How will Australia's under-16 social media ban work? We asked the law's enforcer (2024)

> 84% of 8- to 12-year-olds are already on social media. And interestingly, we asked, "Were your parents or any adults aware that you were setting up these social media accounts early?" And 80% of them said yes. And in 90% of cases, it was parents that helped them set up their accounts

What's preventing the parents to do the account creation verification for the kids, and then kids just taking over the account? (Unless there's constant re-verification daily, which no apps do)

The only thing is that the ban gives parents some way to say "no" but given enough nagging...

Or, you know, they can find someone a few years elder, just like when buying booze and cigarettes.

84% of 8 year olds? What the heck? What is an 8 year old even doing on social media? I knew many teenagers use social media, but kids under 10? Sure there's no way social media is a meaningful/useful experience at that stage of brain and social development.

> And medical research has shown based on your hand movement, it can identify your age.

She may not be lying. She may just be a big enough fucking idiot to believe the AV industry's lies.

But my guess is that they're both knowingly lying.

> I'm not sure that there is a proven link between hacker news use and elevated probability of depression and anxiety in children and adolescents.

We can extend that thought further than just HN. The reporter (surprisingly!) brings up something we've known for a while but has been slow getting traction. That the relation between noted harms and SM is far from clear.

     There really is not a super clear causal link between greater use of social media and upticks in anxiety and depression among teens. 

More detail: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/18/yet-another-massive-stud...

Regarding youth mental health, there are strong causal competitors (to SM) that aren't well examined. Like the elimination of free roaming areas (from sq mi to sq ft), attacks on child independence (false stranger danger messaging) and car culture + trespassing culture (traded endless walkable areas for narrow death zones).

I argue that since mid-1900s, we've eradicated most of what kids needed to learn complex problem solving, develop ambition and earn self-esteem.

If I wanted to erode youth mental health, I'd do exactly what we've done. I'd get rid of irreplaceable environments where youth experienced critical growth.

  ...But there are digital identity providers, like one called Yoti, that can estimate someone's age using facial recognition technology.

  But we do want to make sure there is not discrimination, or bias, and some of these technologies are less accurate depending on the kind of face being scanned. I met with an age assurance provider last week in Washington, D.C., who is using an AI-based system that looks at hand movements and has a 99% success rate.

Both of these are interesting: first part implies that face -> age is considered no-go even with NN and even outside academia. And the second part, does that mean one can potentially ask a person to show a hand, or even feed a video stream of hand(s) moving, and make algorithmically generated remarks about the person or the group?