Next election is in 2028, so 15 an 16 y.o. will be able to vote. I expect a strong preference in that group, but IIUC Australia has single seat per district, so I'm not sure if that changes the result.
Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
601–610 of 1001 posts
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#602Earlier quoted context omitted.
The attempt is to remove the market do exploiting the attention of children for profit. This doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth it. What’s more, the idea that this puts children at the mercy of authoritarians is laughable. The US tech industry has shown us beyond doubt that they are perfectly ok with genuine authoritarians in charge, provided the dollars keep rolling. Fuck them, and good on ya Australia.
It is not that simple: Authoritarians that want to "protect" their gender-questioning or orientation-questioning children from having online access to trans and gay spaces online are not only enthusiastically backing Australia's social media ban, they are involved in the very creation of this legislation, and are delighted in its negative affects on LGBTQ teens. There is considerable overlap between those who subscri…
I thought it was pretty settled that it was social contagion similar to other mental illnesses in the past.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#603The next step is to outlaw social media in general, and maybe the world will become a bit better. Edit: in case someone decides to disagree with me, here is a non-exhaustive list of issues that social media has created: isolation from the real world, unrealistic expectations in terms of looks/status/success, dehumanization by turning people into likes-dislikes, dehumanizations by creating influencers whose sole purpo…
There is nothing that social media provides that a private group chat with your closest people doesn't fulfill. It could be banned with nothing of value lost.
???? We're on social media right now.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#604I feel like everyone in this thread is assuming this is a good faith move by Australia to help kids in school and with socialization. I think phones and social media are harmful, but I get the sense there's a political motive behind this. We've been hearing politicians complain for years that they're losing the youth when it comes to long-standing foreign policy positions, etc... And suddenly they ban social media. R…
Yes, specifically Australian Labor hate social media because while they are to the left of the overton window here, in reality they are a centre-right party pretending to be progressive. But social media is where the actual progressive people congregate.
This social media campaign though I believe actually came from a campaign by the newspaper The Daily Telegraph, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Labor are always trying to placate News Corp media, and News Corp media still blatantly tell their readers not to vote for Labor. It hasn't worked for decades, but Labor seem to believe that one of these days it will be different (it won't).
So politically it ticks some boxes for them, helps them suck up to the newspapers that will always hate them, helps diminish social media spaces where their opponents (actual progressives) congregate, and generally demonising "big tech" does just play well politically here.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#605Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#606unlike me, these young people might even be able to travel to the United States one day...
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#607Earlier quoted context omitted.
The attempt is to remove the market do exploiting the attention of children for profit. This doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth it. What’s more, the idea that this puts children at the mercy of authoritarians is laughable. The US tech industry has shown us beyond doubt that they are perfectly ok with genuine authoritarians in charge, provided the dollars keep rolling. Fuck them, and good on ya Australia.
It is not that simple: Authoritarians that want to "protect" their gender-questioning or orientation-questioning children from having online access to trans and gay spaces online are not only enthusiastically backing Australia's social media ban, they are involved in the very creation of this legislation, and are delighted in its negative affects on LGBTQ teens. There is considerable overlap between those who subscri…
> It is not that simple: Authoritarians that want to "protect" their gender-questioning or orientation-questioning children from having online access to trans and gay spaces online are not only enthusiastically backing Australia's social media ban, they are involved in the very creation of this legislation, and are delighted in its negative affects on LGBTQ teens.
Lawmakers in the US have said this explicitly[1] concerning laws like KOSA[2]:
> A co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill intended to protect children from the dangers of social media and other online content appeared to suggest in March that the measure could be used to steer kids away from seeing transgender content online.
> In a video recently published by the conservative group Family Policy Alliance, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said “protecting minor children from the transgender in this culture” should be among the top priorities of conservative lawmakers.
A bill that implements mass surveillance, chilling of free speech and the hurting of marginalized kids is really killing two birds with one stone for some legislators.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/sena...
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#608Earlier quoted context omitted.
> let their kids hang out any place where that stuff you report is common, if it's at all possible to avoid it. You're talking about cutting kids from all online services, including multiplayer games and community wikis. It also means your kid has no experience of online interactions with strangers, basically no SNS literacy, which also sounds like a disaster waiting to happen to me.
> You're talking about cutting kids from > all online services Not even close? I don’t know how you got that. > including multiplayer games Nah. My kids play plenty of multiplayer games. Local’s fine, online with people they know is fine, online in games with no or extremely limited communication is fine (Nintendo consoles are good for those) > community wikis Are community game wikis hotbeds of scams, predation, and…
> Nintendo
For online gaming, that's 5ish game lines ?
Then Splatoon communities are pretty active, with third party tournaments, discord channels especially during fest flourish. Private matches are a pretty core component of getting good at the game in team events, and Nintendo rightfully limits how much it wants to deal with that side of things.
As a result, if your kid gets into the game, they'll be looking at that from the sideline while other kids get a lot more support.
> game wikis
In general any wikis that allows for limited scope communication, like a discussion between two users in some obscure thread where only the two will be notified of updates, is ripe for abuse. Then game wikis are where kids will be found.
While moderation teams are usually doing a stellar job, it's a cat and mouse game with utterly motivated attackers and highly valuable targets. So stuff will happen.
That kind of stuff won't surface outside of very egregious incidents, but working in an adjacent field to gaming communities, it's definitely a thing.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#609Wake me up, when September ends.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#610Earlier 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…
Why do we have to ban networked communication for teens instead of regulating it? Nearly everything about it that’s bad for teens also sucks for the rest of us.
Social media isn’t social anymore. People don’t use it to talk to anyone. It’s about mindlessly scrolling through chum guided by an algorithm.