Its crazy how the AusGov has just tried to turn this into some kind of nationalistic celebration. Passing laws isolating children isnt to be celebrated by lighting up national monuments.
Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
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Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#32Quite a decisive move by the Australian government. I don't know if it's a move in the right direction or not but the research clearly shows that around the time social media became mainstream, teens' and preteens' mental health took a nosedive (Especially girls).
Hugely decisive! Feels more like a policy for idyllic hypotheticals. "Suppose we could ban social media..." well, hey, they actually did it. I'm very interested to see how their socializing evolves in response to such a shock. Do the social behaviors of pre-internet times re-emerge? "Third spaces" reappear overnight? We shall see!
Given that “social media” is in fact not banned and all this does is impact a select (and frankly logically inconsistent) list of services, this seems very unlikely. Children are still free to be groomed and gamble on Roblox and join servers belonging to The Com on Discord. To be clear I don’t think those services should be regulated by this obscene law either but this isn’t going to bring back any kind of halcyon era for kids. It will expand the surveillance of and shame around young people’s internet use, however.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#33As an Australian experiencing this first hand and considerably older than 16, absolutely nothing has changed. It seems like all the social networks are doing age estimation of accounts and only taking action on those that fail and are detected as underage. The change is otherwise completely invisible if you're an adult user. Obviously I'm only a sample size of 1, but I've not heard of any other adults being adversely…
>Pretty well executed - I'm impressed. It seems like a handful of sites havent even switched over. Most are just estimating. Theres no clear indication that the execution has been anything but botched, unless convenience for older people was the only metric.
The government have previously stated they won’t pursue breaches unless they’re particularly egregious anyway so this is basically shameless political theatre.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Pretty well executed - I'm impressed. It seems like a handful of sites havent even switched over. Most are just estimating. Theres no clear indication that the execution has been anything but botched, unless convenience for older people was the only metric.
The government have previously stated they won’t pursue breaches unless they’re particularly egregious anyway so this is basically shameless political theatre.
ABC did a poll of a large number of kids affected by this, and only 6% estimated the legislation would be successful.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#35I really hope other nations, including the United States, copy this. Australia proved that it is possible. I think the results will be so overwhelmingly positive that others will take notice. Good job Australia! Reading "Anxious Generation" is a must for all parents in this day and age.
Isn't it a little early to declare success? I think the bigger worry with the US though is not whether it is technically possible, but whether anyone in power cares to actually help kids versus using this it as an excuse to implement Orwellian surveillance upon citizens.
Surveillance could be part of it, if you let it be. Improved mental health, education, and social outcomes for each generation is also pretty darned important.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#36I really hope other nations, including the United States, copy this. Australia proved that it is possible. I think the results will be so overwhelmingly positive that others will take notice. Good job Australia! Reading "Anxious Generation" is a must for all parents in this day and age.
While I am definitely in favor of the US causing itself more damage, its actually quite sickening to see people spruiking this legislation. First of all, Australia has proven nothing, kids are stepping politely over this barrier without issue. Second we are already hearing from disabled teens losing their only social lifeline. Congratulations, you have isolated and disenfranchised a bunch of kids.
The changes are not even 12 hours old for most of Australia and people are declaring failure. Far out.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#37Its crazy how the AusGov has just tried to turn this into some kind of nationalistic celebration. Passing laws isolating children isnt to be celebrated by lighting up national monuments.
Isolating children? They’re schoolchildren! They see their peers at school every day.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hugely decisive! Feels more like a policy for idyllic hypotheticals. "Suppose we could ban social media..." well, hey, they actually did it. I'm very interested to see how their socializing evolves in response to such a shock. Do the social behaviors of pre-internet times re-emerge? "Third spaces" reappear overnight? We shall see!
Given that “social media” is in fact not banned and all this does is impact a select (and frankly logically inconsistent) list of services, this seems very unlikely. Children are still free to be groomed and gamble on Roblox and join servers belonging to The Com on Discord. To be clear I don’t think those services should be regulated by this obscene law either but this isn’t going to bring back any kind of halcyon er…
How so? It has been implemented so that age verification is a token only, a yes/no authorisation. The age verification service doesnt get browsing details, and the site providing content doesnt get any additional user details beyond what they would likely already have, including those subject to PII legislation.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#39Quite a decisive move by the Australian government. I don't know if it's a move in the right direction or not but the research clearly shows that around the time social media became mainstream, teens' and preteens' mental health took a nosedive (Especially girls).
Hugely decisive! Feels more like a policy for idyllic hypotheticals. "Suppose we could ban social media..." well, hey, they actually did it. I'm very interested to see how their socializing evolves in response to such a shock. Do the social behaviors of pre-internet times re-emerge? "Third spaces" reappear overnight? We shall see!
The success so far is really just political, which has largely been shutting down debate and dismissing calls for some kind of cost analysis of what we risk losing in enforcing this.
Whenever someone brings up this stuff, the politicians take the tone that "we won't let anyone get in the way of protecting children", and this is in response to people who in good faith think this can be done better. Media oligopolist love it because it regulates big tech, so they've been happy to platform supporters of the policy as well.
Third spaces won't reappear because the planning system in most cities shuts anything down the moment someone files a compliant. They get regulated out of existence the moment police express concern young people might gather there. The planning system (which in NSW/Sydney is the worse) has only gotten worse since the 80s after the green bans. It was largely put in place to allow for community say in how cities are shape, which sounds nice but it's mostly old people with free time participating who don't value 3rd spaces, even if they might end up liking them. They just want to keep things the same and avoid parking from getting overly complicated (and this is a stone throw away from train stations and the CBD).
Third places can be fixed by reforming planning which is slowly gaining momentum via YIMBY movements, but this social media ban is just not a serious contribution to changing that. If anything Social media phenomenon like Pokemon GO contributed more to these third places lighting up.
Governance in Australia is very paternalistic, it's a more high functioning version of the UK in that sense. I think it might be in part due to the voting system being a winner takes all single seat electorate preferential voting system which has a median voter bias for least controversial candidates.
As a kid I always felt being in Australia you missed out on a lot of things people got to do in America, that has slowly changed as media and technology has become less bound by borders but looks like that being undone.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#40this is an egregious violation of their civil rights. the law of unintended consequences looms large.
Like what? Kids not being able to do particular things until they're of age? That's much of an egregious violation of their civil rights.
I think you could argue teenagers have a right to discuss political issues in the public forum. That's basically the definition of good citizenship, and (for better or worse) social media is the public forum of the day. Kids don't go from zero rights at 17 to full rights at 18; minors' rights are limited, but they do have rights.
I dunno if that'd fly in Australian courts though.