Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban • Hacker News Board

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

#431

Post by wrxd » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:22 PM UTC

zmmmmm wrote: post #405

A lot of the criticism is based on the concept that it won't be technically watertight. But the key is that it doesn't have to be watertight to work. Social media is all about network effects. Once most kids are on there, everyone has to be on there. If you knock the percentage down far enough, you break the network effect to the point where those who don't want to don't feel pressured to. If that is all it does, it'…

a) is solvable by a system that instead of collecting IDs reveals only the single bit of information required b) parents still need to do their job

Arguably parental control should have been enough to avoid all of this but the regulation still helps parents. It’s way more difficult to ask kids not to have social media when all of their friends have it.

I would have preferred stricter social media platform regulation for everyone forcing tech companies to take responsibility for what happens on their platforms. It’s not that they are dangerously only for kids

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

#432

Post by 0x_rs » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:23 PM UTC

An absurd decision with dangerous second order effects, many of which lead to VPNs and other privacy tools being next, just look at UK hyping and building that up right now. I hope they will vote accordingly when they're of age, not forgetting what liberties were taken away from them in the name of very dubious benefits, easily circumvented, and prone to exposing them to greater danger going through unofficial channels. Trying to really address the issues younger generations are facing is clearly too difficult for the geriatric, decrepit ruling class that just won't let go, and this helps them further every government's ambitions of increasingly regulating the means of communication between people. Actually, it's not that it's difficult, they simply don't care.

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

#433

Post by gertlex » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:23 PM UTC

indymike wrote: post #406

Father of five here, and founder of a social media marketing company (exited). Our kids are up against problems we didn't have during the great expansion of social. The three big things: 1. State level actors and well funded not for profits are fighting an information war to influence our kids. And they are very good at it. Down to having troll farms to talk one on one. Every time something new happens in the world,…

Am I wrong in feeling like the solution you outline is only applicable to an individual's kids? But at the societal level, it clearly seems we can't depend on enough parents to do what you talk about. Something else is needed.

I don't have answers to give. Certainly not a fan of the government approach of "everyone must prove their age online now", which I believe is how the AU law is done. (casual listening to Security Now podcast about this for a long while now)

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

#434

Post by yladiz » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:23 PM UTC

zmmmmm wrote: post #405

A lot of the criticism is based on the concept that it won't be technically watertight. But the key is that it doesn't have to be watertight to work. Social media is all about network effects. Once most kids are on there, everyone has to be on there. If you knock the percentage down far enough, you break the network effect to the point where those who don't want to don't feel pressured to. If that is all it does, it'…

In the EU you don’t need to upload your ID anywhere, the service can use the government’s portal for ID verification. In the case of age verification they can get a yes/no response if the age is above some threshold. This is opaque to the service so they wouldn’t get any additional ID details.

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

#435

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:24 PM UTC

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

#436

Post by basisword » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:24 PM UTC

indymike wrote: post #406

Father of five here, and founder of a social media marketing company (exited). Our kids are up against problems we didn't have during the great expansion of social. The three big things: 1. State level actors and well funded not for profits are fighting an information war to influence our kids. And they are very good at it. Down to having troll farms to talk one on one. Every time something new happens in the world,…

>> Our kids are up against problems we didn't have during the great expansion of social.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Our societies globally have become hugely polarised and are manipulated daily because of social media. The damage done by social media is 100x greater than any good that came from it and the lives of adults have been affected by on it a societal level at least as much as the danger to kids.

It isn't possible, but if social media was suddenly completely unavailable I think the world would get a lot better in a very short period of time.

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

#437

Post by phantasmish » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:25 PM UTC

indymike wrote: post #406

Father of five here, and founder of a social media marketing company (exited). Our kids are up against problems we didn't have during the great expansion of social. The three big things: 1. State level actors and well funded not for profits are fighting an information war to influence our kids. And they are very good at it. Down to having troll farms to talk one on one. Every time something new happens in the world,…

I'm not sure why a person would want to let their kids hang out any place where that stuff you report is common, if it's at all possible to avoid it. I'm gonna continue to run with "no social media", which has worked so far. They can message people they actually know IRL, somewhere without a feed full of crap from people they don't know. That's plenty.

Like I can't think of any analogous place in physical space I'd let my kids hang out unsupervised, and the amount of time I intend to spend watching (supervising) them scrolling Insta or TikTok on anything like a regular basis is zero, and the likelihood of their choosing that as a thing they want to do if I'm otherwise available to do something fun with them is also probably somewhere around zero, which means... no social, since it ain't happening supervised.

Like I also wouldn't take them to a bad part of town and leave them there for hours. Why would I do the digital equivalent? Even if we talk about it afterward... why? Maybe occasionally as a "here's how to spot shit" lesson but not enough that they'd need an account or anything.

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

#438

Post by hintymad » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:25 PM UTC

zmmmmm wrote: post #405

A lot of the criticism is based on the concept that it won't be technically watertight. But the key is that it doesn't have to be watertight to work. Social media is all about network effects. Once most kids are on there, everyone has to be on there. If you knock the percentage down far enough, you break the network effect to the point where those who don't want to don't feel pressured to. If that is all it does, it'…

I'd even go one step further: it does not have to be enforceable at all. This has to do with teen's psychology. For whatever reason, kids just fight their parents but listen to their schools and government a lot more. Of course, there are exceptions, but I'm talking about trend. The kids in my school district were generally angry towards their parents when they couldn't get a smartphone when their peers did. However, when my school district introduced the strict ban of electronic devices in school, the kids quieted down and even bought the same reasons that their parents were saying: attention is the most precious assets one should cherish. Kids complained that the problem sets by RSM (Russian School of Mathematics) are too hard and unnecessary (they are not by the standard of any Asian or East European country), yet they stopped complaining when the school teacher ramped up the difficulty of the homework.

So, when the government issues this ban, the kids would listen to their parents a lot more easily.

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

#439

Post by xedrac » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:26 PM UTC

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…

Both can be true. The question is, do the benefits outweigh the consequences? I'm of the opinion that parents need to help regulate teen exposure, not the government. It does feel a bit like censorship.

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

#440

Post by epolanski » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 9:27 PM UTC

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…

> We've been hearing politicians complain for years that they're losing the youth when it comes to long-standing foreign policy positions, etc...

What's the alternative? Going back to TV lying that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and that in Libya there's a genuine rebellion against Gaddafi?

I'd rather have multiple actors fighting to push their views on social to be honest.

I also don't like how quick is social media to jump on labelling anybody with a different opinion as a troll or a bot. This is especially common on Reddit where basically every single subreddit is heavily biased in some direction, heavily moderated to push some views and some views only.

Instead, what we should teach in school is how to treat news (any news really, even your friend telling you he's got a Playstation 7 but he can't show it to you): questioning it, verifying the sources, questioning the possible motives and biases of the source.

I'll be frank: I didn't mind Russia pushing their own news through channels like Russia Today globally. I always thought it was very important to get the views of the other side.

But my view also requires my (normal to me) attitude: question, question, question, verify.

Problem is: it's hard, it's exhausting. Claiming something false takes 5 seconds, debunking it can take hours. Most people already got their problems, and just don't do any of it.