriend knows, it's dedicated only to cats and people behaving badly at Walmart.

And here I just called it more intelligent, lol. I should qualify that. I've seen her instagram feed too, and somehow it's even more absurd...

Re: Australia's social media ban has failed

#37
post #23
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, are you suggesting that the legal use of smartphones should be banned for anyone under the age of 18? What kind of society do you want to live in?

The one we lived in 1995?

And why not the one 1895? Some people seem to prefer this as well, but you perhaps would not like it.

If you prefer living without a smartphone its completly up to you and I would always stand for your right to not have one, but on the other side I am also standing for the right to have one if someone desires one.

Re: Australia's social media ban has failed

#40

Banning social media for kids before banning junk food for kids when you have a childhood obesity/health crisis just shows which companies greased the hands that made the laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_obesity_in_Australia

Well, they have been trying to fight childhood obesity. It's just that as usual that's difficult too. Ultimately the failures will continue unless parents are the ones implementing meaningful change at home.
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