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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

#291

Post by throw0101d »

kumarvvr wrote: post #24
arlattimore wrote: post #10

While I appreciate the sentiment of this legislation, removing social media access for everyone under 16 years to address the concerns of a few is a nanny state act. As a parent, you should be making these decisions for your children - not your government. Additionally, I would suggest it won't address the actual issue. The named/identified social media companies will comply as required, younger internet users will s…

It is undeniable that big tech has warped the way even adults deal with each other. It warps social norms, social habits, human interactions, perspectives on the world and a lot more, all for the worse than the better. For children, it is very important for them to build their social skills based on interactions with other kids and adults, rather than from social media. They must learn about the world from the world,…

> It warps social norms, social habits, human interactions, perspectives on the world and a lot more, all for the worse than the better.

See Penny Arcade's "John Gabriel Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory":

* https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/green-blackboa...

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

#292

Post by chris_wot »

wokwokwok wrote: post #248
chris_wot wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it wasn’t up for debate. It was opened for public scrutiny on the 22nd, submissions closed on the 23rd, then it was put through Committee (who asked for only 1 or 2 page submissions because they themselves didn’t have time to review it properly) and was initially put to the House on the 26th and passed on the 29th. The Act has no provisions for checking ID (that will be decided by the eSafety commissioner with…

You’ve taken literally one word from my comment, out of context. Yes, you’re right, they rushed it through. …and that sucks. Now what? Is that really the only meaningful complaint you can come up with about it? I don’t support it because I think it’s overreach by a government that is already trying to make a nanny state. …but I’m not naive enough to think it’s not going to work. It will work. It probably has unintend…

"The Act has no provisions for checking ID (that will be decided by the eSafety commissioner with no debate or discussion on the mechanisms they choose), and it doesn’t even define which social media companies will be affected."

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

#293

Post by bongodongobob »

underwater wrote: post #253
JeremyStinson wrote: post #226

Just so it's clear - this new law will require everyone over 16 to provide proof-of-age, and thus identity, to use the most popular portions of the internet. Saving the children is the voter-acceptable way of getting it past public scrutiny, and paves the way for a national DigitalID that will be required by all citizens.

Where does the legislation say that? My reading is that it specifically says that social networks have to provide an alternative verification mechanism that doesn’t rely on government ID.

So a burner email account? How do you think this is going to work?

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

#294

Post by bongodongobob »

lobochrome wrote: post #229
71bw wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Kids understand when you say it's against the law. Jesus, were you born 40? I don't know a single person who didn't willingly pirate media, games and break other laws (usual suspects like trespassing, underage + public drinking...) as kids and teens. They will not care about the law if they want to do something it limits.

I’m not called Jesus and I age normally. Do you have children?

Just stop. You're being incredibly naive.

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

#295

Post by bongodongobob »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #155

A solution I would be very OK with is the following: * Enforce the age limits only on smartphones and tablets. This solves >95% of the problem and still leaves a way for people to be anonymous. * Smartphone OS vendors come up with a common age verification framework that's based on zero knowledge proofs constructed over the electronic certificate in your passport - there are already working PoCs of this on Github * E…

Why would the government do that when they can just track everyone with some kind of internet ID?

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

#296

Post by hcfman »

discordance wrote: post #247
hcfman wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps we should also make it illegal to report on the war in the Middle East in case young people find it traumatising to see that that the western democracies are supporting dropping 2000 pound bombs on children in other countries. Can you image the damage being caused to young minds seeing that death and destruction visually through their own eyes ?

This is not about reporting or content. This is about the health outcomes of young people being negatively impacted by companies maximizing engagement metrics at all costs. Reporting on war happenings occurred before social media was around.

I'm referring to the ridiculous concern about young minds being exposed to one sort of content, yes it is about content, whilst another sort there's no concern about in the slightest.

The choices are bizzare. I assume that discord channels relating to specific pieces of software will also not be allowed anyone under 16. So very clever young kids trying to build software will be disadvantaged now as well.

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

#297

Post by _zagj »

XorNot wrote: post #214
fraboniface wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very hard for parent to resist the insistent demands of their children to get a smartphone when their classmates all have one, and not having one means being or feeling excluded. This is the kind of coordination problem better solved by regulation.

If you're not going to police that smartphone then how will this legislation do anything? What stops "US Mastodon" being the new place all the kids in your school are posting? Like that is the goal here, because observably any phone with a web browser has social media access, it just can't be a company which tries to do business in Australia directly. But 4chan has existed for years (that's not the end point, but cer…

Adolescents shouldn't have a non-anonymous presence on the internet.

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

#298

Post by openrisk »

throwawaythekey wrote: post #290
openrisk wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can cast any regulation as a "nanny state act". Life is more complicated than that. The ability of individuals to be aware and take conscious action against harmful behaviors is clear and should be used when possible. But that ability gets exhausted very fast in a hyperspecialized and complicated world. Most parents are digitally illiterate, can't protect even themselves online, let alone their kids. Delegating t…

Is there a time when you would find "nanny state" to be a useful concept? What would make that situation different to the social media ban?

I think the answer in implicit in my comment: When all the affected individuals can readily make their own judgement about the risks and benefits of their choices (1) they have all the relevant information, (2) they are able to comprehend it and (3) they can act on it using a menu of options.

99% of people are entirely clueless as to what happens behind the scenes in social media platforms because the information is not there, and it is doubtful they would be able to evaluate it anyway. Plus, there are hardly any differentiated alternatives available.

So when these conditions are not met, anybody throwing around terms like "nanny state" has ulterior motives to exploit vulnerable populations (ignorant, addicted, low information, trapped etc.) for their own gain.

Which is "fine" or at least understandable, moral values are not universal. But lets make clear the starkly different visions.

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

#299

Post by lmm »

thombles wrote: post #279
BrawnyBadger53 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lea…

> 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.

Ok but what's the betting on which of those the actual effect of the law is going to be?

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

#300

Post by throwthrow4567 »

ryan-c wrote: post #237
throwthrow4567 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> young men having porn addition and having no ambition to interact with real women this made me lol so much. porn addition is not the cause, but the consequence. do you have any idea how hard it is for males to find a willing mate nowadays? most females have men fighting over them, while most men must always do the fighting to get even one low-quality female in their entire life.

I wish you could see your comment as most people see it. When you refer to "males" and "females", and especially use terms like "low-quality female" you sound absolutely unhinged.

or realistic maybe? people are too keen to forget that we share 98.8% DNA with chimps...
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