this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024

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Australia bans social media for under 16s (www.theverge.com)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/technology

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

Is anyone talking about the fact that it's the predatory, short-term-quarterly-gains oriented behavior of the platforms themselves which is in fact rampaging though democracies, massively affecting and survielling Adult's behaviors on a loop of ragebait-induced dopamine/seratonin manipulation?

Because Kids are going to connect with one another, on whichever the next platform is that's not banned. What's more, the institutions they attend will inevitably ask them to do so as...things like Youtube arent exactly 100% avoidable.

Pretty pathetic to clamp down on Youth Liberty in a society that has basically none, when centrally-hosted platforms owned by corporate behemoths are all-but-physically trampling the landscape like some kind of fucked up gentrification-glorifying-voiceline-repeating Megazord

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

It is easier to enforce access than to enforce ethical algorithm. Sadly, it is not perfect, but it is better than allowing it.

[–] surph_ninja 8 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I feel like every law I see coming out of Australia is just telling their citizens they’re not allowed to do something else mundane. All while the government services get worse, and the corrupt become more entrenched.

What a shithole.

[–] auzy 4 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Like what?

Often the things that seem mundane actually aren't

Like vaping is just tobacco 2.0.. and we don't need everyone to have easy access to guns (especially not kids). Networks like Facebook are so unmoderated at the moment they should be held to account.

Asbestos and engineered stone? Enough said

And that's mainly everything I can think of that's banned that I can think of...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (2 children)

Like vaping is just tobacco 2.0

What is this, govern me like a strict old nan?

Is dancing allowed down there as well or is it a gateway to thievery or something?

[–] surph_ninja 4 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

For real. A whole fucking country infantilizing themselves. Pathetic to see bootlicking at this level.

And it’s not even a good government. I guess I could empathize, if the government was not corrupt and delivering fantastic quality services. But they’re shitting on these people, and telling them to say thank you for it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

The vaping industry likes to argue that they are safer than other tobacco products, and don't deserve to be regulated the same way, but the evidence suggests otherwise. It's a fine example of why we should be happy that regulations exist at all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

No part of my argument had anything to do with safety or health.

A person's autonomy is their business. Leave them well alone. Their life, their path.

Or I guess alcohol doesn't have a purpose then, and we can get rid of it too?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 minutes ago (1 children)

Everyone is really concerned, GHiLA. We think you might have an addiction. But we're here to help. Please remember the bans are only for under 18s. You have to remember. Look at your wife, she's dying of.. asphyxiation or something. Because you keep hotboxing the bedroom.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 minutes ago

Oh I've got like three at least, that I know about.

You guys are one of them.

uwu

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

What they consider as "social media"? Is it every site where you can communicate with others?

This seems fucked if its so.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

While specific platforms haven’t been named in the law, the rules are expected to apply to the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, per the Prime Minister. Sites used for education, including YouTube, would be exempt, as are messaging apps like WhatsApp.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Youtube: offers Shorts and aggressively markets them at any demo that responds well to Tik Tok, competing for a more toxic comments section with years of experience.

WhatsApp: all the group chats and online bullying that you banned facebook to get away from, 1:1, day of the ban.

Should we identify society root causes and address those? 🤔No. No, it's the kids who are wrong /s

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

It's the parents who are wrong.

Parents shouldn't allow their kids to use social media until they can handle it. Some kids don't have issues, whereas others end up experiencing severe depression largely as a result of too much or too little social media exposure. Parents should be the ones responsible here, both for deciding the age and for culpability if they knowingly contribute to problems by either intentionally over or under exposing their children to social media.

But at no point should the government be deciding things like ages, because enforcement would necessitate privacy violations of either the parents (if they need to allow an underage account) of the children. Screw that, let the parents decide and hold them accountable for any abuse.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

This is technically feasible, and bussiness don't need to know your id. If anonymous government certificates are issued.

But I'm morally against it. We need to both educate on the dangers of internet and truly control harmful platforms.

But just locking it is bad for ociety. What happens with kids in shitty families that find in social media (not Facebook, think prime time Tumblr) a way to scape and find that there are people out there not as shitty as their family. Now they are just completely locked to their shitty family until it's too late.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 hours ago

I think that the chances of a kid from a broken home finding an exploiter online is much more likely than that kid finding a helpful, supportive community.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 hours ago

I've said this before, and I'll keep saying it, we need better terms than "social media." Tumblr, Reddit, and Lemmy I don't think should be in the same group as Facebook, Twitter, etc. Social media that uses your real life information should be separate from basically forums that use an online persona.

I don't know what this legislation says, but I agree with you. It should be limited to restricting the "personal social media," not glorified internet forums.

[–] AllToRuleThemOne 16 points 12 hours ago

Pssst! Hey kid, wanna buy some memes?

[–] drmoose 19 points 13 hours ago (4 children)

The fact that people even considered this with a straight face, discussed it and passed it is just indicative how tech illiterate we've become.

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[–] Dasus 7 points 11 hours ago

Well that's not going to work out.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

The second i have to hand over my id to a tech company is the second i leave and never come back.

Also how they gonna manage the fediverse? Can someone get fined for providing social media to themselves if an under 16 sets up their own federated instance?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

In my country they talked about this. And they thought of a different approach.

The government were to emit anonymous digital certificates after validate your identity. And then the websites were only required to validate these anonymous digital certificates.

Or even it was talk that the government could put a certificate validation in front of the affected ip.

So the bussiness won't have your ip. Only a verification by the government that you are indeed over certain age.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

What if I'm also uncomfortable with the tech company knowing what country I'm a citizen of?

[–] BMTea 28 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

I support this move. Some here are delusionally arguing that this impacts privacy - the sort of data social media firms collect on teenagers is egregiously extensive regardless. This is good support for their mental health and development.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

This is good support for their mental health and development.

This is good pseudo-science.

[–] BMTea 0 points 3 hours ago

There is no published science definitively proving that it is harmful or helpful. The effects of this particular legislation, if it is impactful at all, remains to be seen. I'm just offering my opinion based on my personal experiences. I expect it to have some success in reducing acute adolescent mental health issues. If the matter is ever settled through consensus, I'll defer to that.

[–] General_Effort 3 points 5 hours ago

Strange that the adults don't want those benefits for themselves also.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 15 hours ago (4 children)

This ban does nothing.

Anything that does not force ID verification is useless.

Anything that does verify ID would mean that adults also have to upload their IDs to the website.

What will happen is either this becomes another toothless joke. Or the government say "okay this isn't working, lets implement ID checks", and when that law passes Lemmy Instance Admins would be required to verify ID of any user from an Australia IP.

Y'all want that to happen?

So what hapoens if other countries start catching on and also pass such law?

Eventually the all internet accounts would be tied to IDs. Anonymity is dead.

[–] PieMePlenty 10 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

Government provided open id service which guarantees age. Website gets trusted authority signed token witch contains just the age. We can do this safely. We have the technology. They could even do it only once on registration.

Digital id's exist already in the EU, and many countries run a sign on service already. We aren't far from this.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

No. I don't want governments to know what social media I use, nor do I want social media to know what country I'm a citizen of. I don't want any connection between the two.

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