901–910 of 1001 posts
Quite 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).
The mental health trends are real, but pinning them exclusively on social media risks missing a lot of context
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is an argument and worth monitoring, but IMO it's not a strong enough argument to stop this. This sort of ban is the same as existing laws banning the sale and consumption of alcohol or driving until kids are of age they will (on average) have sufficient maturity to handle the responsibility. Something we accept. Kids are not banned from digital communication. My daughter can still send text messages and make ph…
All those services are wall-gardened so without an account, you already cannot consume the contents.
(That's also not what «walled garden» means. You're thinking about «deep web».)
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'…
I ask if those harms are worse than what social media has done to a generation of young people?
I fully support this ban and even restricting online time marginally, tbh, until they're adults. The internet is not the place it once was. The primary focus of the internet today is to entrap you and monetize you at any cost. Social media is absolutely vile and ruinous for the development of young people (it's not helping adults either, mind you).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Everyone must prove their age online now" creates a trail of identity that kills anonymous speech dead. Anonymous speech is very important to maintaining freedoms... such as freedom of speech and freedom of association.
> "Everyone must prove their age online now" creates a trail of identity that kills anonymous speech dead. That depends on the implementation. Do it the wrong way, like many countries or US states, and that is a problem. Do it right, like the EU is doing in their Digital Identity Wallet project, which is currently undergoing large scale field trials, and the site you prove age to gets no information other than that y…
Not really. Either you have freedom of speech or you have restricted speech. The more restriction, the less freedom you have.
> the site you prove age to gets no information other than that you are old enough, and your government gets no information about what sites you have proved age to or when you have done so.
As long as the broker in the middle can be trusted, cannot be extorted by government power or private wealth... in other words: unpossible.
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'…
The criticism is not that it wont be watertight, its that it will be ineffective in achieving what they say the reasoning is. 1. Kids are already moving to platforms that are not included in the ban, groups of friends will choose their own apps to make their group home, including Russian and Chinese apps ( already happening now) 2. Some kids have found ways around the included platforms...not surprising 3. One of the…
«Big Tech» is a bad term to use IMHO, but if you do, why wouldn't it cover Discord(/Tencent) or even Telegram ?
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In the EU you don’t need to upload your ID anywhere, the service can use the government’s portal for ID verification. In the case of age verification they can get a yes/no response if the age is above some threshold. This is opaque to the service so they wouldn’t get any additional ID details.
> In the EU you don’t need to upload your ID anywhere, the service can use the government’s portal for ID verification. In the case of age verification they can get a yes/no response The issue is that now the government knows what you are doing online, and that should never be allowed to happen. I grew up when the Internet was truly free, before Facebook even existed. People shared source code, videos, MP3s, games, r…
There's zero technical necessity for this. You could do zero knowledge proofs with crypto key pairs issued together with the eID.
The Swiss proposal for eID includes stuff like that. If a service needs proof of age, you use an app on your phone to generate the response, which is anonymized towards the requester and doesn't need to contact a government server at all.
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 good law would just have completely banned these platforms from the country. (Even the Canadian Kik, because freeware, therefore closed source, therefore a platform.
EDIT : Looks like it's instead the Australian Kick, The Register had it wrong ? Same deal. (Especially with its owners having a gambling background.))
I wish the EU would be bold enough to do this, especially with Trump's bullying, but I have already been disappointed in the past, despite the situation clearly calling for strong actions like these...
I fully support this legislation, and government regulation around this topic. Given the current (2025) state of the social media landscape, I believe that the positives of restricting access to them for teenagers well outweighs any potential harms. As the parent of a teenager affected by this ban (plus one who has aged past it): I wish that it had been in place 8-10 years ago, before either of my kids got smartphone…
I strongly disagree with this legislation and have found it hard to 'steelman' the other side, which your comment/opinion does well. I found it very informative so just wanted to share my appreciation for you posting it here.
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…
> to have a useful discussion here
Typical dismissive tactics of a devil's advocate;
> by private companies not accountable to the electorate, not by the state
This tale about corporations being separate entities from the state doesn't entertain anymore.