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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

#301

Post by _fat_santa »

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…

> 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. If young people get their information from sites like bluesky, twitter, podcasts and reddit, they may never watch a mainstream news program or read an online newspaper. Bad for business. This measure is a great way of eradicating some competition.

I wonder, I often see legacy media companies complain about how "new age" media (podcasts, social media, etc) is taking over. Social media has been prominent for at least a decade now and so have Podcasts. Why have so few legacy media companies looked at the writing on the wall and invest in the "new age" media instead of complaining about how it's eating at their business.

I would say NYT is one of the only media org's I've seen execute on this.

EDIT: I thought about my question a bit more and my answer for why they haven't is a "new age" media org would look very different from a traditional media org. But that just brings me back to: THEY HAD OVER A DECADE TO ADJUST.

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

#302

Post by blackoil »

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #256
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…

> freedom of information, one of the most basics Western freedoms.

Children's access to info is limited in all societies.

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

#303

Post by soulofmischief »

cityofdelusion wrote: post #120
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…

Opposing a social media law “violently” is not an appropriate call to action. That said, the web of yesteryear and the way kids use social media today could not be any more different. Kids mindlessly scrolling through oceans of vanity, teen girls with more and more suicidal, being stuck in the high-school bullying social environment 24/7. The laws are a response to a real issue — especially as parents themselves get…

> Opposing a social media law “violently” is not an appropriate call to action.

Every single ounce of freedom you enjoy today was won with bloodshed. There is nothing extreme about reminding your local legalized mafia who is actually in charge: the People. Your compromised governments work hard to condition you to think otherwise.

Direct political violence should always an absolute last resort, when every other realistic option has been exhausted. However, every freedom is ultimately backed by threat of violence, even when it isn't said aloud.

> The laws are a response to a real issue

They use a real issue as a vehicle for tightening the authoritarian ratchet. All good antidemocratic legislation is wrapped in legitimate issues. But what authoritarian governments such as Australia fear is the power of unification which the internet offers new generations.

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

#304

Post by Aurornis »

beardedwizard wrote: post #288
nomilk wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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]

The parent comment suggested of the sort. There is obviously more porn on porn sites than on moderated social media platforms. Pointing out that some porn occasionally evades filters on Facebook for a couple days doesn’t mean social media sites and porn sites are fully equivalent.

> For me, social media is the worst thing we ever created.

Calling social media the “worst thing we ever created” as a comment on a social media site is deeply ironic.

I can’t believe how many commenters are assuming these laws will only apply to sites they don’t personally use. The amount of “good riddance” commenting from people inviting heavy handed internet ID checking regulation because they can’t imagine it would ever affect them personally is really scary.

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

#305

Post by Der_Einzige »

adventured wrote: post #97
canadianfella wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd guess that some games should be banned too but not everything. Something like Street Fighter is widely different from Roblox for example. Which one do you want banned?

The rapidly creeping authoritarianism is extraordinary.

This website has long ago lost whatever “techno libretarianism” it ever had. It’s so full of bootlickers. I have no idea why HNs userbase is mostly excited about this.

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

#306

Post by grahamj »

pimterry wrote: post #213
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…

> 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…

You’re right that it’s possible, absolutely. The problem is the government would first have to want to do that. If they’re planning to hoover up social media usage data then they probably won’t.

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

#307

Post by probably_wrong »

lukan wrote: post #96
tilolebo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Let's do the same for drugs. Irony aside, these platforms are addictive and polarizing by design. I doubt a little test will change anything.

You realize HN here is social media, too?

I would argue that "social media" requires the social aspect, namely, contacts and direct messaging.

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

#308

Post by sprice »

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…

> the Aus Govt will be able to access citizen social media data with relative ease. So no more pseudo anonymous accounts

This isn't necessarily true.

It came as a surprise to me, but many "Government Digital ID" systems use Verifiable Credentials[1][2] and Decentralized Identifiers[3].

I live in BC, Canada. I have installed the BC Wallet app[4] which is open source code[5].

With the BC Wallet app, I can create an account using my BC drivers license.

Then I can interact with any third-party app that uses the BC Wallet as an authentication system. If the only thing this app wants to do is confirm my age, it can ask me to reveal my age. I reveal my age (the only piece of data I am choosing to reveal), and the app now knows and can trust (as long as it trusts the BC Wallet) that this is my age.

And the BC Wallet app servers/government never know when I am using the BC Wallet app.

Turns out the future may not be as dystopian as we once thought it may be.

EDIT:

I see now from the article the following:

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

What could have been privacy preserving seems like it won't be.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verifiable_credentials [2] https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-overview/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_identifier [4] https://digital.gov.bc.ca/digital-trust/digital-credentials/... [5] https://github.com/bcgov/bc-wallet-mobile

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

#309

Post by logicchains »

Loughla wrote: post #266
hbn wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government dissent is successfully abolished from social media (the real reason for wanting to abolish anonymity via gov't ID requirements)

Bold claims need proof. Does Australia have a history of that?

During COVID times the Australian government pressured all local media to censor criticism of the government's COVID measures. Regardless of how valid or invalid you consider the dissent, it was still dissent being suppressed.

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

#310

Post by blackoil »

zarzavat wrote: post #279
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…

> You wouldn't allow your child to walk up to random strangers in the street without you there This applies to under 16 year olds though, not little children but adolescents. I would hope that every parent of teenagers allows them to talk to random people on the street.

Instead of binary it should be tiered, complete monitoring of online activity of child till say age 8, to gradually opening the circle till age 14-16. We do it for movies/games.
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