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Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

abc.net.au

111–120 of 498 posts

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#111
post #81

My thoughts immediately go to all the queer kids in rural areas who stand to be cut off from the only support networks they have.

Any and all kids in rural areas. Experience deprivation is a very real thing. I grew up in a desolate rural area, circa the 1980s and 1990s. The Internet - WebChatBroadcasting, ICQ, IRC, etc - was like a gift from the gods in the early 1990s. Cutting off young teens from access to the world via 'social media,' is a human rights violation.

The internet today is a very different place from the 90's. I really hope your children don't have access to the sickest, shallowest, most addictive and most dangerous place on the net.

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#112
With every passing year I can’t help but think Jonathan Haidt was right all along. I think this will be a very successful law in terms of positive societal impact. But I do worry about the negative repercussions of being able to ban means of practicing free speech. Australia already has a bad track record for that.

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#113
post #88
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Simply" If you're making money from aussie customers, you need to comply to aussie rules

How will the Australian government compel such companies to comply?

Just by blocking the network traffic. Plenty of countries do this with sites they don’t like for various reasons.

Yes VPNs blah blah. But it will be pretty hard to operate some rogue social site when you can’t sell any respectable ads besides maybe porn sites and malware, and are only accessible via VPN. Pretty high barrier to adoption for a brand new site.

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#114
post #16

My friend is a media lawyer in Australia He can’t even advise if some video game developers he represents’ multiplayer games are exempt from the ban He says the legislation is just an under defined word salad Note this was several days ago and it may have been amended in the mean time

I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to sleep tonight knowing the child exploitation industry is experiencing an existential crisis.

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#115

I can’t get behind a ban because we’re fighting an unstoppable force: the connected future. This is the world we live in and kids will have to “evolve” to their new environment. I think parents and schools need to change the role they play.

> I think parents and schools need to change the role they play.

It's not that I directly disagree, but honestly I don't think parents and schools have much of a fighting chance against companies like TikTok, SnapChat YouTube or Facebook. We need to create rules that prevent companies from employing addictive algorithms which locks users in cycles of endless mind numbing doom scrolling. Once the social media companies have changed their "algorithms" and recommendation engines or removed them entirely, then we can start talking about what parents and schools can do.

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#116
post #81

My thoughts immediately go to all the queer kids in rural areas who stand to be cut off from the only support networks they have.

Any and all kids in rural areas. Experience deprivation is a very real thing. I grew up in a desolate rural area, circa the 1980s and 1990s. The Internet - WebChatBroadcasting, ICQ, IRC, etc - was like a gift from the gods in the early 1990s. Cutting off young teens from access to the world via 'social media,' is a human rights violation.

The idea that social media is like a Meta commercial, all making new friends and video calls to smiling Grandparents, etc. is a fabrication, presumably one that a lot of HN folks have a vested interest in maintaining. Kids are lonelier now than they have ever been.

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#117
post #110

I know this is targeting social media but just pointing out that there is no evidence screen time is affecting kids development and pretty solid evidence that it doesn't have much effect at all. https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/no-evidence-screen-time...

There’s a difference between screen time and social media usage.

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#120

Make absolutely no mistake. The real reason why politicians push through these anti-social media laws is to prevent children from networking and discussing and sharing revolutionary ideas. These laws are designed to prevent generations from establishing a baseline sociopolitical coherency and unity. I was subject to a home firewall and computer use surveillance as a child for the exact same reason, because my cult gu…

Opposing a social media law “violently” is not an appropriate call to action. That said, the web of yesteryear and the way kids use social media today could not be any more different. Kids mindlessly scrolling through oceans of vanity, teen girls with more and more suicidal, being stuck in the high-school bullying social environment 24/7. The laws are a response to a real issue — especially as parents themselves get addicted / stuck in the same ways. They have kids and are rightfully fearful. I grew up in the same awesome web, but it sucks now, commercialized and tapped for every last cent it can produce.
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