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.
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What do you mean with MAPs? Sorry, haven't seen the acronym before.
Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
121–130 of 498 posts
Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#122My thoughts immediately go to all the queer kids in rural areas who stand to be cut off from the only support networks they have.
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Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#123My thoughts immediately go to all the queer kids in rural areas who stand to be cut off from the only support networks they have.
I think messaging apps are exempted so hopefully online communities in places like Discord will be perfectly fine
Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#124My thoughts immediately go to all the queer kids in rural areas who stand to be cut off from the only support networks they have.
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Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#125My thoughts immediately go to all the queer kids in rural areas who stand to be cut off from the only support networks they have.
> 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
I shared those concerns at first - as that was similar to my situation (though less lgbt+ but more just on-the-spectrum stuff), but if the article is correct then I find myself strongly in support (so-far...): my impression is that this is targeting the kinds of vacuous mass-market "engagement"-driven social-media services that us HN denizens aren't exactly fans of: Facebook, Instagram, the like. The article says that sites like YouTube and IM services are exempt.
> Messaging apps, "online gaming services" and "services with the primary purpose of supporting the health and education of end-users" will not fall under the ban, as well as sites like YouTube that do not require users to log in to access the platform.
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For an anecdote: when I was middle-school-aged and unsupervised on the net, the "mainstream" platforms of the day (AOL Groups, I guess?) were just as unappealing then as Facebook is today (fortunately I wasn't on AOL anyway) - instead I found my home in places you get to via IRC - or extremely niche phpNuke-then-phpBB sites: these places aren't run by companies, just basement-dwelling sysadmins so they'd be exempt I imagine, so it doesn't look like any harm will come to those kinds of places.
For those youngsters-that-dont-fit-in starting their journey of self-discovery, I think getting banned from Facebook is a good start. Who wants their parents (and let's be honest: it's only our parents on Facebook now anyway) to get notified about your joining a cybergoth meetup group.
...now if only we could ban everyone else off Facebook too.
Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#126Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn’t that what the electorate desires? By electing personable but mediocore, sometimes even incompetent, MPs over the intelligent but aloof candidates. Someone or some committee, somewhere, still has to actually work out all the details, and if it’s not done in Parliament, because the average MP literally can’t grasp even half the agenda items, it has to be done elsewhere. Edit: And even that is probably being too o…
I started losing faith in democracy since Brexit. It is still better than other forms of governance, that seems like a low bar. People making “protest” votes without bothering to understand the consequences, single issue voters, young people who don’t even bother to vote, dumb/racist/misogynist voters… Democracy only works if voters take it seriously, only if media is at least reasonably honest/competent etc. Across…
It’s by design and being exploited
Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#128I'm torn here because I think there is very real harm being done with social media not just to kids but to adults as well but you should look at anything being "to protect the children" with extreme prejudice as it is likely just a power grab and way to reduce privacy. The saying "never let a good tragedy go to waste" comes to mind here.
Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#129If you’re tempted to think “this isn’t worth it, too hard to enforce without affecting something else”… read “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt. There is very real, irreparable harm being done to young people, and it merits trying to make it right, not just surrendering to it. Surely the problem of verifying a property of someone (the Boolean of “is over X age”) without sharing further details, is a surmounta…
The information theory problem is how to do so without creating a government ledger of every platform that every person uses, and a government kill switch to disable any platform the government doesn’t like.
Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#130If you’re tempted to think “this isn’t worth it, too hard to enforce without affecting something else”… read “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt. There is very real, irreparable harm being done to young people, and it merits trying to make it right, not just surrendering to it. Surely the problem of verifying a property of someone (the Boolean of “is over X age”) without sharing further details, is a surmounta…
> Surely the problem of verifying a property of someone (the Boolean of “is over X age”) without sharing further details, is a surmountable problem given all the cryptographic technologies at our disposal.
Only if preserving privacy is the goal and I'm sure we both know it isn't.