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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

#531

Post by osn9363739 »

FpUser wrote: post #507
delbronski wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on dude, you are on HN. You probably know that social media is no longer about free speech. It’s a targeted advertising machine that is extremely effective on kids and teenagers. It preys on them so, so efficiently. It’s a technical work of art. A young mind is extremely susceptible to the algorithms on those platforms. Much more than adults are, and adults are already really susceptible. This is what this ban i…

>"You probably know that social media is no longer about free speech, It’s a targeted advertising machine" Youtube for one is an advertising machine. On the other hand it is one of the few places where one can find some amazing educational and entertainment content. Prohibiting it I think is a crime. Besides, lately Politicians stick their noses everywhere. It is just way too much.

It's not banned for under 16s, they just can't sign up.

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

#532

Post by denkmoon »

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.

Nobody is forcing you to use facebook

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

#533

Post by protocolture »

lm28469 wrote: post #143
protocolture wrote: post #31

Its crazy how the AusGov has just tried to turn this into some kind of nationalistic celebration. Passing laws isolating children isnt to be celebrated by lighting up national monuments.

Do you have kids ? Do you see kids in your day to day life ? I do, every day, and even <10 years old already have permanent neck damage from scrolling as soon as they haves 5 seconds of free time. I see groups of friends walking back from schools, they're side by side, scrolling on their phone, not talking, not even looking in front of them. I walk by 3 schools multiple times every single day and that's all I see as…

I do have a son. I plan to tell my kiddo not to engage with those platforms and set boundaries. I dont plan to force every kid in every scenario into the same pattern.

>Locking up kids inside social media echo chambers is much more isolation than kicking them out of them imho

"Locking" Why not instead ban the social graph, or certain engagement techniques. Theres a whole other arm here, where the AusGov has pulled back entirely from promised gambling restrictions. Its easy to see a path where dark patterns in both industries are outlawed instead of banning half.

Not to mention that 4chan and youtube are unaffected, so I doubt those kids with the broken backs or whatever are going to be "free".

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

#534

Post by DocTomoe »

hedayet wrote: post #492
roenxi wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes but the other problem is this is putting authoritarians in charge of more stuff. I had a comment comparing this to allowing people to eat too much food and that is literally where the logical outcome of this sort of thinking goes - it happens in practice, that isn't some sort of theoretical risk. The more the government decides what people can and can't want to do the worse the potential gets when they make…

Still, even the most libertarian among us generally won't oppose restricting youth access to tobacco, or restricting recreational access to hard drugs.

So, considering there is a clear health issue with fast food and television, shall we ban them from having anything other than fruit and books (but not too complicated ones, we don't want them to get potentially suicidal ideas)?

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

#535

Post by protocolture »

emulatedmedia wrote: post #59
protocolture wrote: post #31

Its crazy how the AusGov has just tried to turn this into some kind of nationalistic celebration. Passing laws isolating children isnt to be celebrated by lighting up national monuments.

Isolating children from what? If anything, this will make they spend more time with their friends and family

>Isolating children from what?

We already have reports of disabled kids experiencing suicidal ideation as they are cut off from their only non familial social experience.

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

#536

Post by nrhrjrjrjtntbt »

Avicebron wrote: post #10
bob_theslob646 wrote: post #9

How does a country effectively enforce this? Below is how they propose doing this. If you don't have any form of verification of your actual age, it's seems like they are just going on what the user says ( self reports). How can a company be found liable if a used lies about their age? >the days leading to the ban, some teenagers said that they were prompted to verify their ages using a facial analysis feature, but t…

> How can a company be found liable if a used lies about their age? You make them bleed money when you find they are in violation. They either figure it out or they go under as a company. There isn't a natural law saying companies have a right to exist.

More akin to their data centre electricity costs. They pay it and move on.

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

#537

Post by monksy »

petcat wrote: post #454
yladiz wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> This is opaque to the service The "service" is irrelevant. I think most people would trust Porno Hub to be discreet about their visits. That's in their business interest. But now they have to tell your government about all the times you're visiting Porno Hub. And nobody should trust their government. Also, keep in mind that western governments share with each other. There will come a time when Australians will try…

Not just the US, but image entering Qatar or Indonesia with them having that knowledge of your access to "adult content".

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

#538

Post by protocolture »

batiudrami wrote: post #37
protocolture wrote: post #31

Its crazy how the AusGov has just tried to turn this into some kind of nationalistic celebration. Passing laws isolating children isnt to be celebrated by lighting up national monuments.

Isolating children? They’re schoolchildren! They see their peers at school every day.

We already have reports about disabled kids experiencing suicidal ideation due to losing their only non family social connections.

Not to mention that Australias youth are quite politically engaged, we have a news network entirely run by teenagers that just had their service gutted.

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

#539

Post by NoPicklez »

bccdee wrote: post #40
NoPicklez wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what? Kids not being able to do particular things until they're of age? That's much of an egregious violation of their civil rights.

I think you could argue teenagers have a right to discuss political issues in the public forum. That's basically the definition of good citizenship, and (for better or worse) social media is the public forum of the day. Kids don't go from zero rights at 17 to full rights at 18; minors' rights are limited, but they do have rights. I dunno if that'd fly in Australian courts though.

Well kids can discuss political issues across other discussion boards just not those on the social media sites impacted by the ban. They can also continue to do it say, in person in public.

I think the discussion of political issues in a sensible way on platforms like instagram, tiktok, X, Reddit etc for those ages is perhaps a lower priority than the mental health impacts that those platforms in general provide.

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

#540

Post by nrhrjrjrjtntbt »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #382
d3Xt3r wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget the children, no one should be subjected to the brainrot that is TikTok. Or any form of vertical short videos for that matter.

I'm not sure that "vertical videos" are any worse than horizontal ones, round ones, pentagonal ones, or any other layout.

I am not sure. If you classified usefulness of video by aspect ratio it might be a good correlation with landscape. With 4 by 3 being the best.
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