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

Post by raxxorraxor » Fri, Nov 29, 2024, 10:40 AM UTC

mickeyfrac wrote: post #248

nomilk wrote: post #175

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…

Post by raxxorraxor » Fri, Nov 29, 2024, 10:45 AM UTC

pimterry wrote: post #351

Aurornis wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comes up on every single HN thread about the topic, but I don’t understand how people aren’t seeing the obvious abuse angle: Create a market for anonymous age verification tokens. People pay $5 to someone to create an age authorization for them. 17 year old kid (who is old enough under this law) spends all day creating anonymous age auth tokens to sell to people who want them. Entire system subverted with profit…

The same applies to effectively all possible solutions for age verification, no? Even if you have a perfect mechanism, 17 years old can create real age-verified accounts and then sell the username and password afterwards. Selling age-verification tokens directly would likely be harder than just swapping those login details, since it's very easy to make the tokens time-limited (in practice normal use would probably be…

Post by raxxorraxor » Fri, Nov 29, 2024, 10:50 AM UTC

interactivecode wrote: post #331

Aurornis wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comes up on every single HN thread about the topic, but I don’t understand how people aren’t seeing the obvious abuse angle: Create a market for anonymous age verification tokens. People pay $5 to someone to create an age authorization for them. 17 year old kid (who is old enough under this law) spends all day creating anonymous age auth tokens to sell to people who want them. Entire system subverted with profit…

this is the same argument as "why have government id cards, someone could just use a fake beard and use their older classmates id". Any system allows for some gaps, similar to how creditcard transactions make transactions safer but on either side of that transaction there some "insurance" and some leeway if someone really wanted to.

Post by illiac786 » Fri, Nov 29, 2024, 10:53 AM UTC

raxxorraxor wrote: post #445

illiac786 wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has a system in their ID cards that allows anonymous age verification. No one uses it but it’s a technical marvel in my opinion. The site asks for specific read permissions and the user can decide if he wants to grant them. One of these permissions is age verification. You put the phone on the ID card and there is a cryptographic proof that the user connecting to the site is in possession of an ID of a person…

It isn't a technical marvel, it is technical bureaucracy. There is a reason people don't want to use it. Also once implemented and widely adopted, the state would obviously increase demands on usage. This isn't rocket science. I understand the cryptographic principle. That isn't the problem here.

Post by raxxorraxor » Fri, Nov 29, 2024, 12:05 PM UTC

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #54

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…

I think it's safe to say that, in under-16s, cyberbullying and susceptibility to intentionally addictive social media algorithms are a bit more of a common problem than revolutionary activities. Any would-be Che Guevaras can put in the time arousing the working class in person until such time as they can grow facial hair.