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Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

abc.net.au

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Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#91

Post by triceratops »

plagiarist wrote: post #38
llui85 wrote: post #4

Some notes: * It is illegal for a platform to provide children with a social media account, not for the child to create an account. Circumvention of this by the child is not illegal. * No grandfathering - all accounts under 16 once this takes effect (which won't be until this time next year at earliest) must be deactivated. * Maximum fine (per instance?) is 50 million AUD (about 32 million USD) * The legislation is v…

> 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.)

> But then there's nothing stopping adults from creating and selling proof values to kids

That's also true for alcohol and tobacco.

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#92

Post by sneak »

dyauspitr wrote: post #31
goalieca wrote: post #22

I can’t get behind a ban because we’re fighting an unstoppable force: the connected future. This is the world we live in and kids will have to “evolve” to their new environment. I think parents and schools need to change the role they play.

Nothing unstoppable about it. It’s about as straightforward and controlling access to tobacco or alcohol.

Or marijuana or cocaine. It’s super easy for the government to deny access to things people want by fiat, as evidenced by the fact that nobody does cocaine anymore.

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#93

Post by sneak »

actionfromafar wrote: post #49
soulofmischief wrote: post #34

Make absolutely no mistake. The real reason why politicians push through these anti-social media laws is to prevent children from networking and discussing and sharing revolutionary ideas. These laws are designed to prevent generations from establishing a baseline sociopolitical coherency and unity. I was subject to a home firewall and computer use surveillance as a child for the exact same reason, because my cult gu…

You may also be just the right age to have had access to an internet less dominated by doomscrolling and bullying.

Someone’s never been on 1998 hacker IRC.

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#94

Post by tekla »

llui85 wrote: post #28
creakingstairs wrote: post #24

I was wondering how "social media" was defined. Anyone got a link to the actual bill? From the article: > "Messaging apps," "online gaming services" and "services with the primary purpose of supporting the health and education of end-users" will not fall under the ban, as well as sites like YouTube that do not require users to log in to access the platform. Almost every "social" apps are basically messaging apps thes…

(i) the sole purpose, or a significant purpose, of the service is to enable online social interaction between 2 or more end-users; (ii) the service allows end-users to link to, or interact with, some or all of the other end-users; (iii) the service allows end-users to post material on the service; Linked to the legislation in another comment.

This is so generic, you might as well ban the internet.

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#95

Post by MichaelZuo »

stephen_g wrote: post #39
lmpdev wrote: post #16

My friend is a media lawyer in Australia He can’t even advise if some video game developers he represents’ multiplayer games are exempt from the ban He says the legislation is just an under defined word salad Note this was several days ago and it may have been amended in the mean time

This is a trend in lawmaking in Australia, and it's seriously damaging. It's basically written so the Government's Minister of Communications gets to decide who to directly target (or not target) with the law. Basically allows them to arbitarily apply the law to some parties and not others, with no right of appeal. That does lead to potential constitutionality concerns, but it would take years for it to be struck dow…

Isn’t that what the electorate desires?

By electing personable but mediocore, sometimes even incompetent, MPs over the intelligent but aloof candidates.

Someone or some committee, somewhere, still has to actually work out all the details, and if it’s not done in Parliament, because the average MP literally can’t grasp even half the agenda items, it has to be done elsewhere.

Edit: And even that is probably being too optimistic, I’ve heard of MPs who can’t even remember the key facts and figures from the last 100 executive summaries they’ve read. Let alone any detail within the reports whatsoever.

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#96

Post by lukan »

tilolebo wrote: post #61
TomK32 wrote: post #51

Here 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…

Right. Let's do the same for drugs. Irony aside, these platforms are addictive and polarizing by design. I doubt a little test will change anything.

You realize HN here is social media, too?

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#97

Post by adventured »

canadianfella wrote: post #87
lawn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The rapidly creeping authoritarianism is extraordinary.

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#99

Post by cies »

lmpdev wrote: post #16

My friend is a media lawyer in Australia He can’t even advise if some video game developers he represents’ multiplayer games are exempt from the ban He says the legislation is just an under defined word salad Note this was several days ago and it may have been amended in the mean time

> He says the legislation is just an under defined word salad

This might be on purpose. I've heard many say online that this law is sold as "save the children" but is designed to be used to get everyone to provide ID when they go/public/message online.

> He can’t even advise if some video game developers he represents’ multiplayer games are exempt from the ban

Bad for video game dev's business, and great for lawyers! The interpretation of the law will get clarified by many lawsuits (costing businesses a lot).

Re: Australia: Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes laws

#100

Post by high_na_euv »

lmpdev wrote: post #16

My friend is a media lawyer in Australia He can’t even advise if some video game developers he represents’ multiplayer games are exempt from the ban He says the legislation is just an under defined word salad Note this was several days ago and it may have been amended in the mean time

What about spirit of the law vs letter of the law?
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