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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

#391

Post by zmmmmm »

deminature wrote: post #16

As 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

There's a long way still to go on this. It's one of those changes where positive effects are experienced early but many if not most of the negative effects will surface over weeks, months or years.

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

#392

Post by [deleted] »

ricardobeat wrote: post #354
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?

[deleted]

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

#393

Post by andrewmutz »

paganel wrote: post #346
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…

> I don't think we should normalise children on platforms where the content contains political agitation Why not? Why won't you give political agency to young adults? I'm saying this as a kid who grew up in Romania, just after Ceausescu had been executed, so throughout the '90s, I do very well remember all the political news and commentary coming my way (I was a teen), but I can't say that it bothered, not at all, it…

Social media is full of extremist and untrue content of all types. Antivax or free birth content are just two small examples of viral content that is untrue and kills people. It has a very negative effect on adults, and adults at least have brains that are fully-developed.

Exposing kids to the firehose of misinformation on social media just poisons their brains. Political agitation is mostly political misinformation. Even among the causes online that I agree with, most of the content online is deeply biased, one-sided or inaccurate.

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

#394

Post by samdoesnothing »

Bratmon wrote: post #93
about3fitty wrote: post #6

Besides this being ineffective for the motivated, it might have a subtle antitrust effect. As kids find alternative platforms, perhaps they will be vendor locked to them instead of the Meta empire.

I think you're 180° backwards on that. How many alternative platforms are there really going to be that can afford to develope and operate the legally-mandated age-detection ML-models? Especially after the bureaucrats see that the law isn't working and start looking for scapegoats without massive lawyer teams to make an example of

Why would they do that? There are plenty of platforms that simply won't care, and there's stuff like Mastodon et al.

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

#395

Post by girvo »

tiew9Vii wrote: post #386
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…

Australia is a huge contradiction. “Kids” are no longer old enough to use social media as they are “kids”. At the same time Australia states are updating laws believing “kids” are old enough to be treated as and tried as adults in a court of law.

Indeed. We will stick them in prison, but they can’t use social media. It’s a farce.

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

#396

Post by barbazoo »

akersten wrote: post #357
barbazoo wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This only protects 90% (made up number) of children so it's a joke.

To suggest this protects children at all is the real joke.

Are you saying there is no harm to children, especially girls using social media or are you saying it will not protect enough of them?

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

#397

Post by jorblumesea »

Sevrene wrote: post #215
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 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…

yeah social media is proving itself to be a bad actor like big alcohol, big tobacco. No incentive to do the right thing or improve anything. ripping audiences away from them is the only way they'll understand.

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

#398

Post by PunchyHamster »

jgilias wrote: post #385

Kids being banned from social media is just one side of the coin. _Everyone_ else being forced to KYC with random websites is the other. I can’t help but wonder, which of the two outcomes is the actual goal here.

It's wet dream of politicians that think the key to reducing crime is invigilation. So, that goal

I don't think there is all that many politicians gullible enough to think that kind of massive breach of privacy is a worthy tradeoff

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

#399

Post by bamboozled »

ang_cire wrote: post #345
b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a massive propaganda channel. We can argue about whether any one particular state is involved in that or not but gut reaction is that if this were the real concern, their solution would be to regulate and censor what is posted online rather than kicking them off the platform and thus detaching them from the teat of (alleged) indoctrination. (that push for censorship also exists). Maybe Australia and the US…

> It's also a massive propaganda channel. The problem is that school curriculum is as well. I remember going to school in Texas and hearing the phrase "Northern War of Aggression" to describe the Civil War. Censorship is never about cutting off information, it's only ever about cutting off information that the censors don't like. Given how openly hostile both AU and the US's governments are to progressive politics an…

The Australian government isn’t banning books. It’s banning access to harmful content for people under 16.

One morning I logged into Reddit and saw a video of Charlie Kirk get his head blown off. I didn’t want to see that, but for some reason it wasn’t taken down yet. I’m really glad my 12 year old daughter didn’t have to see that…

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

#400

Post by nemomarx »

andrewmutz wrote: post #393
paganel wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think we should normalise children on platforms where the content contains political agitation Why not? Why won't you give political agency to young adults? I'm saying this as a kid who grew up in Romania, just after Ceausescu had been executed, so throughout the '90s, I do very well remember all the political news and commentary coming my way (I was a teen), but I can't say that it bothered, not at all, it…

Social media is full of extremist and untrue content of all types. Antivax or free birth content are just two small examples of viral content that is untrue and kills people. It has a very negative effect on adults, and adults at least have brains that are fully-developed. Exposing kids to the firehose of misinformation on social media just poisons their brains. Political agitation is mostly political misinformation.…

You can guess exactly how authorities would define "political agitation", though. dangerous things to allow them to ban.
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