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

abc.net.au

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

#61

Post by tilolebo »

TomK32 wrote: post #51

Here in Austria in fourth grade kids take a little test for their bicycling skill. Not that it matters much in a car-centric country, but people forget that cycling, even in company with a parent, give kids the chance to learn the necessary traffic rules. Why not have something similar for social media or as the problem seems to be general conduct in social media, educate the kids and give them better ways to raise t…

Right. Let's do the same for drugs.

Irony aside, these platforms are addictive and polarizing by design. I doubt a little test will change anything.

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

#62

Post by stephen_g »

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #7

What happens if the account belongs to the parent but all the content is by the child?

Careful there, you've potentially just thought about this more deeply than any of the politicians in our Parliament has...

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

#63

Post by stephen_g »

makeitdouble wrote: post #15

Is the actual discussed measure available somewhere ? Looking around none of the articles discussing this had references to official documents. Judging from the info in the article: - kids will have one year to see which platforms are not categorized as SNS, yet can be used as such. - kids stuck with brainwashing parents, especially in remote rural areas, will have it a bit more tougher I guess.

It's vibes based - the definitions could cover almost any online service, but the Minister of Communications gets to decide who will be targeted.

They have zero detail on how to verify anybody's age. But massive fines if the tech companies fail. Basically the only reliable way to do it would be to ID everyone, but then they had to sort of mostly rule that out in a rushed amendment yesterday to get it past the Conservatives (Liberal/National Party) because they neeed their votes in the Senate.

So basically they're asking tech companies to come up with magical technology to perfectly know how old someone is without any identification.

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

#64

Post by reliabilityguy »

soulofmischief wrote: post #55
reliabilityguy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but it’s rubbish. Are you saying that all the people who were 16 and grew up without social media had no social connections? Didn’t form strong bonds with their peers? Social media is absolutely terrible for kids. Social media absolutely destroyed social skills in teens.

I personally lived in a very backwater state, surrounded by racist conservatives, and was raised hardcore Catholic by extremely abusive guardians. I owe every single ounce of my rationality to the web and the ideas and people I encountered there. Facebook, etc are definitely terrible for kids. But the wording of these laws is intentionally vague, in order for these kinds of laws to be used according to the whim of th…

I hate to break it to you, but rest of the world is not US and have different socio-cultural dynamics.

Regardless. We should optimize the outcomes for the collective good, and not for the corner cases. Of course it has its cost.

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

#65

Post by Hizonner »

kranner wrote: post #14
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ideally they do lose all of that. That’s the root of the problem. Where is the problem with this? The problem rather is that the user did not create a private backup of the data that he wants to keep.

Possible contact with pedophiles, groomers, etc. Once the child is over 16, they can add all their real-world friends again.

AKA stupid paranoia.

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

#66

Post by stephen_g »

alexhawdon wrote: post #50

Questions about how this is going to be implemented and enforced from a technical and legal perspective are missing the point/benefit: this is about empowering parents and collectively changing behaviours. "It's against the law so no you can't" isn't going to work with EVERY 14 year old. But it will work for many and hopefully that's enough.

I actually see this as potentially damaging to society. "It's against the law for you to use any website that lets you look at cat pictures and make any contact with anybody else" is so silly that kids are going to see right through that, and rightly not care about following it. So they're going to have less respect for the rule of law generally...

I'm very big on compentent laws, but also on just not having silly laws. It devalues the whole system...

(I would also wonder how many 14-year olds you know if you think this would work for many, but also I suppose that could be a cultural difference)

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

#67

Post by acdha »

Hizonner wrote: post #65
kranner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possible contact with pedophiles, groomers, etc. Once the child is over 16, they can add all their real-world friends again.

AKA stupid paranoia.

This is far too pat a dismissal of something which happens regularly. You can argue that it’s not frequent enough to justify this action or would happen anyway through other means but it’s a real problem which isn’t so freakishly rare that we can dismiss it.

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

#68

Post by soulofmischief »

reliabilityguy wrote: post #64
soulofmischief wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally lived in a very backwater state, surrounded by racist conservatives, and was raised hardcore Catholic by extremely abusive guardians. I owe every single ounce of my rationality to the web and the ideas and people I encountered there. Facebook, etc are definitely terrible for kids. But the wording of these laws is intentionally vague, in order for these kinds of laws to be used according to the whim of th…

I hate to break it to you, but rest of the world is not US and have different socio-cultural dynamics. Regardless. We should optimize the outcomes for the collective good, and not for the corner cases. Of course it has its cost.

I think that's pretty obvious, no?

The entire point is that I got to grow up with a wide variety of opinions and ideas from people across the world.

I have good friends all over the world today thanks to the web. We have influenced and helped each other over the years. We depend on each other. That's not a corner case.

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

#69

Post by Hizonner »

academic_84572 wrote: post #33

Yes, this is flawed legislation, and yes kids will find ways to bypass these protections. But I think this is a step in the right direction. There is clear evidence of the harms caused by social media, especially for adolescents. We have to start trying things - albeit imperfectly - to get to a better place. We can learn a lot from the outcomes of this experiment.

Nice of you to volunteer others as experimental subjects.
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