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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

#351

Post by yieldcrv »

stevage wrote: post #295
hearsathought wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Florida passed a similar law, and a bunch of other states are attempting to but are blocked by federal courts. When much of government ( federal, state, local ) communication is done via social meda, would it be legal to ban anyone from accessing it? Or are official government social media sites required to be accessible to everyone?

The Australian ban doesn't block anyone from accessing content.

Unless the social media site puts up super random login gates and A/B testing anti-patterns that blocks you from accessing content?

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

#352

Post by lo_zamoyski »

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…

Asking "cui bono?" is always a sound question to ask in a political or commercial context, but it should not be the only one. Don't fall prey to appeal to motive. Even if the motivation is self-serving, it need not be bad per se.

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

#353

Post by systemtest »

amatecha wrote: post #180

Saw a screenshot last night of someone who can't get into JIRA (or some other Atlassian product) until they either submit two forms of government ID or record a face scan. Seems like a great and effective initiative /s Text of the screen: "Your Atlassian account is not age verified. Laws in your country require us to verify your age before accessing some products, including Jira and Confluence. This process takes 5-1…

Sounds like a great excuse to not have to partake in office BS.

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

#354

Post by ricardobeat »

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…

> Rahm Emanuel is campaigning for the same thing in America.

I get the sense this is supposed to signify something; don't know the name, but looking at their profile, great career, Obama's chief of staff. What's the implication?

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

#355

Post by anonymous_sorry »

pizza wrote: post #341
Sevrene wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we should normalise children on platforms where the content contains political agitation, sexual and violent content, crypto and fintech scams, etc. Especially when this content is packaged up to them and commodified. These platforms make more money than the ATO (Australian Tax Office) brings in a year. I think they have the moral obligation and means to create safer spaces- either inside or seperate fr…

The platform operators have a responsibility to remove garbage from their site. I don’t see how it’s better if adults are the recipients of these alleged harms. And I definitely don’t see how the platform operators are going to clean up their act if — rather than being penalized — they can pretend that the problem has vanished into thin air because a specific category of vulnerable users is now de jure disappeared.

In the same way it's better that adults are the recipients of the harms of smoking, drinking or gambling. It's still not desirable, but societies have settled upon thresholds for when people have some capacity to take responsibility for their choices.

Not saying those thresholds are always right and should definitely apply in this case, but it surely isn't an alien or non-obvious concept.

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

#356

Post by AlexandrB »

pizza wrote: post #341
Sevrene wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we should normalise children on platforms where the content contains political agitation, sexual and violent content, crypto and fintech scams, etc. Especially when this content is packaged up to them and commodified. These platforms make more money than the ATO (Australian Tax Office) brings in a year. I think they have the moral obligation and means to create safer spaces- either inside or seperate fr…

The platform operators have a responsibility to remove garbage from their site. I don’t see how it’s better if adults are the recipients of these alleged harms. And I definitely don’t see how the platform operators are going to clean up their act if — rather than being penalized — they can pretend that the problem has vanished into thin air because a specific category of vulnerable users is now de jure disappeared.

I don't want Mark Zuckerberg, or the government, deciding what's garbage. If they can empower the user to filter this stuff out on their own accord, that's great.

The second problem is that the medium itself is garbage. Algorithmic feeds strongly encourage clickbait and sensationalism. Removing content does nothing to change the dynamic.

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

#358

Post by XorNot »

swiftcoder wrote: post #297
stevage wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've been hearing politicians complain for years that they're losing the youth when it comes to long-standing foreign policy positions I have literally never heard this. The ban doesn't stop teens consuming social media content like tik tok. Your argument seems like quite a stretch.

> The ban doesn't stop teens consuming social media content like tik tok. That is exactly what the ban aims to do? TikTok is literally listed in the article as one of the platforms ordered to ban access by under-16s

The ban is on having an account. Tiktok video is publicly viewable.

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

#359

Post by hermannj314 »

barbazoo wrote: post #277
hermannj314 wrote: post #260

Ban kids, implement identity verification checks, remove ban on kids, keep identity verification checks.

> Ban kids yep, done > implement identity verification checks nope, not done so what's your point?

My belief is that late stage capitalism pushes democracies to fascism and the overton window requires politicians to break-up unpopular changes into a smaller changes. I am prognosticating why politicians would pretend to care about the mental health of children.

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

#360

Post by solumunus »

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 think not letting children get barraged with misinformation and foreign propaganda might help them.
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