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Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

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Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#271

Post by hcfman »

oefnak wrote: post #90
hcfman wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there is actually. If the government label the criticism fake news. In the Netherlands people have been fined hundred of thousands of euros for spreading fake news about the government. However if it’s not fake news they can do the same. You won’t be able to do anything about it because it order to show your evidence you need to be able to publish and the press on there Netherlands will not help you with that.

Please give more details about that fine. I But I'm sure you won't because the example wouldn't help your argument.

Here you go. A whole radio program on it.

https://www.nporadio1.nl/fragmenten/gaan/028ddaac-1369-49cb-...

The fake news that stood out to me did indeed sound pretty fake. I didn't believe it for a minute. But the point being if you fine things like that then what happens when someone has news that sounds unbelievable because it's horrific or flies against everything that democracy is supposed to stand for? If the government can fine like this then the news doesn't get exposed. Any BTW, there are a lot of people that would also not believe what happened to me. They would also think that it is fake news. Closing off reporting, means closing off avenues to highlight illegal activity from the government and hence less democracy.

Why do I care? Because I was a victim of illegal extra judicial activity as collateral damage to illegal activity (Collateral damage simply because I lived next door) and no news will organisation would print my story. But now it's quite clear that if I started to publish details on the Internet that very quickly I would be slapped with a large fine, so that avenue is now closed as well.

The details don't hurt my argument at all. Because my argument revolves around not being able to tell the difference between exposing really bad things that sound like nothing the governments would and other things that are not true.

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#272

Post by sandos »

pulse7 wrote: post #210
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have an addicted/bullied child would you make them a social pariah and create interminable arguments by taking away their devices? Yes. That is literally your job as the parent. If there was some teenage trend of injecting heroin, nobody would accept "but my kid's social life might suffer" as a reason to not stop them from doing heroin. It similarly does not suffice as a reason to not stop your kids from usi…

As a parent I literally support bans of social media for under-16s AND I also do my job as a parent: my kids get a smart phone at 16, until then they have a feature/dummy phone (which they hide from peers because they are ashamed to show it).

Not having a smartphone would make my kids "social pariahs" for sure.

We gave them phones fairly early, but locked down. It was not really a huge problem when they were younger, but social media (no, we shouldnt even call it is, its is 110% ADS FOR CHILREN!) is getting to be a real problem now I feel.

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#273

Post by thombles »

contingencies wrote: post #264
thombles wrote: post #139

As an Australian parent this is really pleasing to see. It's clearly inspired heavily by the work of Jon Haidt and Jean Twenge et al. The kids are not okay and the main thing stopping a worried parent from addressing it is that "all the other kids are on it". If you have an addicted/bullied child would you make them a social pariah and create interminable arguments by taking away their devices? Collective action is n…

As an Australian parent, congratulations: you are the problem . I for one was on a public panel with politicians discussing how ridiculous this proposal was, a couple of months ago, before it passed. The government gives all children email addresses while simultaneously banning them from social media. Only a bureaucracy could do this with a straight face. IMHO as a technology-engaged parent the answer to complexity o…

> The government gives all children email addresses while simultaneously banning them from social media. Only a bureaucracy could do this with a straight face.

If you think it's email that is causing youth mental health issues then I see why you are confused about my enthusiasm.

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#274

Post by sandos »

In Sweden advertising aimed at kids is illegal, and has been for a long time. But "social media" is bizarrely aimed at kids, or at least kids are extremely susceptible to what influencers are doing. My 10-year old has a wish list this year with about 70 beauty products. It makes me kinda sick.

The problem: me banning social media completely (instead of limiting which we do now) would not help completely, since all her friends use it and would influence her anyway.

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#275

Post by oblio »

ruthmarx wrote: post #192
oblio wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong. Banning smoking worked.

People were already moving away from smoking. The aggressive policies don't deserve all the credit.

There are many articles and documentaries about the impact of smoking adoption due to tobacco companies advertising primarily to kids.

Even if we disregard all the science, the fact that the very companies themselves were targeting kids shows that they knew where their money was coming from.

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#276

Post by somishere »

gloosx wrote: post #75
oblio wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning smoking in many places plus banning advertising it plus banning selling it to kids reduced smoking by unfathomable amounts.

Do you have data do back it up? From quickly looking at historical records online, I can't see any unfathomable amounts reduction, It's levelled on 20-30% of smokers among kids, and it remains a core challenge for child and adolescent health to the current day (according to 2020 WHO report[0]), plus they started to smoke vapes. So did the bans you sampled really work, or do they just smoke more discreetly and use tri…

Well, in Australia at least, the number of smokers in the 18-54 age cohort has almost halved in the decade upto 2022 (older smokers still tend to smoke), and more than halved in the 15-24 category.

A "national tobacco strategy" was introduced in 2011/2012 that brought plain packaging, increased taxation and a bunch of other measures.

Official data is here if you're interested: https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/insights-australian-smokers-...

There's also Wikipedia and any number of other resources that go into more detail on the history of decline: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_in_Australia

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#278

Post by somishere »

thombles wrote: post #139

As an Australian parent this is really pleasing to see. It's clearly inspired heavily by the work of Jon Haidt and Jean Twenge et al. The kids are not okay and the main thing stopping a worried parent from addressing it is that "all the other kids are on it". If you have an addicted/bullied child would you make them a social pariah and create interminable arguments by taking away their devices? Collective action is n…

As another Australian parent (with school age kids) I heartily agree. Eager to see how this plays out.

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#279

Post by thombles »

BrawnyBadger53 wrote: post #67
threeseed wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to turn down the volume here. Not being exposed to social networks for a few years is no way comparable to depriving them of bodily autonomy.

They are already mostly segmented off from their friends after school hours. They have killed off one of the final mediums for interaction and are preventing interaction with the rest of their generation's culture. They're also narrowing their world view to be more controlled by the state.

Actually this is a separate problem. If you look at the work of Jon Haidt who promotes the kinds of measures we're talking about here, it's only half the story. The other half is that we have become ridiculously overprotective in parenting in recent decades. Kids need independence and the ability to hang out and play with their peers away from direct adult supervision. The goal isn't to take away the internet and leave kids with nothing, it's to bring back the real-world contact and relationship-building.

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#280

Post by linuxandrew »

ehnto wrote: post #100
linuxandrew wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They specifically don’t prescribe any particular age verification methods. This would be a great time to follow up with legislation that updates their national IDs to be able to provide cryptographically secure proofs of age without leaking identity. Hard disagree. We do not need an internet driver's license. Australians are supposed to have a right to interact with organisations with privacy protections under the…

They can opt out, by not participating with the site. No one is mandated to use social media. But I would also want to see things go the other direction anyway, default to non-algorithmic feeds. Those with the awareness to opt-out are not the people at highest risk. I agree with basically everything else you said, and I think social media is generally a blight on society. But we can opt-out already, if you are on soc…

> They can opt out, by not participating with the site

The definition of social media under the legislation is essentially any form of digital communication that allows two or more people to communicate, as decided by the minister.

> No one is mandated to use social media

OK, I'll bite. What if you want to join an interest group (crafts, technical, political etc) that organises meetings digitally on a social media site? Sure, you have the choice to not use a social media website, and if you do, in all likelihood not join your choice of interest group. The point is that Meta long used unfair and anti-competitive means to corner the market, and obviously not to interoperate so that it is difficult for people to leave. This might surprise you but the relationship between platforms and users is usually coerced and not really consensual. If you do not find yourself in this position, good for you. I'm a very firm believer that anti-competitive social media companies should be regulated in positive ways, like forcing interoperability and forcing companies to making algorithmic content opt-in.

> if you are on social media platforms with algo feeds, you are signalling that this works for you

Yeah except people are usually on those platforms for many reasons, like access to group chats and messages, as the platforms have a wide reach. A lot of people become outcasts by quitting social media, myself included, because our friends choose to continue to use it.

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