I'm in favor of banning all social media for under 18s.
I'm heavily against any form of mandatory form of identification for using non-government online-services.
Is it even possible to do the former without doing the later?
Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
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Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#772The 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…
I would start by outlawing the algorithmic feed. Force them to show a chronological timeline of who you follow with no influence from likes, no For You feed, basically no algorithmic recommendation engine. You probably solve most of the problems with 10% of the legal/social/implementation difficulty.
And no ads.
I agree that would go a long long way.
When it becomes a place to share photos with your friends, like the OG Instagram, a lot of the harmful effects go away.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#773The 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…
You do know that HN in in the category of social media right?
No, it's not.
You can't follow people or have followers. There's no notification system when someone "likes" your comment. It doesn't lend itself towards pulling you back with the latest comment or post. There is the front page algorithm, but you can always just go to /latest or /active. It's about the content, not the users.
Critically, there's no ads or monetization (which is where all that garbage comes in).
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#774I'm all for keeping kids away from social media. My main concern is how we verify that they are under 16 [0].
> showing my ID [in person] was a simple, controlled transaction: one person looked at it for three seconds, handed it back, and forgot about it. The information never left that moment. But online, that same verification process transforms into something far more risky. A digital journey through countless servers, databases, and third-party services, each one a potential point of failure.
> What appears to be the same simple request "please verify your identity", becomes fundamentally different when mediated by technology. The question isn't whether these digital systems will be compromised, but when. And unlike that movie theater clerk who can't perfectly recall my birthdate minutes after seeing it, computers have perfect memory. They store, copy, backup, and transmit our most sensitive information through networks we don't control, to companies we've never heard of, under policies we'll never read.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#775Please explain me anybody, why not to ban any software which is not FOSS? It will lead to the world I want to live in. Banning just social media just for kids makes the Government to do too much for us - D E C I D I N G who is a kid and what is a social media.
It is similar to the tax approach - it is not bad that we are paying taxes, what is bad that the Government implies how to count the taxes.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#776Father 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,…
It is OK if your kids "and their initial understanding is shaped by a well funded actor, and is often completely a false narrative."
I bet that if I would meet you, I would unleash multiple similar cases to you personally for less than 1 hour. I am almost sure I can ask such kind of questions that would reveal your kids giving better (less brainwashed) result than you do.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#777I 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…
I think adults are barely able to take reasoned political positions in today’s online environment, but at least an adult has the experience to make the attempt. Exposing kids to the type of online political persuasion we have today means that we are exposing them to something they have not got the tools to navigate. They just get swept up into whatever the popular idea of the day happens to be. To me, the argument th…
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Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#778How are they going to verify it's not some kid telling he's 18 with a fake picture? Demand a photo of driver's license? Got one here, right out borrowed from dad's pocket. The article also mentions inferring age from the usage which sounds as vague as it is.
The counter point is that doesn't this basically mean everyone, including adults, now has to identify in order to use social media? Without a national electronic ID where personal data never leaves government's systems (they've already got it) and the social network just receives a yes/no bit when they ask "is this person old enough?" this would mean a huge amounts of identification data would be willingly and voluntarily "leaked" to foreign private services. Scan your passport and send it to China in order to use TikTok?
This mass identification process could either make also large groups of adult people leave social media sites or condition people to upload their ID data to whatever site happens to ask for it.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#779Quite a decisive move by the Australian government. I don't know if it's a move in the right direction or not but the research clearly shows that around the time social media became mainstream, teens' and preteens' mental health took a nosedive (Especially girls).
I can't see this as decisive. * The ban only targets ten services. * The ban applies only to actually logging into the service - everything can still be viewed when logged out. Users are still being tracked while logged out. * Reddit (and possibly other services) are complying simply by using heuristics to detect under-16 users - they're not even employing any reliable verification measures.
> The ban only targets ten services.
This is considered a startup phase AFAICT, with others being looked at as necessary.
> The ban applies only to actually logging into the service - everything can still be viewed when logged out. Users are still being tracked while logged out.
Sure, but it stops kids bullying each other, and a service you can't fully interact with is not very interesting, stops kids putting their pics/videos/whatever online.
> Reddit (and possibly other services) are complying simply by using heuristics to detect under-16 users - they're not even employing any reliable verification measures.
They are using heuristics and then an external verification service if the heuristics set off an alarm. It's not perfect at present, sure, but I don't think it has to be.
We'll see how effective it is over time I guess.
Re: Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
#780Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Our kids are up against problems we didn't have during the great expansion of social. I'm not sure I agree with this. Our societies globally have become hugely polarised and are manipulated daily because of social media. The damage done by social media is 100x greater than any good that came from it and the lives of adults have been affected by on it a societal level at least as much as the danger to kids. It isn'…
> Our societies globally have become hugely polarised and are manipulated daily because of social media. Watching 18 year old kids getting drone striked every other day has done more for the anti-war movement than a hundred years of post-WW1 globalist utopianism. The only demographic of war hawks you find online anymore are psychotics and boomers, both being unfit for military service. This is the fundamental reason…
I am from Ukraine. Tell me anything you know about drone striked humans. For you it is just pictures from Internets happening far far away, you never know why do they find themself being drone striked.
What anti-war actions have you done to prevent the end your life by drone striking? Post some dislikes, duh?