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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

#811

Post by anakaine »

ares623 wrote: post #763
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…

We wouldn’t have this problem if the tech companies can “self regulate” (lol). But us engineers just can’t help ourselves but find even more effective and efficient ways to harvest eyeballs and stoke hate. And yes, I mean engineers. Just a few “inventions” off the top of my head that got us here: - infinite scroll - Facebook’s shadow profiles - recommendation algorithms Don’t pretend it’s not engineers that came up w…

The issue is that lower profits are attached to self regulation, as is community backlash. Large tech companies rarely have a moral compass and their decisions are attached to return on investment to their financiers.

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

#812

Post by jackvalentine »

amatecha wrote: post #597
plantain wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Atlassian products are included in the ban. I think you have seen a joke.

Yeah turns out that is the case, it was a joke image but the person didn't say it was a joke and posted it as if it was real :\

Welcome to the internet!

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

#813

Post by oxfordmale »

somenameforme wrote: post #808
zmmmmm wrote: post #405

A 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'…

> a small fraction of kids branching off into fringe networks that are off the radar and will take them to very dark places very quickly. I don't think this is much of an issue at all. The path of least resistance, by an overwhelmingly wide margin, is just using a proxy, TOR, or whatever else to bypass the filtering. Sites will be doing the bare minimum for legal compliance, and so it won't be particularly difficult.…

The real problem is social media. Their machine learning algorithms are optimised to boost toxic content, as they result in more engagement (time spent). This is a fundamental trait of humans. Even babies look at angry faces longer than happy faces.More time spent means more advertising revenue.

It means the current generation gets exposed to a lot of toxic content all in the name of driving advertising revenue. In the olden days you could get everything, but it wasn't forced down your throat, or rather your reels.

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

#814

Post by HaZeust »

indymike wrote: post #456
phantasmish wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why a person would want to let their kids hang out any place where that stuff you report is common, if it's at all possible to avoid it. I'm gonna continue to run with "no social media", which has worked so far. They can message people they actually know IRL, somewhere without a feed full of crap from people they don't know. That's plenty. Like I can't think of any analogous place in physical space I'd l…

> I'm not sure why a person would want to let their kids hang out any place where that stuff you report is common, A great percentage of serious crimes (from rape to fraud) are committed by family and friends of the victims. Should we not leave our children with our family alone? The best move is to teach your children how to not be victimized. It is part of "being responsible for yourself". My parents taught me how…

>"The best move is to teach your children how to not be victimized."

Your GP advocated world-building a child's physical environment to avoid digital - which is simply unrealistic for their later years as it is, and coddling them so nothing that could even potentially victimize them in the digital world would be able to reach them. So, genuinely: What's it gonna be?

Are you going to teach a child the real-world application and use cases for being responsible for themselves, not becoming victimized and carrying themselves well, and learning to act appropriate in an increasingly-digital world; or not?

Otherwise; saying you'll teach your kids real-world application for being responsible for themselves and not being victimized, and then not giving them a space to see the importance of those practices out of fear that they'll succumb to it, is having your cake and eating it, too.

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

#815

Post by wartywhoa23 »

The infovacuuming phase of social networks is complete. Training datasets grabbed, social graphs built, biometry compiled.

Now it's very logical to spin that expensive infrastructure down, removing free communication channels which can dangerously synchronize people against the state, and leaving only channels of control: digital ID, CDBC and a white list of governmental "services", all else outlawed.

People of 2010s uploaded their personal data into the cloud because they thought that was cool, people of 2030s will do because their telescreens demand them so.

Everyone who thinks this will stop at "think about the children" is beyond all repair.

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

#816

Post by niemandhier »

To ostracise means literally to be outed from society.

Most people I know want to keep their kids off social media, but do not want them to be ostracised.

Given that law, it might now be possible to keep your kids off the networks.

In my experience, at least for younger teens, it’s a small subset of kids enabled by their parents that push everybody else into the mouth of the kraken.

Example from my life:

Kid A has an Instagram account curated by her mum, who is more than happy to set up all kinds of communities, etc., for the kids in the class to cite: “finally be able to better communicate and stay in touch”.

Sure, you can keep your kid out, but social isolation is not easy for teens. Given that law, you could get Insta-mom banned.

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

#817

Post by 256_ »

rhubarbtree wrote: post #810
256_ wrote: post #803

A lot of the arguments I see in this thread are about whether modern mainstream social media are bad for young people. When the debate becomes about that, it's very easy to defend these types of Orwellian laws. It becomes "This is a problem, therefore the solution is good", without questioning the solution itself. I think this type of thinking is demonstrated, or perhaps exploited, very well by this article (I'm not…

Well, no one is suggesting 24/7 surveillance, we’re suggesting banning children from using social media, as it has demonstrably very harmful effects on their education and wellbeing. It’s not Orwellian. If it were, then not allowing kids to vote or drink before they become adults would be Orwellian. We are simply banning kids from a harmful activity until they are old enough to decide for themselves. The ban has to b…

You've basically just confirmed what I said at the end, that democracies have no immunity to mass surveillance. 24/7 surveillance may have been an exaggeration but not by much, really. Age verification, as it exists now, inevitably means mass surveillance, in particular tying real life identities to political beliefs and porn preferences on a mass, computerised scale. If you're too young to remember the Snowden leaks I can maybe understand why you'd think mass surveillance is not an inevitable consequence of age verification, but I'm old enough to remember them, so I think it is. The existence and impact of mass surveillance seem to be invisible to you.

> It’s not Orwellian. If it were, then not allowing kids to vote or drink before they become adults would be Orwellian.

To be clear: What do you think you're refuting? I don't think children should be on modern social media. I don't think anyone should be, but especially not children. There are plenty of ways of going about this. This is why I said:

> A lot of the arguments I see in this thread are about whether modern mainstream social media are bad for young people. When the debate becomes about that, it's very easy to defend these types of Orwellian laws. It becomes "This is a problem, therefore the solution is good", without questioning the solution itself.

You then claim that the tech industry, and by extension "tech circles", don't like this because it means they make less money. I'm not sure how forcing companies whose business model is based on surveillance capitalism to do even more surveillance would hurt them, but if it does, it's still not my concern anyway. And conflating random hackers like me with "big tech" seems to have become increasingly common recently.

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

#818

Post by mgh2 »

zmmmmm wrote: post #405

A 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'…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkDAXsF4oXA

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

#819

Post by _petronius »

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #815

The infovacuuming phase of social networks is complete. Training datasets grabbed, social graphs built, biometry compiled. Now it's very logical to spin that expensive infrastructure down, removing free communication channels which can dangerously synchronize people against the state, and leaving only channels of control: digital ID, CDBC and a white list of governmental "services", all else outlawed. People of 2010s…

Your sci-fi distopia flash fiction is compelling, but not actually on topic in this discussion.

"Think of the children" is weaponized for censorious purposes, but also the harms of social media are well documented (unlike many of the other moral panics fuelled by this phrase). Communication channels are becoming managed spaces, but by private companies not accountable to the electorate, not by the state.

I'm not sure a blanket under-16s ban on all social media is the right answer, but there are really good reasons why people support this that you need to engage with to have a useful discussion here.

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

#820

Post by CommanderData »

lurk2 wrote: post #511
basisword wrote: post #436

Earlier 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…

Scrolled too far to find this. It is largely about the points you made.
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