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Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

reuters.com

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Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#571

Post by Tadpole9181 »

Aloisius wrote: post #526
Tadpole9181 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are zero knowledge proof systems that nobody would have a problem with because nobody ever knows who is accessing the content, only that they are allowed or not. Ironic to call people aware of this stupid.

Because ZKPs aren't the whole system. If it allows regular checking (and they all basically have to), I can determine someone's exact birth date when they become an adult. If a system allows me specifying an age to check (as many do), then I can determine anyone's birth date. Further the vast majority of people do not understand ZKPs. If some random website asks them to go verify their age by installing software or g…

I agree with you, the blocks being done are neither needed nor implemented ethically.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#572

Post by TsiCClawOfLight »

AlexandrB wrote: post #55
armchairhacker wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://nebula.tv seems like it's basically that, just curated podcasts. Although 3blue1brown isn't on there.

Nebula is nice, but has a very specific ideological leaning. It's basically paid "breadtube".

There are quite a few excellent, neutral channels on there that I moved over from YouTube. I ignore the home page, which is more ideological.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#573

Post by squigz »

dvdkon wrote: post #566
squigz wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't parents like that going to ignore the development of their child anyway?

Yes, and I agree that bad parenting is the real issue, but I also have to acknowledge that leaving children unsupervised will have better results if they don't have the option of just watching a screen. That said, I don't see any bans changing this, parents will just give young children access to their own "adult" YouTube account.

> Yes, and I agree that bad parenting is the real issue, but I also have to acknowledge that leaving children unsupervised will have better results if they don't have the option of just watching a screen.

...Would it? I'm not advocating for this by any means, but at least they'd then be sat in one spot and not, say, roaming around the house, getting into things that might hurt them even more than the screen.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#574

Post by runsWphotons »

mindwok wrote: post #457
runsWphotons wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't want your kid using the internet then don't let them. No need to throw the whole society under the bus.

The decision Australia is making is not an individual one. It’s a societal one. It’s “do we want our kids to grow up in a society free of social media”. Australia tends to be more willing to make collectivist decisions like this, unlike America which places immense value on individual choice.

Australia didn't make this decision collectively, some politicians who read Haidt's book did.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#575

Post by runsWphotons »

owisd wrote: post #404
runsWphotons wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't want your kid using the internet then don't let them. No need to throw the whole society under the bus.

Maybe manageable till they're 11 or 12, but after that there are just too many internet-enabled devices out there in the world for a parent to police.

So the government is going to manage that better? It is funny there is a push to lower the voting age to 16 but also this push to keep adolescents away from information about the world until that age.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#576

Post by runsWphotons »

boudin wrote: post #401
runsWphotons wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't want your kid using the internet then don't let them. No need to throw the whole society under the bus.

We're talking about social media here. There's nothing throwing the whole society under the bus. I don't agree with the approach from the Australian government and I don't see that at being effective but regulating shady companies using deceptive techniques to maximise their profit is a necessary thing. Personally I think differentiating impact on kids/teens and adult is a mistake and the approach should be around re…

The evidence this stuff is harming mental health is weak. We also shouldn't let academics with manipulative studies undermine freedom in society.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#577

Post by sien »

energy123 wrote: post #423
sien wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The case against social media is pretty weak. https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/the-case-against-soci... Meanwhile Australia has the largest per capita losses on gambling in the world. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/gambling Which the government doesn't care about. This may have something to do that people don't criticise the government when they are just losing their life's savings.

> The case against social media is pretty weak. It's worth scrutinizing the philosophical mental model implicit in your opinion. Do you wait for conclusive empirical evidence before doing anything? Or do you run an experiment in one country based on an informed opinion and see what happens? I am more inclined to pursue the latter model for this question. The case against youth social media makes logical sense , there…

For a substantial hindrance and costly compliance to be introduced then the burden of proof is on those trying to apply new law. The government has not done this.

If there is a 'mental health epidemic' caused by social media it really isn't showing.

https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/children-youth/mental-illnes...

Australia's Prime Minister did an interview where he was asked 'What would you do if you could pass one law' . His response was 'ban social media' because people are so mean on it.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#578

Post by stephen_g »

exasperaited wrote: post #507
stephen_g wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in Australia experts don't come into it, except for sham inquirys that are held as a matter of course. In this case, basically all the tech experts and child safety experts were saying that a blanket ban is not a workable policy, and could create harms in certain marginalised demographics where teens may rely on social media for support, yet the Government ignored them all and ploughed ahead. The only changes…

> The only changes to the legislation came from some political horse trading with the Opposition to get it through the Senate. Well that is the normal process of things, surely? I mean, (politics is the art of the possible) * (nobody really likes seeing how the sausage is made).

Yes, but it's kind of insulting when they make a song and dance of fake 'evidence-based policy' and community consultation, with a whole inquiry and inviting experts to testify in front of legislators and tell them that the bills are flawed and unworkable, and that the policy is flawed from the beginning, and they sit there asking questions and nodding and looking concerned, and then it's just roundly ignored...

This process also got thousands of public submissions, many of which would have been in opposition, but they didn't have time to go through them all so they only published a dozen or so...

It just makes a mockery of the whole thing.

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#579

Post by Aerroon »

viraptor wrote: post #445
Aerroon wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they do this over a network we know governments are constantly spying on?

This scenario doesn't make sense. Either govs can spy on your traffic and see everything (and don't need tokens for spying), or they can't and wouldn't be able to see the token. There's no scenario for: they can only spy on their tokens in your traffic.

Because it's possible to protect yourself against that with anonymity. That goes out the window the moment tokens tied to your real identity get involved.

Not to mention that it's likely they wouldn't be able to spy on absolutely everything you do, just parts of it. The tokens would be an obvious point of interest.

On top of that, it's probably a lot easier for the government to justify this kind of spying. They could probably twist information about token use as being some kind of "metadata", therefore "okay to spy on".

Re: Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

#580

Post by pmarreck »

vineyardmike wrote: post #161
ElCapitanMarkla wrote: post #133

I don't really understand why Youtube won't let me create a profile, on my paid family account that I'm paying $29 NZD a month for, which lets me whitelist channels. I'm happy for my kids to have free access to certain channels on youtube, but the mind numbing shorts, and shit they find on random channels just does my head in. And it seems to be getting worse, I'm not sure if its that they are getting older and able…

> I don't really understand why Youtube won't let me create a profile, on my paid family account that I'm paying $29 NZD a month for, which lets me whitelist channels The answer is to this question is always: it is too niche a product feature for a giant corporation to prioritize. This product would require constant work to keep in sync as UIs and features change. It would be one more feature to regression test again…

No, that feature doesn't exist. My son is 4 and I looked. You can approve individual videos, but to my knowledge you can't whitelist channels for your kid. You can subscribe to a bunch of channels, and that will tend to make your kids' feed get steered in that direction, but random outliers are always a possibility.

Which as a parent of a toddler is absolutely mind-numbing.

Which means that every so often he will always end up encountering either some foreign-language content (borderline appropriate if I want him to learn his native tongue first) or something with violence, etc. that is not at all appropriate, or something like some kid playing some dumb but colorful game (non-mind-enriching, pure dopamine garbage) from some rando channel.

PLUS, they seem to be abandoning YouTube Kids in order to merge its functionality into the main YouTube app, and yet...

Like, does ANYONE at Google/Alphabet/whatever actually have fucking kids?!?!?!

I paid for family YouTube just so my kid (and myself) wouldn't be forced to watch ads.

All they'd have to do here is let me ban FUCKING shorts (don't get me started... note that they intentionally made this extremely difficult to impossible, good luck blocking it at the router level), and whitelist some channels, and they'd instantly make every parent 100% happier with YouTube!

And no, I'm sorry but this would NOT be hard to build/maintain. Hell, they can hire me to build it out, I'm LFW!

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