I’m concerned this will drive teens to dodgy apps and services that have lax data security and no oversight.
Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
701–710 of 1001 posts
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#702Earlier 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…
> 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.
Sure, but the Australian government's definition of an age-restricted social media platform doesn't mention advertising or algorithms at all. Technically, their definition also covers algorithm-free social media like Mastodon, which I'd argue isn't nearly as harmful.
The framing of social media as something that's inherently bad no matter how you do it is a framing that helps social media giants like YouTube, Instagram and Facebook to continue to "do it" in a way that harms people. I'm sure they love the idea that the ills of social media can be solved by banning their least profitable users while doing nothing to regulate what they do with the others. They're probably thrilled that their healthier algorithm-free competitors haven't even entered the conversation. They want to be the tobacco companies of the future, because making addictive things for adults is incredibly profitable.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#703Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. It’s easy to say this from your armchair, but when your kid is the one kid not on social media because you’re such an righteous parent, and that kid is getting bullied by all the other kids for not knowing what’s going on in TikTok or Insta, you start seeing this as a problem that requires the coordination of large numbers of people who you may or may not know, many of whom are kids who lack executive fun…
Maybe you should move to a community that shares your values rather than getting the state to impose those values on everyone.
In fact the majority of the electorate in Australia supports this, so that is exactly where you’d go to be in a community that shares your values. Social media has an addictive and infectious nature, even people who hate it end up using it because of the crippling network effects.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#704Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure social media was ever sane. I distinctly remember thinking it wasn't back in my highschool days, so around 2007-2009, which was pretty much when Facebook completely took over the market in Sweden where I lived. Before then I used to use lunarstorm. Was that the sane period of social media? Maybe, my memory is fuzzy: it's been a while.
Yeah it wasn't ever sane. It was just harder to onboard and you were still interacting mostly with people you knew. Now it's worse because you'll hardly ever interact with people you know.
Now days you just get a feed of LLM content or foreign psyop accounts. Your actual friends are on IM apps.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#705Earlier 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 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.
> we disincentivized them.
In Australia, not that much and we (Australia) passed the point of diminishing returns and moved into the zone of incentivising a criminal black market.
The state of play today is that foreign nationals, Syrians and others, are chasing billions in illicit tobacco revenue, denying that to the Government as income, firebombing and shooting up cars, shops, and families of rivals.
The brutality levels have risen to the point where old school leg breaking Chopper Read era crims are speaking out about going too far, involving families and "breaking code".
Social policy always has a balance.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#706A lot of the criticism is based on the concept that it won't be technically watertight. But the key is that it doesn't have to be watertight to work. Social media is all about network effects. Once most kids are on there, everyone has to be on there. If you knock the percentage down far enough, you break the network effect to the point where those who don't want to don't feel pressured to. If that is all it does, it'…
I’d say you made a good risk-benefit analysis, recognizing the potential upside of the ban (breaking the network effect, reducing social pressure) while raising important concerns about security, privacy, and a possible migration to more dangerous online spaces. That kind of debate is essential. But I also think some of the consequences you fear (widespread scams, a mass shift to “dark” networks, extreme social isola…
Like anything it's a matter of magnitudes. My best guess is that any negative side effects are going to be of a trivial magnitude, cancelling out a small amount of the upside on net. At the very least it's an experiment worth running, and if successful, worth extending to further regulations for adults too, especially around mechanics (not the content itself) such as the algorithmic feed.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#707Earlier 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.
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Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#708Earlier 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.
The problem is that it's a government regulation regarding everyone, because now everyone must prove that they're not a subject of this new law.
Do you think there should there be police on every corner you must submit your ID to to prove you're not an illegal immigrant?
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#709Earlier 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…
The government has laws saying people under 16 can't drive cars, do you think that's part of the slippery slope that has led to all of those happening-in-practice bad things?
Yes but every time you drive on the road you don't need to prove you're over 16.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#710Earlier 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.
> These are government regulations regarding kids.
No, they aren't just that, because they are government regulations requiring everyone wanting access to something that cannot be marketed to children under the rules to prove that they are not a child, which is not inherently essential to a regulation of what can be marketed to children.
There is a difference between regulating what can be marketed to children and mandating that vendors secure proof that every user is not a child.
(Just as there is a difference between prohibiting knowingly supplying terrorists and requiring every seller to conduct a detailed background check of every customer to assure that they are not a terrorist.)