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Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

reuters.com

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Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#311

Post by patrickmcnamara »

feb012025 wrote: post #161

I feel like everyone in this thread is assuming this is a good faith move by Australia to help kids in school and with socialization. I think phones and social media are harmful, but I get the sense there's a political motive behind this. We've been hearing politicians complain for years that they're losing the youth when it comes to long-standing foreign policy positions, etc... And suddenly they ban social media. R…

Non-American countries are also importing a lot of American politics. I'd rather that didn't happen and is alone worthy of curbing in my opinion.

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#312

Post by a_victorp »

sneak wrote: post #178
nxor wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just mental health: ability to concentrate + engagement with people around us.

There is no evidence that social media use shortens attention spans or reduces social engagement offline. This is a meme, and a false one.

Except that there are studies linking social media use with reduced attention spans. Here is one: https://www.dialoguesreview.com/index.php/2/article/view/930

There are at least other two that I could find

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#313

Post by soulofmischief »

chemotaxis wrote: post #309
feb012025 wrote: post #161

I feel like everyone in this thread is assuming this is a good faith move by Australia to help kids in school and with socialization. I think phones and social media are harmful, but I get the sense there's a political motive behind this. We've been hearing politicians complain for years that they're losing the youth when it comes to long-standing foreign policy positions, etc... And suddenly they ban social media. R…

> I feel like everyone in this thread is assuming this is a good faith move by Australia to help kids in school and with socialization. I mean... you can say that about most of things in life. Behind every social movement or policy, it's always a mix of good faith, cynical fearmongering, and opportunism by people or organizations who stand to gain something from it. Does it matter? If you think that social media and…

This is an extremely unethical experiment.

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#314

Post by swiftcoder »

oblio wrote: post #261
gspencley wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most legal jurisdictions that I know of, kids aren't legally allowed to be able to access to pornography either. How is that working out? The only way to even attempt to enforce these things is with government mandated age verification. Few people want that as it represents a massive violation of privacy and effectively makes anonymity on the Internet impossible.

It could be designed to be anonymous. Government runs authentication service that has your personal details. User creates account on platform Y, platform Y asks government service if your age is >18, service says y/n. Platform never finds out your personal details. OAuth for age verification.

The government still knows your identity in this scenario, so it's a pretty limited form of anonymity (i.e. only suitable for activities the government isn't hostile to)

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#315

Post by triceratops »

gspencley wrote: post #254
feb012025 wrote: post #161

I feel like everyone in this thread is assuming this is a good faith move by Australia to help kids in school and with socialization. I think phones and social media are harmful, but I get the sense there's a political motive behind this. We've been hearing politicians complain for years that they're losing the youth when it comes to long-standing foreign policy positions, etc... And suddenly they ban social media. R…

In most legal jurisdictions that I know of, kids aren't legally allowed to be able to access to pornography either. How is that working out? The only way to even attempt to enforce these things is with government mandated age verification. Few people want that as it represents a massive violation of privacy and effectively makes anonymity on the Internet impossible.

The insistence on perfect age verification requires ending anonymity. Age verification to the level of buying cigarettes or booze does not.

Flash a driver's license at a liquor store to buy a single-use token, good for one year, and access your favorite social media trash. Anonymity is maintained, and most kids are locked out.

In the same way that kids occasionally obtain cigs or beer despite safeguards, sometimes they may get their hands on a code. Prosecute anyone who knowingly sells or gives one to a minor.

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#316

Post by [deleted] »

feb012025 wrote: post #161

I feel like everyone in this thread is assuming this is a good faith move by Australia to help kids in school and with socialization. I think phones and social media are harmful, but I get the sense there's a political motive behind this. We've been hearing politicians complain for years that they're losing the youth when it comes to long-standing foreign policy positions, etc... And suddenly they ban social media. R…

[deleted]

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#317

Post by guyomes »

Here is an overview of related restrictions in other countries [1]. Actually, in many European countries, Google does not grant access to Gemini for people under 16yo [2,3].

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/clyd1dvrll1o

[2] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1350409

[3] https://support.google.com/gemini/answer/16109150

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#318

Post by awesome_dude »

feb012025 wrote: post #169
whimsicalism wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrollable video is killing the Dems in general, not just because of Israel. It's like all the worst of local news crime reporting on steroids.

Each party is splitting into factions. I imagine the establishment of both parties think social media is a problem

Every political party ON THE PLANET has always had to manage internal factions, it doesn't matter if you're talking the Soviet Communist Party, the Democrats, the Republicans, The Tea party faction.

There's absolutely nothing new about parties having internal divisions. Even the fact that at the moment everything is so partisan is nothing new, history has shown that several times over the past century that politics has followed a penudulum that swings from partisan extremes, back to centrist moderates, and then back to the extremes.

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#319

Post by biophysboy »

eddythompson80 wrote: post #181
betteryet wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about we break up the tech industry instead? This muskian "I am above laws so I'll break up the USA/EU" is asinine and societies should come down on it like a ton of bricks.

Is the assumption that non "tech industry" communities (e.g: voat, parler, ovaries, gab, truth, lemmy, mastodon, 4chan, 8chan, etc) are less likely to be a problem or to negatively impact teens than the mainstream "big tech" ones (e.g: facebook, twitter, youtube, tiktok, reddit, etc)?

The thing with those alternative communities is that they sort of orbit around the larger tech platforms. Their agenda is set by the news-of-the-day within certain X/FB/YouTube subcommunities. Its sort of analogous to wire services in traditional media.

Additionally, people that post on those platforms originally gained notoriety on the bigger tech platforms, and took their audience with them.

Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

#320

Post by [deleted] »

henryfjordan wrote: post #285
whimsicalism wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrollable video is killing the Dems in general, not just because of Israel. It's like all the worst of local news crime reporting on steroids.

Youtube really wants to send me down the alt-right pipeline. I watch a few WW2 history videos and suddenly I must identify with "Mr Mustache" as the kids say. TikTok wants to radicalize me the other way, and shows me every video of a cop abusing their power that they can find. It cuts both ways. I think what's killing Dems is that they don't understand the medium. Mamdani did really well by making good social media p…

[deleted]
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