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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

#991

Post by somenameforme »

triwats wrote: post #961
somenameforme wrote: post #808

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

> 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've been grappling with this all afternoon and I still cannot determine what my stance on this. I grew up when the internet was a bit of a wildwest, and I've definitely seen things online that I wish I never had without my consent. But there's also a bizarre thought that mayb expo…

Your comment made one word immediately pop to mind - rotten? But I'm increasingly of the opinion that the 'dark stuff' on the internet isn't really the problem, so much as the seemingly innocuous stuff like people posting extremely 'select', if not outright fabricated, sections of their lives on social media. It gives people a mistaken perception of what their own life is like or what it could/should be like. Even more when this is taken to the next level with insecure kids consuming and interacting with one another in this context.

And then there's the issue with ourselves even. We pretty much all do, say, and believe dumb things when we're younger. It's just a part of growing up. But I can't imagine what life must be like if you mix this reality with social media. Not only does this then stay attached to you forever, but pretty much anything can be artificially reinforced. With both factors probably working to impair general maturation.

These are all just consequences of 'normal' things that you'd have even if we censored 100% of vice on the internet, and it's still quite awful.

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

#992

Post by mlrtime »

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…

Prisoners delima...

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

#993

Post by nicolas_t »

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'…

My concern is very much those two concerns plus the fact that I value being able to be anonymous. We're increasingly losing that in the real world with CCTV and AI that would eventually allow people to be tracked (like in China), I do want to have one last bastion of privacy.

That said, I fully support laws that ban phones at school, I chose my kid's school because they do not allow any electronic devices on campus outside the computer lab where kids can go to to do research. Every day when I bring my kid to the school bus, I see that children say hello to each other and start chatting. There's another very well ranked school that picks up kids in front of my apartment and they allow phones. The kids all stare fixedly on their phones as soon as they sit on the bus. Having a country wide ban of mobile devices in all schools would I think serve most of the same purpose as the social media ban while having a lot less externalities.

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

#995

Post by indymike »

phantasmish wrote: post #472
indymike wrote: post #456

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, 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…

> 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? But I'm pretty sure that like 50+% of interactions with family aren't crime. > Why not teach your kids how to navigate the internet safely. No reason to involve any serious amount of time browsing feeds of shit in that. I don't make them roll around in…

> I don't make them roll around in poison ivy, either.

My parents taught me what poison ivy looks like so I did not roll in it.

Likewise teaching your kids what a skinner loop is and how scrolling a feed is putting yourself in a skinner loop is really surprisingly effective. Kids like having agency, when you show them that tiktok does things to take your control away they listen.

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

#996

Post by naravara »

ethin wrote: post #157
naravara wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 70-80% of it is the business model, but the other 20-30% might just be baked into how it is. Jonathan Haidt talks about how once social media usage became ubiquitous among teenagers around 2015 mental health problems began to skyrocket. And a big part of this was the algorithm serving up content designed to make people feel bad, but another part around feelings of being bullied turned out to largely be kids s…

Jonathan Haidt is someone who nobody should take seriously. Pretty much all of the data he cites is cherry-picked and the vast majority of people in trust and safety and similar will tell you that he is probably one of the least reliable authorities on this subject. He's aiming to sell fear, not to actually solve the problem.

The only data point I referred to is the dramatic rise starting in 2015, and the divergence by gender. I don’t think anyone seriously disputes that, just the presumed usage patterns he thinks go along with those. The criticisms of him are basically orthogonal to the point I’m making.

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

#997

Post by mvdtnz »

protocolture wrote: post #990
mvdtnz wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not sure what you think is happening in New Zealand still. Your one example is a tightening of gun laws following a mass shooting. Something that virtually all Kiwis are in favour of.

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

#998

Post by bigB »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #906
bigB wrote: post #858

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Discord might not be officially included, but they still complied. «Big Tech» is a bad term to use IMHO, but if you do, why wouldn't it cover Discord(/Tencent) or even Telegram ?

Going to say Nope there....I know a lot of kids using discord, they do not have age checks in Australia.

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

#999

Post by BlueTemplar »

bigB wrote: post #998
BlueTemplar wrote: post #906

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord might not be officially included, but they still complied. «Big Tech» is a bad term to use IMHO, but if you do, why wouldn't it cover Discord(/Tencent) or even Telegram ?

Going to say Nope there....I know a lot of kids using discord, they do not have age checks in Australia.

Seems like it was only newly introduced for Australians wanting to access Discord (not-)servers (and/or channels) declaring themselves 18+ only.

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

#1000

Post by Havoc »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #971
Havoc wrote: post #969

And the UK is pushing for age checks on VPNs https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/63901/documents/746... >regulations which prohibit the provision to UK children of a Relevant VPN Service (the “child VPN prohibition”).

That’s a list of random possible amendments which haven’t been agreed.

That's why I said "pushing for" not "enacted"...
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