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

abc.net.au

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

#251

Post by [deleted] »

mavhc wrote: post #36
llui85 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bi... (explanatory memorandum here: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/em... ) And the amendment to the first reading which was agreed to today which has the bits about ID verification being disallowed: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/am... (supplementary explanatory memorandum here: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/…

Not disallowed, just they also have to offer an alternative. Question is why hasn't Australia created a Digital ID system that can prove you're >= 16 years old without giving away other info?

[deleted]

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

#252

Post by nomilk »

mickeyfrac wrote: post #248
nomilk wrote: post #175

Every single Australian 's ID will have to be verified (in order to confirm their age). Depending on the degree of cooperation (/coercion) the Australian government has with social media companies, the Aus Govt will be able to access citizen social media data with relative ease. So no more pseudo anonymous accounts (or, at least, they'll be made more difficult, especially for non-technical folk). Reminds of the 'chil…

How many under 16s read newspapers or watch news anyway? All you need to do is look up the mental health stats since the iPhone release to see why parents are massively concerned. There has never been a time when an alert parent didn’t have a fair idea of what info a kid was exposed to. This is why going to university is such an awakening. Now the parents basically need a background in infosec to stop their kids acce…

> stop their kids accessing hardcore porn, violence and other mind bending content.

Such sites are not among the social media sites required to verify Australian's ID/ages, which hints that protecting kids is merely a pretence.

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

#253

Post by wkat4242 »

I'm definitely not going to ID myself to go on social media. Then I'll just quit (in fact I've quit most social media already anyway due to the enshittification). Even a parameter linked to my real ID is not acceptable to me. And also, after social media, I'm sure other sites will start demanding more checks as well. It's a slippery slope.

Luckily I don't live in Australia but I find this a troubling development. Anonymity on the internet is necessary. Because it is much more permanent than the real world. Every little misstep can be dissected decades later.

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

#254

Post by Supernaut »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #227
xp84 wrote: post #104

If 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…

"Ban social media for everyone because it might be bad for some kids" is as fragile as an argument as "ban guns for everyone because some bad guy might get his hands on one."

Well, "ban guns for everyone because some bad guy might get his hands on one" has always been the law in my country, and it has worked out extremely well. There has never been a mass shooting here, ever.

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

#255

Post by titannet »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #210
Funes- wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents should be more responsible. That's it. This measure is, potentially, deeply ingraining the (terrible) idea that the State is responsible instead, so when all these young kids have children, they, just as their parents, will lack the ability to take responsibility and make their children more responsible by proxy, and so on, and so forth. It's a never ending cycle that is perpetuated by not tackling the proble…

The difficulty is co-ordination. My job as a "responsible parent" is much more difficult if I have to fight prevailing social norms and my kids perceive they are being excluded from conversations and arbitrarily cut off from their peers. The social media ban is similar to the logic behind gaming limits in China. The idea is that while the controls themselves are easily circumvented, it gives everyone an excuse to do…

This, I would go so far as keeping kids from social media is in conflict with (arguably) one of the most important jobs parents have which is getting kids into social interactions. (E.g. by teaching them good manners so others will play with them)

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

#256

Post by cynicalsecurity »

bArray wrote: post #222

I generally think that children's access to the internet needs to be more closely monitored. You wouldn't allow your child to walk up to random strangers in the street without you there, why do we allow it online? I have on a few occasions had to protect a child from an adult in an online group. What concerns me here is how this will be enforced. The only way to implement this is with IDs to check birth dates, and so…

This is the most horrifying thing in all of this. People with a prison guard mentality are already thinking how to enforce the rules in an even stricter way. Rules that are violating freedom of information, one of the most basics Western freedoms. Yes, there are no repreciations for the violating them at first, the frog is getting boiled slowly, but give it a few years and people who let their child use social media will be treated as criminals and put in prisons. Everything "for the sake of children."

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

#257

Post by Loughla »

yieldcrv wrote: post #215
grecy wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My personal hunch is legacy media is largely driving this, due to them seeing the writing on the wall and knowing 'social media' is their biggest threat For anyone that thinks this is tin foil hat stuff, remember the Australian government passed a law that Facebook and Google MUST pay Rupert Murdoch money everytime someone clicks a link on one of those sites to a Rupert Murdoch owned media company (basically all of…

Goals

Seriously though. While I don't like him even slightly, Murdoch is legit a business genius.

Imagine being powerful enough that you can bend an entire country to your will. That's amazing. Sociopathic probably, but amazing nonetheless.

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

#258

Post by squigz »

afavour wrote: post #240
squigz wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I don't understand: if you and other parents are so concerned about this... why let your children use those sites?

This feels equivalent to “if you don’t like smoking, just don’t smoke”. Like I said in my original post I don’t think this stuff is specific to kids. I think social media has an equivalent to “second hand smoke” that poisons society whether or not we individually engage with it. And yes, classrooms are full of it.

You'd presumably advocate for banning it for everyone, then? If so, might I ask how you'd define 'social media'? Presumably Facebook counts. Does HN, or Discord?

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

#260

Post by afavour »

jedberg wrote: post #239
afavour wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My personal hunch is legacy media is largely driving this The level of conspiracy theory about the “mainstream media” feels out of control at times. Legacy media’s control over the population is already gone (as you stated), with what leverage would they be forcing this? Occam’s Razor: voters are genuinely concerned about the effect social media is having on kids. As a parent I hear about these concerns a lot. That…

> voters are genuinely concerned about the effect social media is having on kids. But where are they hearing about these effects that get them so concerned? Is it the Australian news? Australian news is fairly concentrated and is mostly owned by one family. A family that got a law passed forcing only Google and Facebook to pay pretty much only them. The conspiracy isn't that far fetched.

> But where are they hearing about these effects that get them so concerned?

From real life? I know parents of middle school and up kids and they have first hand experience of the effects of social media and I’ve heard very little that’s positive.

I’m not saying the media aren’t trying to influence people but again, Occam’s razor: I really don’t think these parents need Rupert Murdoch whispering in their ear to be concerned about social media and kids.

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