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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

#41

Post by liminvorous »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #27
lmpdev wrote: post #16

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

"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

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

#42

Post by pineaux »

goalieca wrote: post #22

I can’t get behind a ban because we’re fighting an unstoppable force: the connected future. This is the world we live in and kids will have to “evolve” to their new environment. I think parents and schools need to change the role they play.

This is not true. We have a technological tool to block all of that connected future if we want to. It's called "government" and it can even choose to destroy all landlines, jam all satellite signals en fire Rockets at satellites that want to fly over their land while connecting to people on the ground. This IS an option. Maybe not the best or simplest...

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

#43

Post by stephen_g »

academic_84572 wrote: post #33

Yes, this is flawed legislation, and yes kids will find ways to bypass these protections. But I think this is a step in the right direction. There is clear evidence of the harms caused by social media, especially for adolescents. We have to start trying things - albeit imperfectly - to get to a better place. We can learn a lot from the outcomes of this experiment.

The key feedback that was unaniamous from all the experts that managed to reply to the Government's 24-hour consultation period was that they all agreed a blanket ban is the worst way to approach the platform (they were all ignored by all but a few Senators).

An interesting part of the ban is that kids will be banned from Instagram, but sites like 4chan (and ovbiously anything on the dark web, which teens might now be more motivated to access) will be out of the reach of it...

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

#44

Post by rlv-dan »

elros wrote: post #25
guidedlight wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leisure Suit Larry was ahead of its time with its age verification system.

For those of us who weren’t around at the time, could you d on what made it good? Thanks!

They asked questions grown ups would know but likely not kids. I remember one questions about The Beatles for example.

https://allowe.com/games/larry/tips-manuals/lsl1-age-quiz.ht...

Edit: Added link

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

#45

Post by reliabilityguy »

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…

Sorry, but it’s rubbish.

Are you saying that all the people who were 16 and grew up without social media had no social connections? Didn’t form strong bonds with their peers?

Social media is absolutely terrible for kids. Social media absolutely destroyed social skills in teens.

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

#46

Post by fwsgonzo »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #27
lmpdev wrote: post #16

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

"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...

I have to strongly agree here. Video games are not free from the social media problems that we are trying to free ourselves from. We also have parents and close family that have been caught in outrage nets, and who knows when, if they will ever be free? We know the pipeline for right-wing grifters.

Who doesn't have any taters in the family these days? A literal human trafficker and pimp who has been in prison is giving advice to our youth in droves. More than you will ever know. My family members stopped talking about it, and started complaining about how we can't talk about things anymore once they discovered that outside of their bubble people know what these monsters/grifters actually do.

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

#47

Post by LinuxBender »

kranner wrote: post #14
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ideally they do lose all of that. That’s the root of the problem. Where is the problem with this? The problem rather is that the user did not create a private backup of the data that he wants to keep.

Possible contact with pedophiles, groomers, etc. Once the child is over 16, they can add all their real-world friends again.

Could a possible solution there be to use the same language detection platforms used for detecting terrorist activity to also flag possible grooming for human moderator review? Or might that be too subjective for current language models leading to many false positives?

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

#48

Post by lawn »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #27
lmpdev wrote: post #16

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

"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...

I'd guess that some games should be banned too but not everything. Something like Street Fighter is widely different from Roblox for example.

The problem with a badly written law is how can you decide which is which?

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

#49

Post by actionfromafar »

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…

You may also be just the right age to have had access to an internet less dominated by doomscrolling and bullying.

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

#50

Post by alexhawdon »

Questions about how this is going to be implemented and enforced from a technical and legal perspective are missing the point/benefit: this is about empowering parents and collectively changing behaviours.

"It's against the law so no you can't" isn't going to work with EVERY 14 year old. But it will work for many and hopefully that's enough.

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