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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

#681

Post by bdangubic »

feb012025 wrote: post #344
bdangubic wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unfortunately there is nothing we can do in any society without seeing comments like this… whatever “move” is done comments like this will be there with endless “analysis” about “motivation” for the move… it is what it is…

The nature of democracy and open dialogue I suppose. But really, when banning a large portion of the population from social media, political motives should absolutely be entertained. Politics is inextricably related to social media in 2025

in 2025 politics is inextricably related to everything

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

#682

Post by beached_whale »

Bad_Initialism wrote: post #628

To all the parents defending this: you are responsible for your children and what they do. Passing laws that affect all of us because you are too lazy and ineffectual to raise your children properly is unacceptable.

This completely negates the nuance and social pressures and sounds like you just want to be edgy. The network affects are huge and others like teachers and clubs are pushing these services as a means of communication instead of using, other, safer services. There is no choice if one wants to be a part of society currently.

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

#683

Post by CommenterPerson »

Yay for the Aussie government. Hope the sociopath tech bros take notice and clean up their toxic products. And the little tech bros protesting here.

The Aussies passed strict gun control laws in 1996 .. suicides and homicides decreased significantly. Another field where we Leaders of the Free world (or not) can learn from the "World down under"!

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

#684

Post by johnnyanmac »

johnwheeler wrote: post #660
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…

Some of us don’t mind government regulation as much as your parents told you not to like it. I just say this because it’s usually those types of parents that instill this kind of stuff and their children not to trust the government but some of us actually do. We are pretty happy with the way things are. It’s not naïve either. It’s seriously a problem when people talk like the government is meant to be not trusted.

>Some of us don’t mind government regulation as much as your parents told you not to like it

I wasn't told to hate government regulations. 30 years of horrible, ineffective regulation taught me to hate these poorly thought out regulatoins. I grew up under No Child Left Behind. I saw the TSA form before my very eyes. I'm right now seeing ICE roam free, regulations be damned.

I don't hate the idea of regulation. I don't trust the people who are trying to regulate.

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

#685

Post by denismi »

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.

So far I haven't been KYCd by anything.

Aside from YouTube I don't particularly engage with any of these often, but my Google, Facebook, Discord, Twitter, Bluesky, (current) Reddit, Slack, Telegram accounts all seem to be BAU without new requirements.

If the 80% of us currently holding unambiguously-over-16 accounts are exempt, and it only affects future over-16 users as they're onboarded, then it is a very blunt and very slow form of data harvesting which won't yield useful results until years/decades after all of the relevant decision-makers have moved on, retired and/or died. So this seems unlikely?

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

#686

Post by tjpnz »

This is what happens when there's a lack of robust options for parents to deal with the issue themselves. As a technical person I can prevent my kids from accessing these apps on any of their devices, regardless of whether they're at home or not. But if you're a parent who is not you're pretty much limited to the flawed offerings from Apple and Google, who are financially incentivized to make it as hard and as full of holes as possible.

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

#687

Post by johnnyanmac »

delbronski wrote: post #487
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…

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 can we ban those and not this?

we didn't ban cigarettes, we disincentivized them. Why can't we do the same here? regulate the algorithms, not the platform (the platform ultimately being "the internet").

This is just a cat and mouse game where every few years the government will ban whatever the kids like. That's not how you create a high trust society.

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

#688

Post by rpmisms »

robryan wrote: post #245
rpmisms wrote: post #224

Discord and Roblox exempted. This is a joke.

To include discord you have to extend it to messaging services. To include Roblox it should be all online games with chat.

Ok that's fine. These two platforms are where kids are being groomed.

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

#689

Post by stein1946 »

Bad_Initialism wrote: post #628

To all the parents defending this: you are responsible for your children and what they do. Passing laws that affect all of us because you are too lazy and ineffectual to raise your children properly is unacceptable.

> To all the parents defending this: you are responsible for your children and what they do.

Stop delegating action to the individual.

Me and missus are full time employees, I do not have oversight to what my kid is doom-scrolling on his lunch break.

> Passing laws that affect all of us because you are too lazy and ineffectual to raise your children properly is unacceptable.

How does it affect you? Unless you are a corporate mouthpiece this does not affect you at all.

I do not want my kid to watch any degenerate pornography on his formative years just because some lobbyist wants to shove freemarketeering ideologies down our throats.

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

#690

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

rapind wrote: post #651
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…

These are government regulations regarding kids. Nothing new here, we’ve been regulating what you can market to kids for decades. I’m not buying a slippery slope argument. As a parent myself, it definitely helps when you can collectively avoid having your kids on these platforms. I can’t express how much easier it is to restrict it and not seem like a kook when authorities are also on board.

So it “helps” so you don’t have to be the bad guy to your kids and instead now everyone needs to give the government a method to tie your online presence and speech to you.
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