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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

#981

Post by protocolture »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #240
feb012025 wrote: post #161

I 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…

There's no motive other than "easy politicial win". The kids aren't gonna vote against you (they don't vote), parents will vote for you, you get to show people you protected children and passed legislation. Politicians support anything that keeps them in votes and campaign contributions.

Kids dont vote, but when they do they tend to come in radicalised and swinging. Voter intention in Australia has shifted heavily towards minor parties over the last decade. While this is currently being captured by our preferential voting system, the tipping point is 1 - 2 elections away.

Isolating kids from current events and society can easily be seen as a potential extra bullwark against changing voter intentions, because Minor partiers tend to favour social media engagement against paying for expensive ads.

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

#982

Post by protocolture »

rstuart4133 wrote: post #491
feb012025 wrote: post #161

I 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 feel like everyone in this thread is assuming this is a good faith move by Australia to help kids in school and with socialization. Most Australian schools banned phones a while ago. Attempts were made to measure the outcome. For example, South Australia saw a 72% drop in phone-related issues and 80.5% fall in social media problems in early 2025 compared to 2023 [0]. Other states reported similar results. These e…

Is that the same report that failed to mention they changed the testing methodology for the year after the phone ban, and that an improvement was expected in SA test scores regardless?

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

#983

Post by timbit42 »

random9749832 wrote: post #920

It feels like there is more bot activity then ever before. Reddit is now filled with fresh accounts, suspended accounts and bunch of content that suddenly gets deleted. It doesn't even feel like you are interacting with people anymore. The "social" part is severely decaying.

New accounts should be limited to read-only for at least a month.

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

#984

Post by jaimex2 »

yunnpp wrote: post #697
jaimex2 wrote: post #666

HackerNews used to be full of moderately smart people. This is basically Reddit level comments. Think for a moment instead of just accepting whatever the media is telling you to think. How many social networks are there? Are some of those decentralised? Will kids move to unmoderated underground ones in response to this? Will the government expand these laws now that it achieved a foothold? Parenting and teaching your…

Obviously you have no kids or live in a remote cabin isolated from society. Banning social media in principle is like banning the sales of alcohol and other drugs to underage people. Those bans are good for society irrespective of your parenting ability. It helps that those negative things are less accessible to the vulnerable. Now, how the social media ban is effected in practice is a different point. And people her…

I do have kids and they are well adjusted individuals. I spent time parenting them and showing them how the world works.

Turns out the social media drug loses all it's power if you reveal whats behind the curtain. Just like real drugs, dont be scared to show your kids what the consequences are.

I wasn't aware that banning alchohol and drugs to minors had any positive effect tbh. If anything that in itself made them more desirable and sought after.

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

#986

Post by realaaa »

why are they not going for the true root cause of the problem?

stop dilution our attention - shorts, infinite scrolls, predatory algorithms - this needs to be controlled really

and yeah of course scams and pedos etc - surely Big Tech can crack down on that also

again why a good behaving majority needs to suffer, because of minority crap + bad incentives of ads driven platforms?

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

#987

Post by lurk2 »

eimrine wrote: post #780
lurk2 wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> For you it is just pictures from Internets happening far far away, you never know why do they find themself being drone striked.

I’ve seen more than one begging for his life getting blown up by a grenade dropped out of the sky. The killers then post videos glorifying these executions complete with music and motion graphics.

> What anti-war actions have you done to prevent the end your life by drone striking?

I haven’t done anything, and that’s the point; there is nothing that will compel me to treat my fellow man in the way I have seen men treated in this footage.

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

#988

Post by chocoboaus3 »

Just a reminder that the Australian government has chosen to not ban sports betting advertisements including live odds and crosses to betting companies inside sports broadcasts

that kids watch

And parents have asked the gov to ban

But they won't because tax revenue

So don't try and tell me this government is all about the kids

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

#989

Post by b00ty4breakfast »

ang_cire wrote: post #345
b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a massive propaganda channel. We can argue about whether any one particular state is involved in that or not but gut reaction is that if this were the real concern, their solution would be to regulate and censor what is posted online rather than kicking them off the platform and thus detaching them from the teat of (alleged) indoctrination. (that push for censorship also exists). Maybe Australia and the US…

> It's also a massive propaganda channel. The problem is that school curriculum is as well. I remember going to school in Texas and hearing the phrase "Northern War of Aggression" to describe the Civil War. Censorship is never about cutting off information, it's only ever about cutting off information that the censors don't like. Given how openly hostile both AU and the US's governments are to progressive politics an…

I'm not saying you're wrong but I'm still unconvinced. I think it is a very obvious backdoor to forcing online ID without having to call it an ID law.

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

#990

Post by protocolture »

mvdtnz wrote: post #234
nephihaha wrote: post #56

There is a pattern of government using moral panics to exert greater control. Australia and New Zealand seem to be used as a testbed for projects which are introduced elsewhere. The UK government wishes to police social media more heavily, and has been using internet porn and illegal immigration (two unrelated issues) to push through digital ID. The exact same mentality - controversy, panic, dubious solution... In th…

What do you think is happening in New Zealand with regards to "moral panic" projects?

Australias eSafety office only occurred because of the Christchurch shooting. The Australian government wanted a sniff of that moral panic, and said it needed the right to remove videos of the shooting from the internet. Thats the office that has been pushing for this law. You can draw a direct line from Christchurch to this event.

The Kiwis tightened their gun laws after the incident, despite having done pretty well with what they had until that year.

In both events, both governments paraded around saying shit like "Leading the world" such as Australia is once again doing here. Its much like Godwins favourite dictator going abroad to spruik his fantastic free holiday / political retraining resort. "World Leading" is the absence of any other quality terminology.

For Australias case, during the 00s and early 10s we actually had a really huge internet freedom movement. Previous attacks on the internet had bee repelled quite gracefully. It took such a moral panic to finally put Australia in its place, and now we are looking at a further consequence of that moral failure.

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