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Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

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Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#51

Post by oblio »

gloosx wrote: post #45
obblekk wrote: post #2

The votes are strong majorities of both houses - great to see a functional democratic government act on such an important issue. They specifically don’t prescribe any particular age verification methods. This would be a great time to follow up with legislation that updates their national IDs to be able to provide cryptographically secure proofs of age without leaking identity. Absent that, I’m sure many of the commen…

>the government act with expertise to solve the problem Do you have an idea which problem did they solve? Did banning certain psychoactive drugs solved the problem of drug abuse? Maybe banning alcohol removed it from the streets during great depression? Banning gambling? Kids will find a way to get into their social media accounts anyway, and then these democrats will tell you they need to ban every VPN service and s…

Banning smoking in many places plus banning advertising it plus banning selling it to kids reduced smoking by unfathomable amounts.

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#52

Post by threeseed »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #38
ENGNR wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re a nanny state, the government is just going to use it to track us

Forced voting is proof of it. Australia is by far the least free Anglo nation. I will never step foot on that god forsaken island. They have no culture, and that’s the opinion of Australians: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Australian_Ugliness

Australia is one of the freest countries in the world:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freest-co...

Higher than UK and the US.

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#53

Post by turbojet1321 »

lmm wrote: post #15
obblekk wrote: post #2

The votes are strong majorities of both houses - great to see a functional democratic government act on such an important issue. They specifically don’t prescribe any particular age verification methods. This would be a great time to follow up with legislation that updates their national IDs to be able to provide cryptographically secure proofs of age without leaking identity. Absent that, I’m sure many of the commen…

This is the opposite of democracy - a group imposing rules "for their own good" on people it doesn't represent who have no recourse. If they had any integrity they'd be banning it for adults not children.

Um, that's exactly what a democracy is - a tyranny of the majority.

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#54

Post by Terr_ »

kumarvvr wrote: post #26
Terr_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> national IDs to be able to provide cryptographically secure proofs of age Nah, this is an antipattern we've seen before. A veritable Pandora's Box whispering to be opened. There is a much simpler and safer solution: 1. A disclosure law, which requires sites to somehow (e.g. HTTP headers) show their nature as a social media site, porn site, etc. 2. Parents can choose to purchase devices/software for their children w…

The problem with this approach is that you will have two groups of children, the ones who have access and the ones who don't have access. This is a worse problem than allowing it for all. Its another vector of temptation, distraction, in-equality, etc.

> in-equality

If your concern is that some parents will be able to afford to give their children their own devices, but not afford any parental-control software with them... Well, that's better-addressed with an explicit "Digital Tools For Needy Parents" program.

If you mean some parents will choose to give their kids more autonomy... Well, isn't it proper for that to be their decision? I have little sympathy for neighbors who use the logic of: "You are banned from giving your child $thing, because I'm tired of hearing my kids whine that they want it too."

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#55

Post by threeseed »

larrysalibra wrote: post #22
gonzo41 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do have recourse. What you'll see is more independent candidates get voted in to overturn the law. Once the government of the day starts badly implementing it the conservatives who voted with the center left party will split off and start attacking for it's repeal. It's a nothing burger law designed to look tough and do nothing.

under 16 year olds cannot vote, are not represented and have no recourse. when one group votes to make rules for another group that cannot vote, it can be called many things, but "democracy" is not one of them.

> are not represented

Young Greens/Labor/Liberal allow members as young as 14.

And these groups have significant and direct input into political policy.

So simply not true to say that have no representation.

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#56

Post by znyboy »

I personally welcome this change. Anecdotally, I experienced unimpeded and unsupervised internet access throughout my younger teenage years, and was exposed to some truly horrendous material courtesy of the bigger social platforms. My parents knew I used social media. They believed it was fine because it was "just MySpace and Facebook".

Meanwhile, I witnessed large amounts of open bullying between my peers, recordings of physical assaults, underage revenge pornography, and a massive decline of people physically spending time together outside of online contexts, culminating in widespread loneliness and isolation.

In recent times I have seen the dramatic failure of social media companies to moderate their content, actively promoting extremist content, and even openly protecting the originators of illicit material.

Rates of youth suicide skyrocketed shortly after the rise of smartphones, social media and always-available internet access as evident by published statistics. While none of these can be individually attributed as the cause of this rise, all are undoubtedly a contributing factor, as suggested by countless studies globally.

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#57

Post by hcfman »

russelg wrote: post #8
obblekk wrote: post #2

The votes are strong majorities of both houses - great to see a functional democratic government act on such an important issue. They specifically don’t prescribe any particular age verification methods. This would be a great time to follow up with legislation that updates their national IDs to be able to provide cryptographically secure proofs of age without leaking identity. Absent that, I’m sure many of the commen…

People are far more worried about the government knowing that you're using a social media site, than they are about the social media site knowing who you are. I don't see a way this could be implemented where the govt doesn't know what site is requesting the verification. I'm assuming it'll be an openid type flow where the social media sites will have to register client IDs with the govt myID, in which case the govt…

I suspect that it is technically possible to make an anonymous identification service because the result to the social media site just had to be yes or no.

In the Netherlands you have a government identification service that identifies people to other government sites. And a bank service that uses the banks identification service also roll to identify to other sites.

Technically it would be possible to delete any trace afterwards.

However. I have never ever in my life seen any government choose not to take advantage of an opportunity to exert more control over their citizens if the possibility exists.

Plus rather than force it on everyone it should be a choice of the parents. Clearly not doing this is better but in the absence of that parents deciding is better for the others.

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#58

Post by turbojet1321 »

mianos wrote: post #35
obblekk wrote: post #2

The votes are strong majorities of both houses - great to see a functional democratic government act on such an important issue. They specifically don’t prescribe any particular age verification methods. This would be a great time to follow up with legislation that updates their national IDs to be able to provide cryptographically secure proofs of age without leaking identity. Absent that, I’m sure many of the commen…

I highly doubt they have the expertise to implement anything remotely 'cryptographic.' Their level of competence seems stuck in the 1950s, stamping paper forms, while anything more complex is handed off to consultants in Australia. These consultants appear far more interested in lining their pockets than in understanding technology or math. The far more likely scenario is they piss a couple of hundred billion away on…

There is myID (formerly myGovID) which would be the logical vehicle for a government provided age verification service. I've heard (but can't find a source) that it's build on OIDC/OAuth, so extending it to be an IdP exposing only specific claims (ie, age) shouldn't be a huge leap.

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#59

Post by mhh__ »

michaelhoney wrote: post #36

This is a bad idea, and it’ll be very hard to implement. Better to ban old people from watching Sky News and using Facebook, that’s the real danger to our democracy

We should also ban people who disagree with me from not agreeing with me

Re: Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s

#60

Post by hcfman »

oblio wrote: post #41
arlattimore wrote: post #10

While I appreciate the sentiment of this legislation, removing social media access for everyone under 16 years to address the concerns of a few is a nanny state act. As a parent, you should be making these decisions for your children - not your government. Additionally, I would suggest it won't address the actual issue. The named/identified social media companies will comply as required, younger internet users will s…

Curing addictions is very hard and some addictions are very strong. Some addictions are also guarded by business interests leveraging close to a trillion dollars to increase this addiction. We didn't reduce smoking through personal responsibility, stop using "nanny state" tropes. In democracies the government is an imperfect representation of the will of the people and sometimes it decides individuals can't fight som…

Good point bringing up smoking. Why don’t they just make smoking illegal in every country ? Because it’s impractical. Same as this law.
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