381–390 of 498 posts
Like the spirit, dislike the execution. Passing legislation to “protect the kids” is politically easy. Bans are simple. Much more effective, IMO, would be to legislate the way social networks behave. Stop their most addictive patterns. Adults are just as susceptible as kids in my experience. If there needs to be anything kid specific, perhaps a block on using the service during school hours, or only for X hours a day…
Governments should not be in the business of telling tech companies how to design software. Honest observers will look back on the anti-social-media movement as a moral panic. It isn't so much that social media is good, it's that the proper attitude toward new, scary things is to integrate them into your life in a healthy way rather than banning them. And if we should ban anything it's drugs and gambling, not tiktok
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I personally lived in a very backwater state, surrounded by racist conservatives, and was raised hardcore Catholic by extremely abusive guardians. I owe every single ounce of my rationality to the web and the ideas and people I encountered there. Facebook, etc are definitely terrible for kids. But the wording of these laws is intentionally vague, in order for these kinds of laws to be used according to the whim of th…
I hate to break it to you, but rest of the world is not US and have different socio-cultural dynamics. Regardless. We should optimize the outcomes for the collective good, and not for the corner cases. Of course it has its cost.
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…
How many under 16s read newspapers or watch news anyway? All you need to do is look up the mental health stats since the iPhone release to see why parents are massively concerned. There has never been a time when an alert parent didn’t have a fair idea of what info a kid was exposed to. This is why going to university is such an awakening. Now the parents basically need a background in infosec to stop their kids acce…
Adults do, and the OP's argument is that everyone (not just U16's) will be driven away by the changes. Being asked to provide ID may result in some just noping out or not signing up to newer services when they otherwise might have.
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"He can’t even advise if some video game developers he represents’ multiplayer games are exempt from the ban" There are a lot of issues with this legislation, but I'm not sure this is one of them. Games like Roblox are so exploitative, they're probably worse for children than most social media. See, for example: https://www.eurogamer.net/roblox-exploiting-young-game-devel...
The point is not about whether video games should be exempt, it's about being able to tell whether they are covered by this law or not
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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 reali…
Violence is literally always a last resort. It is the last possible thing you can do to affect change.
People who would nitpick on the mode of protest always conveniently dismiss the thinking and talking that came before.
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Goals
Seriously though. While I don't like him even slightly, Murdoch is legit a business genius. Imagine being powerful enough that you can bend an entire country to your will. That's amazing. Sociopathic probably, but amazing nonetheless.
And now Musk has come along and stolen the kingmaker role.
My friend is a media lawyer in Australia He can’t even advise if some video game developers he represents’ multiplayer games are exempt from the ban He says the legislation is just an under defined word salad Note this was several days ago and it may have been amended in the mean time
It hasn't. Now the idea has been floated (and the bill passed!) discussion has inevitably turned to "how do we do this". It was the mental heath professionals (of all people) that first voiced objections. Apparently, social media is the main way kids connect with them. Which is kinda obvious if you think about it, because either the family or school seeks help on their behalf, or it's the family / school that's the problem in which case they need to seek help without them knowing.
Next, when it became obvious they were going ahead, where the discussions on how it would be implemented. To give you an idea of how that's panning out, the minister has said kids won't be prosecuted for using social media and just recently said the federal government ID schemes won't be used. Instead the minister said "the platforms will use their existing mechanisms".
If that happens it could end up being a nothing burger. The big platforms already have checkboxes asking "are you over 16" or whatever.
Regardless, they have passed the legalisation now, and the election is coming up soon. It's effects, if any, won't become evident for a year or two. That means they will be able proudly point to it during the election and say "look what we have done for the kids". As one prime minister explained show particularly bad decisions he made at the time "it was just retail politics".
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…
Keep in mind all Australians got those IDs from the government in the first place...