My thoughts immediately go to all the queer kids in rural areas who stand to be cut off from the only support networks they have.
Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
81–90 of 498 posts
Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#82Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#83Reminder that, often, that which is intended to be passed as a measure to enforce moral rules or increase security is actually a way to deprive you of your privacy.
Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#84Here in Austria in fourth grade kids take a little test for their bicycling skill. Not that it matters much in a car-centric country, but people forget that cycling, even in company with a parent, give kids the chance to learn the necessary traffic rules. Why not have something similar for social media or as the problem seems to be general conduct in social media, educate the kids and give them better ways to raise t…
Here in Australia we teach kids real bicycling skills like how to socially share bets with their friends on the Sportsbet app for Tour de France 2025.[1][2] Thankfully this bill doesn't restrict Australian kids from learning these important life lessons every few minutes within a 10 hour long loop of Baby Shark.
[1] https://www.sportsbet.com.au/betting/cycling/tour-de-france/...
Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hate to break it to you, but rest of the world is not US and have different socio-cultural dynamics. Regardless. We should optimize the outcomes for the collective good, and not for the corner cases. Of course it has its cost.
Even the US is not anything like the childhood environment described by GP, for most children.
Yes, I represent a minority.
Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#86Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
"He can’t even advise if some video game developers he represents’ multiplayer games are exempt from the ban" There are a lot of issues with this legislation, but I'm not sure this is one of them. Games like Roblox are so exploitative, they're probably worse for children than most social media. See, for example: https://www.eurogamer.net/roblox-exploiting-young-game-devel...
I'd guess that some games should be banned too but not everything. Something like Street Fighter is widely different from Roblox for example. The problem with a badly written law is how can you decide which is which?
> I'd guess that some games should be banned too but not everything. Something like Street Fighter is widely different from Roblox for example.
Which one do you want banned?
Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#88What if the platform is not registered as a business in Australia? You can't fine it if it's not a legal entity there. Simply setup a php Facebook clone and host it in another country.
"Simply" If you're making money from aussie customers, you need to comply to aussie rules
How will the Australian government compel such companies to comply?
Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The legislation is vague on the technical details, although it does specifically mandate that platforms cannot use government-issued ID of any kind (including digital ID). That's unexpectedly sane from a law like this. Hopefully they can figure out some zero-knowledge proof of age. (But then there's nothing stopping adults from creating and selling proof values to kids.)
That wasn't in the original bill and it was only amended to add that yesterday , because it wouldn't get past the Conservative (Liberal/National Party) whose votes they needed to ram it through Parliament with almost no scrutiny otherwise (the hastily drafted bill only having been introduced the Friday before the final sitting week of the year).
That's more of the sort of behavior one expects from legislators making broad surveillance apparatuses under guise of protecting children on the internet.
Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws
#90[deleted]