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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

#641

Post by morshu9001 »

feb012025 wrote: post #161

I 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…

Yep, ADL and others publicly supported the US TikTok forced-sale specifically because of Israel, including the bill sponsors.

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

#642

Post by [deleted] »

Elfener wrote: post #306
didibus wrote: post #134

To be honest, I wouldn't mind they'd ban it for adults too, would help me from wasting time on them. In all seriousness though, I'm curious what counts as social media, can they not play MMORPGs anymore for example? Are niche forums included ? What about chat apps like Whatsapp? Phone texting? Email? I'm also curious if say TikTok and YouTubed simply deactivated their social features? No comments, DMs, and so on for…

> YouTubed simply deactivated their social features? No comments Youtube already decides to mark some videos as "for kids" which disables a quite a few features such as comments (I guess that makes sense), the ability to add the video to a playlist (what???), notifications (why???)

[deleted]

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

#643

Post by morshu9001 »

bigfatkitten wrote: post #24
deminature wrote: post #16

As an Australian experiencing this first hand and considerably older than 16, absolutely nothing has changed. It seems like all the social networks are doing age estimation of accounts and only taking action on those that fail and are detected as underage. The change is otherwise completely invisible if you're an adult user. Obviously I'm only a sample size of 1, but I've not heard of any other adults being adversely…

Nothing has changed for my 15 year old either. It’s business as usual today for her. She says only one of her friends has been challenged by a platform so far, and that was by Snapchat. That friend got another 14 year old friend to pass the facial age detection check on her behalf.

It'd be funny if suddenly a lot of adult Asian women could no longer use social media

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

#646

Post by shirro »

nacozarina wrote: post #12

this is an egregious violation of their civil rights. the law of unintended consequences looms large.

Australia does not have a bill of rights. Our freedoms are guaranteed by our participation in the electoral process which is very high. This government governs with a large majority and the social media legislation is broadly popular with parents and older people.

The law of unintended consequences will apply. The legislation has been written in such a way that there is some flexibility in the application and there are some safeguards but its not directly addressing some of the biggest social harms. It's primary purpose (despite the conspiracies) seems to be populism and being seen to do do something for the kiddies.

The much bigger social problem is gambling which is out of control here. The second, related problem, is the use of techniques and studies by the gambling industry in games and social media to increase engagement which is what is messing with peoples heads. The government does not dare to touch the gambling industry or stop algorithmic placement of content. This would cause immense damage to company profits and create lobbying pressure.

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

#647

Post by Gigachad »

nomel wrote: post #632
kubb wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authoritarians use social networks to undermine democratic principles so not exposing kids to that takes power away from them. Or did I misunderstand something?

Authoritarians also use state influenced media to undermine democratic principles.

Social media is the worst state propaganda machine ever created. Destroying it would be a huge hit to authoritarians.

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

#648

Post by fn-mote »

rtpg wrote: post #615
jen729w wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> normalising people uploading identification documents and hence lead to people becoming victims of scams We've long lost this war. I'm in Italy, staying at my 3rd Airbnb. I was surprised when the first asked me, casually, to drop a photograph of my passport in the chat. I checked with Claude: yep, that's the law. (I'll remind you that Italy is in the EU.) On checking into this place last week, the guy just took a p…

I'm pretty sure in most places in the world if you are travelling from abroad you are asked to share your passport, and have been for a very very very very long time. The difference between sending it over a chat and handing it over to a clerk (who then photocopies it or types in the data into the computer) feels almost academic. Though at least "Typing it into the computer" doesn't leave them with a picture, just mo…

> The difference between sending it over a chat and handing it over to a clerk (who then photocopies it [...]

The difference is that the paper copy is local and only accessible to the hotel (and any government employee that might come knocking).

The digital version is accessible to anyone who has access to the system, which as we know well on HN includes bureaucrats (or police) with a vendetta against you and any hacker that can manage to breach the feeble defenses of the computer storing the data. That computer isn't locked down because the information is not valuable to the person who holds it; they're paid to satisfy a record-keeping law, not maintain system security.

> at least "Typing it into the computer" doesn't leave them with a picture, just most of the data.

Agreed, except now uploading a scan is the easiest way to file the data.

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

#649

Post by mkoubaa »

jancsika wrote: post #595
indymike wrote: post #406

Father of five here, and founder of a social media marketing company (exited). Our kids are up against problems we didn't have during the great expansion of social. The three big things: 1. State level actors and well funded not for profits are fighting an information war to influence our kids. And they are very good at it. Down to having troll farms to talk one on one. Every time something new happens in the world,…

> Every time something new happens in the world, my younger kids ask me about what they saw on Tik-Tok and their initial understanding is shaped by a well funded actor, and is often completely a false narrative. As someone who remembers the near lack of anti-war voices on network/cable news in the lead-up to the Iraq War (Donahue on MSNBC being the lone example), I'd like to get more details on your strongest example…

The average adult has a carefully curated understanding of the world based on a completely false narrative but nobody clutches their pearls about that

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

#650

Post by Gigachad »

samename wrote: post #483
bigfudge wrote: post #468

Earlier 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.

What about future governments in Australia? This is ripe for abuse and scope creep. It also ties a uniform ID to an account, simplifying tracking and surveillance by corporations and governments. Plus, this is asking everyone in the country to give up their biometrics (face scanning is one implementation) or link your government issued ID to your social media account (look at the UK to see how this turned out - peopl…

They don’t need age verification for that. If you ever connect to social media even once without a VPN and a number of other protections, they can link an account back to you.
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