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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

#281

Post by djaychela »

squigz wrote: post #234
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…

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

I'm assuming you don't have kids? It's impossible to stop them, both on a technical and social level. You'd guarantee a destroyed relationship with your kids if trying to do so without their consent.

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

#282

Post by watwut »

blackoil wrote: post #268
pimterry wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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). This isn't a gi…

Why not lock device/accounts as minor and put onus on school and parents to ensure devices are appropriately tagged? At least for pre-teens I strongly think it shall work.

Because it will take about 1 month till there is some service the parents will want the kids to use that wont be available on such device (a kids show, a kids game, a page necessary for homework). So, they will have strong motivation to not label them as such.

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

#284

Post by throw10920 »

slibhb wrote: post #178
afavour wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if we should ban anything it's drugs and gambling, not tiktok You realise children can legally do neither, right? Government should be in the business of improving citizens lives. As another commenter said, left to their own devices companies would still be using leaded paint everywhere if it was 1c cheaper per gallon. I’ve grown very tired of this “any regulation is bad regulation” viewpoint, it doesn’t hold u…

Some regulations are good. Like the ones regulating drugs and gambling (that have been largely dismantled). But we don't need the government to protect people from Facebook!

I would say that it depends on the exact details of regulation being discussed, not just the target.

For instance, you could propose a regulation that says that any type of gambling with any wager, whether using real currency or fictional, for any age range, should be illegal. I think most people would consider that to be unreasonable.

You could also propose a regulation that says that companies cannot collect personal data on individuals for advertising purposes unless that individual is directly engaged with that company as a customer. This would hopefully render illegal Facebook's "shadow profiles"[1] that collect data on non-customers. While more controversial, I'd say that this would still be supported by most people you'd meet, while still falling into the category of "the government protecting people from Facebook".

Details of regulation matter, a lot.

[1] https://www.howtogeek.com/768652/what-are-facebook-shadow-pr...

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

#285

Post by watwut »

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…

That book is nice example of a case "if you have a hammer you want to push, everything looks like a nail".

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

#286

Post by jallbrit »

skyyler wrote: post #225
kevinh wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Anxious Generation is poorly researched pop science book that people believe to be true because it feels intuitively right to them.

On the surface it seems very similar to a book he previously worked on, The Coddling of the American Mind, which is also full of poorly researched pop science that confirms biases people already had. Kind of an "airport book"

Oh, a fellow If Books Could Kill podcast listener?

It's unfortunate that truth is so hard to come by these days.

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

#287

Post by bix6 »

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…

It doesn’t say that?

“Social media companies also won't be able to force users to provide government identification, including the Digital ID, to assess their age.”

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

#288

Post by beardedwizard »

nomilk wrote: post #252
mickeyfrac wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

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

#289

Post by [deleted] »

Funes- wrote: post #187
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…

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…

[deleted]

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

#290

Post by soulofmischief »

maxehmookau wrote: post #232
soulofmischief wrote: post #34

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…

Rising up violently to protect my child's right to scroll mindless on TikTok for hours? No. Social media today is unrecognisable to the internet that you, or I grew up with. Children will always network, and share ideas and form community. They don't need to do it on a platform designed to exploit as much of their attention as possible as a way to sell advertisements. I think children should be able to congregate saf…

The problem is that the wording of these laws carry a common thread of intentional vagueness, such that the laws can be abused for ideological persecution and maintaining the status quo.

I'm all for directly banning certain practices Meta and others engage in, within scope. I'm completely opposed to ideological oppression.

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