And “banning children”, wait, I mean forcing every adult to verify who they say they are online accomplishes what?
Oh, that’s right, a massive tracking database for any bad actor to use.
If your children get into shit, it’s your fault for not raising them right. I got into some shit as a kid, and had friends that got into more/less shit.
I watched those fuckups raise their kids, and they learned from their own childhood experience and chose to guide their children how to use the internet properly. To understand how it works, the risks, etc.
You can’t bubble wrap the world. The idiots (myself included) will always find a way around such safetyism, and in the process you’ll be harming everyone else.
Social media is terrible for mental health especially for the youth. Phones and tablets help in some areas like motor control development but also hurt other places like attention deficiencies and critical thinking, and very rarely does it lead to a kid learning how technology works (that’s usually from the computer nerds, aka kids who want a computer, doesn’t happen even close to the same rate as smart phones.
Smart phones make people dumb. That’s my opinion. But the above are scientifically backed.
Then parents need to stop using such things as babysitters.
And parents also need to get up in arms about lazy “educators” using tech to make their job easier (instead of making learning more effective, which is the bullshit argument that’s always used).
Parenting is harder than ever, so I don’t blame parents.
Back in the day you would have the mother home all the time, even more recently there was still a strong community in most places and big families meant lots of babysitters.
Nowadays it’s fend for yourself for everybody almost everywhere, so raising a kid properly is almost impossible unless you are rich or have a lot of free time.
While I can see your point I would like to point out that that might excuse problems parents have raising their children but not parents making that everyone else’s problem by insisting the rest of the world is made child-safe somehow.
Most of the technical problems with learning/teaching are actually caused by sticking to outdated 19th century concepts in schools such as having the (by definition average) local teacher explain things instead of someone who actually knows how to explain the subject matter well and pretending that kids need to memorize everything in a modern world instead of incorporating the ability to look up things into the learning process.
Most of the actual major problems with education are caused by funding structures and deliberate sabotage by parts of society who benefit from an uneducated population without critical thinking and research skills.
100% agree. These things get talked up as benefits when they are mostly treated as revenue streams by the seller and distractions by the buyer. Kids and adults. We all need to be way more critical of the tech we use.
We can’t rely on the assholes running these site to ban pedophiles. They’d endorse a pedophile president if they thought it would give them less taxes/regulations.
This is a prudent move, we’ve only seen the very beginnings if the sorts of indoctrination and manipulation our kids might be subjected to.
Never thought I’d sound this way, but i can no longer ignore reality.
plactagonic@sopuli.xyz
on 28 Nov 17:34
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Australia requires mobile phone providers to verify IDs before providing cell phone service. As a result, in September 2022, Optus leaked the records of 10 million Australians including passport and drivers license details.
Identification would need to be handled by a 3rd party to even remotely work. Then they pass on the “yes they’re over 16” tick to the social media platform, with no actual identity details.
Edit: and likewise, Identity company have no details about the social media account name or anything. Just a token transfer of sorts.
DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org
on 29 Nov 01:33
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I guess Australia.gov can be the site in the middle handing out the tokens
JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world
on 29 Nov 03:19
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Identification would need to be handled by a 3rd party to even remotely work. Then they pass on the “yes they’re over 16” tick to the social media platform, with no actual identity details.
The legislatiion specifically allows SM sites to handle ID.
atrielienz@lemmy.world
on 28 Nov 17:51
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Probably going to get downvoted for this, but this just makes kids look for VPN’s and other ways to skirt this restriction. It may make VPN’s less useful for the rest of us as a result when certain services are forced to comply with the law, breaking those services for those of us using VPN’s. It sounds like a great idea but I don’t know that the implementation will make a noticeable or effective difference.
Well they have to host the servers and pay for them somehow… So they take all of your traffic going through their servers and sell it. They know when you go to any website, at what time, and how long you were there… That’s why anyone recommending a VPN strongly recommends vpns that do not keep logs of what their clients do when connected to their servers. Even some paid vpns double dip and keep logs and sell them as well as charging for access.
To be fair, I wouldn’t really count on a VPN not collecting logs - if I can’t check it, better assume they’re collected. This may not matter as much, but I still wouldn’t rely on this for anything sensitive.
Also here, where a VPN or proxy is a “must” for using the internet normally, there are also some ran by charities. But yeah, the omnipresence of shady free VPNs is very concerning.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
on 28 Nov 18:35
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Us right now are on a service that’s totally going to follow this law. /s
Just because it isn’t perfect it doesn’t mean it’s useless.
Just because there is no way to stop 100% of all crime it doesn’t mean taking measures to reduce crime is futile.
There is a lot more to this than just blocking the site. It will also change social norms. Right now, if a 14 year old as social media, nobody bats an eye; but with the 16 year requirement, through all the sudden, parents aren’t too comfortable with letting their 14 year old have social media. So not only will they need to find some free VPN totally not spyware to use (and even know that that exists and how to use), they will also have to hide it from their parents, as it is no longer socially acceptable for 14 year olds to have social media.
How is restricting access behind an age requirement the same as the “Great Firewall”. Right now, as we speak, you cannot use social media until you are 13. They are just increasing that requirement to 16.
There are many many many other things that are already lock behind an age restriction and I don’t see you freaking out. Here are a few examples of things locked behind an age restriction:
alcohol
gambling
cigarettes
pornography
Media has age restrictions. Books have age restrictions, movies have age restrictions, games have age restrictions. Media has had age restrictions for a very long time and it’s high time the same standards are applied to social media.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 19:07
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Whats gonna happens when politicians realize kids are just gonna click “I’m at least [Age]”?
They’ll implement ID verification.
Then kids will use VPN to bypass it.
So VPNs get banned
Either you have a toothless law, or you live in a country with Great Firewall of China.
Yup… right what I suspected! The Slippery Slope Fallacy!
Whats gonna happens when politicians realize kids are just gonna click “I’m at least [Age]”?
Many pornography work like that and can, as such, be easily bypassed. But does that mean we should drop the age restriction for access to pornography? Of course not!
Here is another example:
Murder. Murder shouldn’t be legal and it is not. However, despite this restriction, some find ways to get away with murder. Does that mean that laws against murder are useless since we cannot stop murder 100% of the time? I highly doubt it.
It is impossible for any law enforcement to prevent 100% of all crimes, but that is not justification for those law to not exist.
Either you have a toothless law, or you live in a country with Great Firewall of China.
False dilemma fallacy.
Again, I’ll refer to pornography. Many pornography work on the trust system. By your logic, that means we should drop all laws restricting access to it. However, that is absurd.
The point isn’t to stop 100% of all usage. It is simply there to reduce the usage. You are forgetting that we are talking about human beings. Beings which have a natural tendency to conform to social norms as to not be cast out of their tribe (since humans cannot survive in the wild without each other, such would be a death sentence).
This law would set the societal precedent that people need to be of a certain age to access these social media apps (as shown by scientific data, which revealed that social media usage can have many negative effects on a developing mind). This societal precedent will, hopefully, make it taboo for people bellow 16 to access social media, which will, in turn, reduce, but not outright 100% stop, underage social media usage.
The point is to prevent the detrimental effects to the mental health of teens and preteens. That doesn’t work unless you plug the holes. That’s the problem. Fallacy in argument or no fallacy.
The point we’re trying to make isn’t that we don’t want the restriction. We just understand that it’s not going to work specifically because it requires the same thing the under 13 privacy laws already include. Companies to comply (which they will, probably with detriments to legal users), and that parents be involved in what their children are doing online and restrict that accordingly to comply with the law (which we already know they aren’t).
I as a full grown adult am not willing to provide my details (picture of a government issued ID or similar) to most online entities. I certainly won’t ever be giving it to social media or a porn site of any kind. But that’s what’s going to end up being required to enact this law and make it enforceable. Is the law going to fine parents whose children aren’t in compliance? Is it going to fine businesses for not enacting enough restrictions? Is it going to outlaw VPN’s for use on social media?
Where is the burden of proof and who’s privacy gets invaded in order to enforce the law?
I was not (in my original comment or any subsequent ones in the thread) intending people to take this as “we shouldn’t do this because XYZ”. And I am aware that you weren’t responding to me. I was saying that it’s going to be problematic to enforce and isn’t likely to have the results intended.
It’s not about the handful of people per hundred who commit a murder. Because murder being illegal isn’t a deterrent and we have scientific studies to back that up. It’s about how 75-85% of teens will find a way to circumvent the law because they don’t understand the dangers and parents aren’t doing their part. So the rest of us will have to jump through hoops to use any social media.
If 75% or more of people the law effects aren’t following the law, the law doesn’t do what is intended and is going to have to be reworked.
The thing about kids getting a VPN, free or paid is that it will spread like wild fire. It only takes one kid who knows how to do something. They tried this at my highschool, blocking websites and such. That was more than 20 years ago and we knew how to use VPN’s or similar then and once we figured it out it was an open secret.
I’m not saying the law shouldn’t exist or that we should do nothing. I’m saying that this isn’t going to be effective as it is and could end up leading to worse things.
I don’t see many options between asking for a birthdate and asking for ID for this problem. I don’t see any way that this can be enforced that isn’t problematic.
if you think AI software will be able to differentiate between a 15 year old and 16 year old then I have this cool bridge in Brooklyn that you might be interested in.
This is delusional to the point where it feels like we’re literally devolving.
Problematic for who, the tech companies? They’re practically printing money. Let them spend it on actual solutions to issues that are causing problems for the World.
It forces them to implement solutions that make having anonymous accounts impossible.
dragonfucker@lemmy.nz
on 29 Nov 01:12
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Problematic for the children who are having their rights taken away. This change bans children from connecting with their friends in other countries, other states, and even other cities.
Even something as simple as hopping in a voice call with your squad to play Deep Rock Galactic is now illegal for 15 year olds. That’s ridiculous. The fact that they can break the law is great, but they shouldn’t have to break the law in order to do something so harmless.
What about using Zoom to speak to a doctor or therapist? What about contacting queer support resources through social media? What about using a text based suicide hotline? According to the law, that’s social media.
JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world
on 29 Nov 03:18
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I don’t see many options between asking for a birthdate and asking for ID for this problem. I don’t see any way that this can be enforced that isn’t problematic.
The senate inquiry outlined the two likely solutions :
Uploading ID to the website.
3D face scanning. This will include continual monitoring so if another person comes into view they will have to face scan in. Remember, its prohibited for chidren to even watch prohibited content with their parents.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Nov 19:26
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I’m well old enough to satisfy these checks and I also do this. If I’m feeling productive, I’ll pick a random date.
Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee
on 28 Nov 18:28
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So what? There will be a “Yes I’m over 16” check box which will be as meaningful as the “Yes I’m over 18” one on porn sites?
Any hope of governments or social media sites enforcing this will come with big ethical and technical compromises and I dont think anyone is actually going to really bother.
We already have limits on what children do with other potentially harmful things like fire, sharp objects, heights and roads and they all come from parents. If this law has any real and positive impact it will be the message that it sends to parents.
Then I read that chat apps and YouTube would not be banned, and scoffed
Literally chat apps are social media. You can post stories and pump memes and news. You can even have bots that scrape and post content. YouTube is just a matter of checking a box whether it’s “for kids” and they already do that. Basically the whole thing is stupid
So even in perfect scenario where this ban “works” it would still have zero intended effect as teens can consume all of that rubbish but not talk back and can jolly continue any harm on “allowed apps” like wtf is even this supposed to do lmao
Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world
on 28 Nov 19:24
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Eh, I don’t think this is the best solution.
The assumption is as soon as you turn 17 you’re smart enough and have the critical thinking skills to navigate social media without it negatively affecting you? Kinda dumb.
There could be an argument that at least try to block it while young peoples brains are still developing, maybe there’s benefit in that.
Older people than 16 are still duped by propaganda, and become addicted to social media, and all the negative consequences.
What we need is regulation imo. Good, smart, progressive, altruistic regulation that is for the benefit of all. Ain’t gonna happen though, because sOcIaLiSm and “mUh FrEeDoMs”.
Yeah, there are adults (in both my generation and the previous one) who have fewer critical thinking skills than today's teens and young adults. This feels like a band-aid solution to avoid actually fixing the problems of (1) not teaching critical thinking and logic and (2) the toxic content, misinformation and disinformation on these platforms (I recognise the second one is much harder whilst trying to preserve security and privacy as well).
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 01:07
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The older generations always think the younger generations are lazy and lesser. They don’t believe they can parent because they know how shit they were at parenting. So they are voting to take away parental rights and give those rights to the government. And then say they are pro small government.
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.
The law does not require users to upload government IDs as part of the verification process.
Sounds like a pretty weak law. It will require a birthday when creating an account and accounts under the age of 16 will be restricted/limited. As a result users (people under 16) will lie about their age.
Companies don’t like this because it messes with their data collection. If they collect data that proves an account is under 16 they will be required to make them limited/restricted. However they obviously collect this data already.
I wonder if Facebook and other apps will add/push education elements in order to become exempt.
essteeyou@lemmy.world
on 28 Nov 21:39
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I wonder if Facebook and other apps will add/push education elements in order to become exempt.
I doubt it, and if they do, they’ll classify a whole bunch of nonsense as educational content in order to do so, e.g. religious content as science.
I mean YouTube has educational content, but that is far from its primary purpose. Assuming YouTube is completely unrestricted it wouldn’t be hard for Facebook to add enough content to be arguably educational.
Hell plenty of people use TikTok for educational reasons. I’m not saying it’s right, but you could argue TikTok is educational in the same way you can argue YouTube is educational.
Now if YouTube is forced to classify it’s educational content the same way they classify children’s content (aka poorly), maybe that’ll work.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 28 Nov 23:47
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Any stonger, and they wander into China “Great Firewall” territory.
Lets not make every country into an authoritarian shithole.
Oh I agree. I wouldn’t want a stronger law. I’m just not too concerned with this one. I think if there are concerns with social media we should discuss how to solve them for everyone.
We generally say 16-21 you are an adult so fuck it, whatever happens to you is your fault and ignore the predatory nature of organizations.
We should outline the specific concerns and determine what, if any, steps we can take.
As an example, gambling. I think it’s fair and reasonable to allow gambling. I think ensuring gambling isn’t predatory is a reasonable limitation. I expect for most people it isn’t a problem but I think providing help to gambling addicts is also reasonable. Social media should be viewed through a similar lens.
JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world
on 29 Nov 03:15
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The law does not require users to upload government IDs as part of the verification process.
No, it merely requires the sites to provide an alternative, such as face scanning using a mobile phone unlock. Using a computer ? Then you’ll have hand over your ID.
The law also explicitly gives sites the right to onsell private information if its outlined in the terms of agrrement.
The amendments passed on Friday bolster privacy protections. Platforms would not be allowed to compel users to provide government-issued identity documents including passports or driver’s licenses, nor could they demand digital identification through a government system.
So it sounds like an ID will not be a requirement.
I suppose a face scan is possible, but I find it unlikely. Obviously if it heads in that direction then the law should be amended to clarify that is also not acceptable.
In terms of selling information I assume that just clarifies the status quo and isn’t new. Not that that makes it acceptable, it just means that’s something to tackle.
So it sounds like an ID will not be a requirement.
Sure, but gov ID is permitted as an option if another non-ID option is also available.
Simply choose between submitting your government ID or, say, switch on your front facing camera so we can perform some digital phrenology to determine your eligibility.
jagged_circle@feddit.nl
on 29 Nov 04:52
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Huh, I thought all kids immediately say they were born in 1969
People should lie about as much as possible to most companies they interact with online anyway (obviously don’t lie to your bank, or doctor, or whatever). Do always, without fail, lie randomly about your age, gender, address (if it’s not relevant) or anything else that’s not actually needed to provide the service.
That would require us paying one parent enough to cover the other parent being a child care expert. But nobody gets to profit off of that so fuck society, everybody works, and nobody gets community goods except the wealthy.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 28 Nov 21:38
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Solution is to fund a social safety net, not ban social media.
What? No! They can have their own age appropriate place to learn and play under supervision.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 28 Nov 22:27
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Well I hope Australians are a homogenous society. Like they don’t have racial minorities or LGBT kids that have to keep their identities closeted and have no one to talk to. Every Australian is so open and accepting amirite?
Imagine kids have conservative parents that would kick them out if they came out as LGBT, classmates are just constantly using “yo thats’s gay” as an insult, while teacher and administrators dismiss any reports bullying. Have no adult they trust, and the same conservative parents would not let them see a therapist because that being “weak”. Then when they wanna go online and vent and just have someone to talk to, the government steps in and “help” them by banning online communications.
But what about those Parental Responsibilities you were talking about earlier? Are you saying we now need extra social safety nets for kids who don’t fit the mold and get bullied? Extra places for them to learn and play under supervision? Because I don’t think that’s going to be economical without boarding them there, away from their parents.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 28 Nov 23:05
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Parents should be loving and caring and and set up restrictions on their phone and block acess to danger things, what these restrictions would entail is up to the maturity of each kid.
In the event that the parents are shitty horrible people, they should have supportative environment in school that can help them. Adults to talk to, classmates that friendly and form friendships
In case the parents are not just shitty, and become abusive, there should be a legal procedure to transfer them to suitable guardians.
Unfortunately, there are often shitty/abusive parents, school environment is also toxic, and then social services don’t do anything about it. Therefore there should not be any restriction by the government on the internet. In case 1,2 and 3 all fail, the internet provides a last resort for peer support.
Before attempting to restrict internet access, first fix everything else.
Funny, conservatives would absolutely include telling parents how to raise their kids in the definition of a Nanny State.
merde@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Nov 01:26
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if social media is fediverse, you’re right; if social media is agents of surveillance capitalism, fuck social media
what’s “social” about what most people call social media?
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 01:34
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Governmemts doesn’t care, any platform that empowers civillians to communicate with each other is “social media”. Governments love to control and restrict communications.
Lemmy would be considered social media. Eventually they would be requiring social media to verify IDs. So Lemmy instances will be required to verify IDs or be banned from certain countries.
even YouTube got in an exception list. So it’s not an “all or nothing” approach, it seems.
Lemmy is too small for governments to care
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 03:16
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Youtube got an exeption because Alphabet Inc. lobbied them to do so to get kids used to Youtube. Lemmy does not have the lobbying power like a mega corporation, plus, its a good excuse to get rid of a left-leaning platform, since governments tend to be against the left.
“freedom” of kids and teenagers to rot their immature brains on “social media”?
freedom to be manipulated by Zuckerberg and his minions?
freedom to learn what a “real man” is from sexist assholes
freedom to develop bottomless insecurities before constructing a semblance of a “self” to get you through the grit of societies
at least they recognize the problem and … pass hopeless laws 🤷
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 01:59
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Freedom to raise your kids, and freedom to live your life as you choose, yes. Laws aren’t needed for this. Content management should come from parents, and if websites are pushing agendas or misinformation you don’t want your child on, you should be dictating what they are viewing.
You don’t (lawfully) ban kids from parts of the library because you are worried they might read about things you don’t like, you monitor which books they are reading and tell them not to read such, or discuss why/why not those resources do not agree with or match the principles you agree with.
This is the equivalent of banning kids talking to each other at school, on the bus or at the mall/park. If a platform is pushing harmful information then block that site, or bring a suit against the site for pushing harmful information.
Edit: If you don’t want your kid on certain apps or sites you can start with things like this: families.google/familylink/
Don’t force it on other people with laws, I believe parents should have the choice for themselves. Apps like that allow you to block social media sites, restrict their app usage and reset passwords if needed.
You don’t (lawfully) ban kids from parts of the library because you are worried they might read about things you don’t like, y…
libraries are carefully curated. Popular “social media” of today is a shit show.
This is the equivalent of banning kids talking to each other at school, on the bus or at the mall/park.
no, it’s not “equivalent” to that at all. Are they banning messengers?
Kids in schools talk through game chat anyways. Are they banning games in Australia?
☞ “Exemptions will apply for health and education services including YouTube, Messenger Kids, WhatsApp, Kids Helpline and Google Classroom.”
this ban is not directed at kids, it’s targeting “big tech”.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 03:24
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So instead of demanding big tech companies monitor their broadcasts, they are banning kids from accessing them, how is that not directed at kids? It is explicitly directed at kids.
they could have just demanded alcoholic beverage companies to monitor their bottles, right?
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 04:04
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They do. The alcohol dealers can only sell via licensed dealers and are punished for selling irresponsible products and to people irresponsibly. To drunk and you sell them more, you can get your licensed revoked, fined and possibly further penalties depending on where you are. If a you sell to a customer and they get drunk you are legally required to provide them with a safe means to get home most places. Whether that be providing a cab if necessary. Usually they will just call it for you, but often times that is them just dodging paying for it as they could be held liable for it. If a drunk driver leaves your establishment and kills someone, the establishment is also held at fault.
The people are told to drink responsibly.
(Not saying alcohol laws are perfect, but yes, they restrict irresponsible sales as they should restrict misinformation, and the company selling it is the one responsible)
I work with tech security and once a corporate blog post I wrote got from 1,000 monthly views to 100k because kids were looking up proxy tool guides and it was for Roblox lmao
This law is incredibly illiterate
SanctimoniousApe@lemmings.world
on 28 Nov 22:11
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So… they banned social media for a whole 15 seconds?
The ban and age verification requirements apply to pretty much all services which allow communication of information between people, unless an exemption is granted by the minister.
There is no legislated exemption for instant messaging, SMS, email, email lists, chat rooms, forums, blogs, voice calls, etc.
It’s a wildly broadly applicable piece of legislation that seems ripe to be abused in the future, just like we’ve seen with anti-terror and anti-hate-symbol legislation.
From 63C (1) of the legislation:
For the purposes of this Act, age-restricted social media platform means:
a) an electronic service that satisfies the following conditions:
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;
iv) such other conditions (if any) as are set out in the legislative rules; or
b) an electronic service specified in the legislative rules; but does not include a service mentioned in subsection (6).
Now ban parents posting pictures of their children under 16.
I DGAF about your kids.
Eezyville@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Nov 02:34
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Yeah I agree with you on this. It’ll protect them from the being de-clothed using AI as well. I understand wanting to share moments with your family because kids grow up fast but sharing it with these companies as an intermediary is not a good idea. Sadly I don’t have a solution for them aside from setting up a decentralized social network like Pixelfed or Frendica but that requires skill and patience.
Frankly, decentralized networks make it even harder to take content down.
Eezyville@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Nov 13:04
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Wouldn’t it be easier to take content down if the app was not federated? I don’t know for sure but couldn’t you have a completely private instance only for the people you know?
Sure, if it is already private. But if it is not, then it gets copied to different instances and so if the original post gets removed, it is up to each instance to follow and when.
One of the craziest wtf moment of my life resulted from an oversharing parent.
At a hot summer day a few years back someone posted a picture of them barbequing in their backyard to our company’s “off topic” teams chat. Nothing unusual. I was over at a friends place so I send back a picture of us sitting in lawnchairs having a beer. In comes the third colleague, first time father with a roughly 1.5 year old at the time. So he posts a picture of his kid running around in his backyard. Completly naked, full frontanl nudity.
It took me a minute to recollect and I messaged him to please take down the picture. I know he didn’t mean any harm and was just sharing his hot-summer-weekend expirence … and he did realise his blunder and took it down. But wtf mate?
After that I immediately googled how to clear my teams’ app image cache …
Peer pressure is real. Kids get social media accounts way too early because it’s difficult to justify holding off when all of their classmates have them. It causes actual social issues for kids when they are the only one without something. They get bullied etc, so parents are effectively forced to accede. Making it illegal gives parents a reason to say no, which might slow down the uptake.
I’d really like to see a teenager who’d say “yes parent, I’ll not use Instagram because you told me not to”. People who pushed this law are so senile they frankly forgot what teenagers even are.
What? You think every single teenager universally disobeys their parents? I know for a fact this isn’t true. There exist responsible teenagers. Brides, even if a teenager is disobedient, the placement of boundaries changes their behaviour.
For something so menial like social media? That’s equivalent of tying your shoelaces in their eyes. I’m willing to bet you real money that this would be <1% of teenagers. If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if this would have the opposite effect.
Well there is no way to settle that bet, otherwise I would absolutely take it.
muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee
on 29 Nov 02:31
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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?
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 09:09
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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.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Nov 19:23
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What if I’m also uncomfortable with the tech company knowing what country I’m a citizen of?
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 21:12
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They know it already.
IP reveals general location.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Nov 22:09
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Sure, and my IP is something I can control (VPN). I also travel, and I’m certainly not a citizen of each country I visit.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 22:11
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This kind of control tend to be ip based, like cookies in the eu. So if they don’t know they won’t know. And if they know means that they knew. Nothing changes on that regard.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Nov 22:39
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That depends on the law. For example, it’s possible that the US could require Meta to verify ages regardless of nationality, so you the EU (for example) would be subject to it.
I’m not saying that’s how any of these laws work, I’m merely saying that it’s possible. If enough people sidestep the law by using a VPN, I could countries use a heavier hand (e.g. verify everyone or don’t do business here).
I will always oppose these types of laws. I set up my WiFi to connect over a VPN to the next state over because my state has ID laws for porn and social media. It’s annoying and increases latency a bit (only like 10ms), so I’ll oppose them even if I can sidestep them.
People should be allowed to do as they please. I think, however, people should be presented with all the potential risks in very clear language if they’re going to, in the same way a pack of cigarettes has a warning, access to social media should present similar disclaimers.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 05:16
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You know in the eyes of government, Lemmy is also social media.
baggachipz@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Nov 13:07
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The difference being you can’t stop a federated protocol. I was being cheeky, but banning or at least regulating algorithm-based social media would do nothing but good for society. User engagement and user safety are directly at odds in a for-profit model.
Edit: Save for the “Showing your ID” part, anonymity is healthy for the net and far too rare these days
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 29 Nov 03:56
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performative nonsense which does nothing for kids or their mental health and harms queer kids who lose one of the first places they can find community.
TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com
on 29 Nov 04:13
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Then it seems there is something other to fix in society than making sure facebook knows anything about that kid.
The Zuckerbergers of the world aren’t the ones to trust with that.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 17:47
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Then it seems there is something other to fix in society
Yeah that’s why we’re on Lemmy. It’s not perfect but it’s better than zuck, elmo, spez, and pals.
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.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 05:15
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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.
lemba@discuss.tchncs.de
on 29 Nov 06:25
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This ban is a wake up call to Tech Industry to implement and enforce rules against hate speech, grooming, fake news, etc.
They surely cannot verify the age of a human without any official ID made in the real world.
This leads to other problems but that’s not the concern of the government! Social Media wants it’s users, not the government.
what? Why would tech industry care? If anything it’ll have the reverse effect and dimiss tech role in brain rott because “see, kids are not on it! It’s all good here”
PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
on 29 Nov 07:12
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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.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 08:04
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Depending on what the token contains.
There are two implementations I could think of:
“This user has been verified to be at least [Age]. Sincerely, [Government Authority]” Assuming this is an identical token thats the same for everyone? Sure. I’m not opposed to this.
“This user has been verified to be at least [Age]. Unique Token ID: 23456” Hell No. When the government eventually wants to deanonymize someone, they could ask the website: “What was the token ID that was used to verify the user?” then if the website provides it, now the government can just check the database to see who the token belongs to. And this could also lead to the government mandating the unique token id to be stored.
Why not just look up how it actually works in the real world instead of hypotheticals
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Nov 19:20
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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.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Nov 04:13
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Sure, but I don’t want to hand it over on a silver platter, especially for my kids.
MidsizedSedan@lemmy.world
on 29 Nov 07:13
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If i recall correctally, Australia tried to fine adults if they didnt have thier phone with them. Ive heard a relaible youtuber say it, but i couldnt find a news article to confirm it.
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.
How can you look at the state of things pretty much everywhere since social media has become so ubiquitous and think that it has no effect on people, young people especially? It’s full of hate, envy, propaganda, and brainwashing
jagged_circle@feddit.nl
on 29 Nov 04:50
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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.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 07:58
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I don’t know how they are going to do over there.
Here the plan for the same goal is force any social media company to request a digital certificate when entering, or directly overtaking the ip of the social media and force a certificate check to let the user through. This certificates would be expedited by the government to people over certain age.
The haven’t implemented yet, as they were going to start using the system to ban porn for minors and got a lot of backslash.
It’s technologically doable, some kid will always find a way to enter but vast majority will not (next to a bunch of adults that will stop using them because they cannot be bothered with the same system). Moral considerations aside.
I’d disagree here. Sure in theory you could design some system that authenticates every user on every connection but in practice it would be impossible to maintain without complete authoritarian oversight like North Korea. Even closed authoritarian countries fail to achieve this (like Iran or China).
This would cost billions of not trillions in implementation, oversight overhead and economic product loss. That money would be much more effective in carrot approach of supporting mental health institutions and promoting wholesome shared culture, anti bullying campaigns etc.
It’s not a new problem either. We know for a fact that the latter is the better solution and yet here we are…
Come on, this is silly. You can disagree with it politically but technically it would work fine. I already have a digital ID issued by the government for doing online tax returns. Validating a social media account against that ID would be no more difficult than letting people sign in with Google or whatever. There will always technically be a way to get around it but 99% of people won’t bother.
Nah not a good comparison. Once there’s market people will find a way to easily corrupt this. Remember that this is a 3 way interaction: government, private company and private citizen - the opportunities for bypass are basically endless here. You are comparing it with a 2 way market between government and private citizen which has no incentive to break the system.
WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world
on 29 Nov 07:14
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Good. Now block Shitter.
AllToRuleThemOne@lemmy.world
on 29 Nov 08:14
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daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Nov 09:18
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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.
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.
I live in New York City. Old timers here remember when 42nd Street was called ‘the Minnesota Strip.’ It got that name because thousands of young people [some as young as 12] would jump on buses and come to New York to live the dream. They’d be met by pimps who routinely patrolled the bus terminal and quickly gathered up as many as they could.
No. Your point is old people stuff from the physical world. Times changed and your knowledge is out of date. You’re trying to apply physical wisdom to the digital world. Because you’re a boomer who doesn’t understand technology.
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.
VerticaGG@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 29 Nov 18:05
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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
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
on 29 Nov 19:17
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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.
VerticaGG@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 29 Nov 23:31
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I basically agree, with the caveat that Youth Liberation requires buy in from all the adult influences in the Youth’s life and all that follows…yeah otherwise no notes
You are arguing against yourself. In the first paragraph you say that the parents should keep kids from social media.
In the second, you say that it would be a violation of privacy if parents would keep kids from social media.
Kids need policing, it’s going to need to be done by the parents no matter what the laws are. Personally, I don’t think the laws matter much in this regard.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Nov 11:39
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In the first paragraph you say that the parents should keep kids from social media.
Not necessarily. It’s up to the parents to know what their kids can handle.
Keeping kids off social media doesn’t have to be a privacy violation. If you don’t trust your kids to follow the rules, don’t give them access to devices they could use to violate them. If I give my kids access to a device, it’s because I trust them with that device. I don’t put any parental controls on it, either I trust them or they don’t get the device. It’s none of my business what they do with devices I trust them to have.
Kids need discipline and trust, not policing. If they break the rules, discipline them (take devices away and whatnot), but don’t surveil them.
And yeah, the laws don’t matter as written because good parents will help their kids circumvent bad laws. My problem is with the government thinking it has a say in how I raise my children. The government should only step in if there’s abuse, but other than that, they should stick to advising parents by providing high quality research to parents.
surph_ninja@lemmy.world
on 29 Nov 15:02
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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.
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…
Is dancing allowed down there as well or is it a gateway to thievery or something?
Oh, I forgot, Lemmy is only lefty and free when they aren’t being told what to boycott by someone else. I guess we do have something in common with Trump voters.
Nooo, imposing our will on the public is ok under some circumstances!
FUCKING SHEEP
My life. My way. Fuck a government telling me what to do.
I guess I am the crazy one. It’s just human nature to want to be controlled and be told what to do. Viva authoritarianism. Dom me harder, Donny.
todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee
on 29 Nov 18:57
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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.
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?
petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 29 Nov 20:35
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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.
The fact is it impacts everyone else, the public services will have to deal with the fall out.
surph_ninja@lemmy.world
on 29 Nov 19:04
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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.
If you want to fight authority, start by fighting against the rich assholes causing 30% of stonemasons(and others) to get silicosis from engineered stone. The guys making the money aren’t the ones getting sick. Help them live long enough to get justice and get paid.
Fight against the companies and rich assholes who are still giving lots of people cancer by using asbestos products to save money (and are putting asbestos in products and not declaring it). The people manufacturing this shit are getting rich, not the people installing it (or who have it installed)
And fight back by helping people live longer, so they can get justice against tabacco companies for lying to them and making shitty claims like claiming menthol cigarettes are medicinal. Companies like Vape4lyf had nothing in place to prevent sales of vapes to kids whilst starting petitions claiming they were needed for quitting smoking (what possible use could kids have for vapes other than to START vaping). Every shitty vape company out there is basically advertising their products as safe
Do you think the execs give a shit if your kid dies? Nope, they have lawyers on retainer, and they’ve become increasingly good at fighting any lawsuits and running down the clock. Do you think they give a shit if the people around other smokers die from second hand smoke? Nope, because you can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt a specific company caused an issue. People are suffering.
Nothing says “badass” like a guy who is willing to fondle the balls of the marlboro man whilst he lies to you and dodges responsibility. Vaping is Tabacco 2.0. They’re making the exact same claims they did in the past for other products.
I’d suggest you grow a pair and stand up for people. That takes courage. It’s not bootlicking. What you’re doing is bending over for millionaires who give no fucks about you, and defending them
And if anyone tries to cut up engineered stone onsite, it will be obvious. In fact, companies are getting actively fined. And my mate who got silicosis I’m fairly sure got a payout.
Seems to be working fine with our Gun control.
Seems to be working for lots of food items
Seems to be working for lots of things. You simply don’t realise it works, because you’re not aware of them.
If Vaping is banned, shitheads aren’t going to be vaping in public blowing smoke in our faces. And, if they’re smoking at home, people like myself can kick them out. I’m not too fussed about the ones who are respectable (I had a housemate who smoked weed, but they did it outside).
Do you really think allow free sale of highly addictive drugs like meth is a good idea? Fuck No.
You keep telling yourself you’re a badass fighting against bootlickers or whatever. But you’re actually just a pawn for the multi-billion dollar Tobacco industry
The fact that you took my entire response and only responded to 1 part of it says everything. Prohibition has been effective against drugs. Just look at Denver as an example for what happens when they’re legal vs not. The whole city smells like weed now and it seems like everyone is using. If you legalise cocaine, guess what will happen?
Before prohibition drugs were being sold at every street corner.
Even you know your argument is weak, so I won’t be responding anymore. If you want cancer so much, there are easier ways for you to get it. Id rather the people around me live, and I’d rather live a long life too. As others have said, go get help. You have an addiction. I don’t care already since I live in Australia and happy that shit like that is being increasingly banned.
And it’s ridiculous you accuse others of bootlicking in this case. There’s nothing more sheepish that sucking up to companies that trade YOUR health and YOUR money so THEY can be fucking rich
Vaping companies like Vape4life were writing petitions on Facebook arguing that Vaping was great to help smokers stop smoking.
Meanwhile, the same dodgy companies were selling vapes to 10 year olds online (they had NOTHING in place to stop underage people buying them). What possible health use could underage people have for vapes?
Meanwhile, every vaping fuckwit around was smoking vapes illegally on trains and in heavily populated public areas. And every asshole (including my ex housemate) was vaping inside (I literally told her not to. I want to do high altitude mountaineering in the future so I need my lungs. And she was getting super cheap rent). When you tell them to do it outside, they always say “vaping is just water, it’s perfectly safe”.
If you want to “eat the rich”, you should be telling Smoking companies to fuck off. They’re lying to their userbase, whilst their exec’s become wealthy millionaires. And when their clients get cancer (or the people around them get cancer), they run down the clock on the lawsuit so they don’t lose any money.
Also, I had some absolute wanker the other day throw a lit cigerette on my nature strip (I was amazed, and I was sitting in the car), on a hot day. I’m lucky I saw him do it and he didn’t start a grass fire (and yet, if one was started, he’d be responsible, not the tobacco company). Everyone in cigarette companies knows this happens and could provide a way to extinguish them in the box, but instead, they know people are chucking them on the ground
i have attached the photo of the guy (if anyone in Victoria happens to recognise him)
And it is super common for people to throw cigarettes out of their car, leave them on the ground, or throw their vape cartridges on the ground. Smokers and Cigerette companies had EVERY opportunity to be respectful. There might be some respectful ones, but, there are plenty who aren’t
VerticaGG@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 29 Nov 17:58
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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
It is easier to enforce access than to enforce ethical algorithm. Sadly, it is not perfect, but it is better than allowing it.
VerticaGG@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 29 Nov 23:28
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Well we agree but it’s only as much better as it is effective…because when it’s not it’s giving the impression of doing something while in reality it’s legitimizing the stripping of the autonomy.
lightsblinken@lemmy.world
on 29 Nov 23:43
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I mean, yeah. But also, this isn’t really any different from kids not being allowed to drink alcohol before a specific age, movies and video games having age minima, etc etc.
And I would surmise the same reasoning applies: On average, someone so young has neither the mental development nor the life experience to be able to judge well what they are doing with their own information and how to judge/process the information they get shown.
Of course, this should happen in conjunction with actual education, like I at least had for alcohol and stuff. But it’s an entirely normal thing if it happens as part of a multi-step process (and I am not australian enough to judge how well those things work out in australia in general).
But it IS different. If you compare to alcohol for example, age checks are performed in shops. No record of those is made or available to anyone. There is no centralized infrastructure related to age checks that could be abused in the future to track everyone who buys alhocol.
Yeah but if you think about to, from a law perspective that’s an implementation detail. Sure, from our perspective it’s a really important one, but from the perspective of a lawmaker it’s about whether it should be done, not how it’ll be done in execution (different branches of state, basically).
You are correct that from juridical point of view the difference does not seem great.
Hopefully politicians listen to experts of different fields.
Jason_Ph03nix@lemmy.world
on 29 Nov 23:54
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For a second I thought the headline said Australia banned social media for 16 seconds 🤣
Chick3nDinn3r@lemmy.world
on 30 Nov 00:11
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What the government should be doing is mandating that a social media/drugs literacy course is taught in schools. Kids should fundamentally understand that things are not black or white, good or bad; things are grey. They have upsides and downsides; risks and rewards. Kids should be taught that Social media is a great way to connect with your friends, but you are also susceptible to being influenced/manipulated/addicted in X, Y, Z ways.
100% agree. I think it’s a good space for libraries to enter too. Internet literacy, media literacy and critical thinking skills are sorely needed to be taught today.
As if those drug literacy courses helped anyone. We were taught about it aged 12 or something, when nobody really had a clue what drugs are. Around the age where it matters, it was all but forgotten.
i don’t think the always thrown around “more education” is an effective answer to everything
you can educate kids up and down about the harms of smoking- if smoking is advertised as cool in popular media, there are cigarettes with colorful and fruity flavors, and it’s easy for the kids to obtain then they will inevitably smoke cigarettes. everybody has known smoking causes cancer for a half century know.
if you don’t want kids smoking, then you must act with force to restrict something. whether it’s the restriction on subliminal advertising, the ban on colorful cigarettes, or prohibition of selling to underage smokers- you need some sort of ban.
i firmly believe in the near future we will view social media as we know it similar to how we see smoking. addictive little dopamine hits that will over time change the structure of your brain. we look back at the 50s and think it was crazy how they smoked cigarettes on airplanes, drank whiskey at work, and everyone bathed in lead and asbestos. they’re going to look back at our time period and see us similarly
so if I were to say “should kids be using social media?” I wholeheartedly believe they should not be using it until their brains are developed. much like I don’t think kids should be smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, or smoking weed
but the ultimate question is- what are the potential harms of a government ban and are those potential harms worth it?
that’s where I am conflicted. a minor not being able to buy cigarettes is something that I don’t really think hurts society very much.
but a ban on a minor accessing certain online spaces… how do you accomplish that? well, you will need to track people’s identities online somehow. this is the part where I think maybe the harms of kids using social media is not worth giving the government power to monitor and regulate social media websites.
Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works
on 30 Nov 00:34
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Ah fuck. Canada is likely to copycat this, we love copying Australia’s homework. NDP and Cons BOTH already favor this idea except it’s also all 18+ websites. Gov ID to wack off. Puritans are on every wing and I wish we could shake them off.
“This website is age restricted. Click ‘Ok’ to confirm your age.”
Like that ever worked for porn.
“Oh, no! I’m not old enough for this site. I better not proceed.”
myungbrenda@discuss.online
on 30 Nov 08:50
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As of now, there hasn’t been a formal ban in Australia on social media for individuals under 16 years old, but there have been growing discussions about stricter regulations on social media usage, particularly for minors. Concerns around online safety, mental health, and privacy for young users have led to calls for platforms to enforce stricter age restrictions and introduce more safeguards for children and teenagers.
What I find intriguing is the potential for fediverse/decentralized service uptake amongst Australians, should the corporate providers decide it’s too much bother implementing an identity solution for 26m people and simply rangebans them.
In an alternate universe, parents are devoting 10 per cent of their doomscrolling time to studying their router manuals and determining access windows for social media on their LAN. But why obtain a gram of education to address a serious parenting issue when a ton of democracy-threatening legislation driven by politics will achieve a quarter of the same thing?
I’d assume the law would include federated social media. And while that wouldn’t prevent underage Australians to sign up with instances hosted elsewhere, it will impose restrictions on local ones, thus hurting the federation effort.
Take this social media law, plus the software backdoor nonsense from a few years ago, and I can’t help but see a clear message emerging from legislators to Australian developers who’d seek to build great digital spaces and tools: Do not domicile anything in this country. Do not host anything on servers in this country. Expect hostility from authorities toward the anonymity, security, and privacy of the people using your code.
I hope you’re wrong, and they’re going to arbitarily apply the law to King Doge and Zuck, with everyone else getting ignored.
threaded - newest
Imagine if this was done around the world. And then imagine how empty the Internet would be.
You don’t need to ban kids from the Internet. You need to ban pedophiles from it.
The damage to children’s lives done by social media is catastrophic.
And “banning children”, wait, I mean forcing every adult to verify who they say they are online accomplishes what?
Oh, that’s right, a massive tracking database for any bad actor to use.
If your children get into shit, it’s your fault for not raising them right. I got into some shit as a kid, and had friends that got into more/less shit.
I watched those fuckups raise their kids, and they learned from their own childhood experience and chose to guide their children how to use the internet properly. To understand how it works, the risks, etc.
You can’t bubble wrap the world. The idiots (myself included) will always find a way around such safetyism, and in the process you’ll be harming everyone else.
Are we not already subject to massive tracking databases anyway?
So then it is okay to add another? ;-)
If the positive effects of it outweigh the negative effects then maybe.
People used to say the same thing about video games. And movies. And even books.
“Guns don’t kill people, social media does!”
-America Under Project 2025
I strongly disagree.
Social media is terrible for mental health especially for the youth. Phones and tablets help in some areas like motor control development but also hurt other places like attention deficiencies and critical thinking, and very rarely does it lead to a kid learning how technology works (that’s usually from the computer nerds, aka kids who want a computer, doesn’t happen even close to the same rate as smart phones.
Smart phones make people dumb. That’s my opinion. But the above are scientifically backed.
Then parents need to stop using such things as babysitters.
And parents also need to get up in arms about lazy “educators” using tech to make their job easier (instead of making learning more effective, which is the bullshit argument that’s always used).
Parenting is harder than ever, so I don’t blame parents.
Back in the day you would have the mother home all the time, even more recently there was still a strong community in most places and big families meant lots of babysitters.
Nowadays it’s fend for yourself for everybody almost everywhere, so raising a kid properly is almost impossible unless you are rich or have a lot of free time.
While I can see your point I would like to point out that that might excuse problems parents have raising their children but not parents making that everyone else’s problem by insisting the rest of the world is made child-safe somehow.
Most of the technical problems with learning/teaching are actually caused by sticking to outdated 19th century concepts in schools such as having the (by definition average) local teacher explain things instead of someone who actually knows how to explain the subject matter well and pretending that kids need to memorize everything in a modern world instead of incorporating the ability to look up things into the learning process.
Most of the actual major problems with education are caused by funding structures and deliberate sabotage by parts of society who benefit from an uneducated population without critical thinking and research skills.
100% agree. These things get talked up as benefits when they are mostly treated as revenue streams by the seller and distractions by the buyer. Kids and adults. We all need to be way more critical of the tech we use.
You need to raise kids better instead of delegating that job to the internet.
We can’t rely on the assholes running these site to ban pedophiles. They’d endorse a pedophile president if they thought it would give them less taxes/regulations.
This is a prudent move, we’ve only seen the very beginnings if the sorts of indoctrination and manipulation our kids might be subjected to.
Never thought I’d sound this way, but i can no longer ignore reality.
Some mastodon instance has it covered already. eigenmagic.net/@daedalus/113519360107067092
Okay, that is fucking awesome. LOL.
That is both hilarious and a brilliant solution.
“being angry about inaction on climate change” hahaha
Not a bad choice.
Now ban everyone else (except Lemmy of course).
Now everyone gets to hand over their ids to the tech companies.
We should make a bet how long it will take before the ID databases get leaked.
It would take too long.
Making the bet that is, it would be leaked before you are done setting up the betting system.
Australia requires mobile phone providers to verify IDs before providing cell phone service. As a result, in September 2022, Optus leaked the records of 10 million Australians including passport and drivers license details.
So negative 2 years, 2 months.
But this is just asking for more.
Tech company’s probably already have enough info to know a person age without requiring an id. They could even use ai for something actually useful
Identification would need to be handled by a 3rd party to even remotely work. Then they pass on the “yes they’re over 16” tick to the social media platform, with no actual identity details.
Edit: and likewise, Identity company have no details about the social media account name or anything. Just a token transfer of sorts.
I guess Australia.gov can be the site in the middle handing out the tokens
The legislatiion specifically allows SM sites to handle ID.
Probably going to get downvoted for this, but this just makes kids look for VPN’s and other ways to skirt this restriction. It may make VPN’s less useful for the rest of us as a result when certain services are forced to comply with the law, breaking those services for those of us using VPN’s. It sounds like a great idea but I don’t know that the implementation will make a noticeable or effective difference.
Most kids are not going to pay a subscription for a VPN, I don’t think that would be as big of an issue as you think.
Well unless they go for free vpns and get data mined to the moon and back… Which is a far worse outcome imo.
There are free vpn services? How do they data mine you?
Well they have to host the servers and pay for them somehow… So they take all of your traffic going through their servers and sell it. They know when you go to any website, at what time, and how long you were there… That’s why anyone recommending a VPN strongly recommends vpns that do not keep logs of what their clients do when connected to their servers. Even some paid vpns double dip and keep logs and sell them as well as charging for access.
To be fair, I wouldn’t really count on a VPN not collecting logs - if I can’t check it, better assume they’re collected. This may not matter as much, but I still wouldn’t rely on this for anything sensitive.
Also, the free VPNs can harm you in more ways than just selling your traffic logs, such as making you a part of a proxy botnet.
No, they’re gonna download “free vpns” and get infected with malware and turn their device into part of a bot net.
Or use Tor and end up finding things worse than just “social media”.
Are the government gonna ban those too?
Congrats, you now live in China where the all benevolent government have 24/7 surveillance to keep you safe.
There are free VPNs that are subsidized by payers and are legit (though most are not). Calyx and Proton to name two.
Also Tor is free, and the most popular site on the darknet is Facebook, so I dont think you’re informed about the nature of Tor traffic.
Also here, where a VPN or proxy is a “must” for using the internet normally, there are also some ran by charities. But yeah, the omnipresence of shady free VPNs is very concerning.
Us right now are on a service that’s totally going to follow this law. /s
Just because it isn’t perfect it doesn’t mean it’s useless.
Just because there is no way to stop 100% of all crime it doesn’t mean taking measures to reduce crime is futile.
There is a lot more to this than just blocking the site. It will also change social norms. Right now, if a 14 year old as social media, nobody bats an eye; but with the 16 year requirement, through all the sudden, parents aren’t too comfortable with letting their 14 year old have social media. So not only will they need to find some free VPN totally not spyware to use (and even know that that exists and how to use), they will also have to hide it from their parents, as it is no longer socially acceptable for 14 year olds to have social media.
And before you say “Kids can easily get a free VPN and hide it.” Never underestimate tech illiteracy.
Kids accessing social media shouldn’t be treated as a crime.
The future of such restriction is:
Exhibit A: People’s Republic of China and the “Great Firewall”
Nope, lets not go there.
???
How is restricting access behind an age requirement the same as the “Great Firewall”. Right now, as we speak, you cannot use social media until you are 13. They are just increasing that requirement to 16.
There are many many many other things that are already lock behind an age restriction and I don’t see you freaking out. Here are a few examples of things locked behind an age restriction:
alcohol
gambling
cigarettes
pornography
Media has age restrictions. Books have age restrictions, movies have age restrictions, games have age restrictions. Media has had age restrictions for a very long time and it’s high time the same standards are applied to social media.
Whats gonna happens when politicians realize kids are just gonna click “I’m at least [Age]”?
They’ll implement ID verification.
Then kids will use VPN to bypass it.
So VPNs get banned
Either you have a toothless law, or you live in a country with Great Firewall of China.
Yup… right what I suspected! The Slippery Slope Fallacy!
Many pornography work like that and can, as such, be easily bypassed. But does that mean we should drop the age restriction for access to pornography? Of course not!
Here is another example:
Murder. Murder shouldn’t be legal and it is not. However, despite this restriction, some find ways to get away with murder. Does that mean that laws against murder are useless since we cannot stop murder 100% of the time? I highly doubt it.
It is impossible for any law enforcement to prevent 100% of all crimes, but that is not justification for those law to not exist.
False dilemma fallacy.
Again, I’ll refer to pornography. Many pornography work on the trust system. By your logic, that means we should drop all laws restricting access to it. However, that is absurd.
The point isn’t to stop 100% of all usage. It is simply there to reduce the usage. You are forgetting that we are talking about human beings. Beings which have a natural tendency to conform to social norms as to not be cast out of their tribe (since humans cannot survive in the wild without each other, such would be a death sentence).
This law would set the societal precedent that people need to be of a certain age to access these social media apps (as shown by scientific data, which revealed that social media usage can have many negative effects on a developing mind). This societal precedent will, hopefully, make it taboo for people bellow 16 to access social media, which will, in turn, reduce, but not outright 100% stop, underage social media usage.
The point is to prevent the detrimental effects to the mental health of teens and preteens. That doesn’t work unless you plug the holes. That’s the problem. Fallacy in argument or no fallacy.
The point we’re trying to make isn’t that we don’t want the restriction. We just understand that it’s not going to work specifically because it requires the same thing the under 13 privacy laws already include. Companies to comply (which they will, probably with detriments to legal users), and that parents be involved in what their children are doing online and restrict that accordingly to comply with the law (which we already know they aren’t).
I as a full grown adult am not willing to provide my details (picture of a government issued ID or similar) to most online entities. I certainly won’t ever be giving it to social media or a porn site of any kind. But that’s what’s going to end up being required to enact this law and make it enforceable. Is the law going to fine parents whose children aren’t in compliance? Is it going to fine businesses for not enacting enough restrictions? Is it going to outlaw VPN’s for use on social media?
Where is the burden of proof and who’s privacy gets invaded in order to enforce the law?
I was not (in my original comment or any subsequent ones in the thread) intending people to take this as “we shouldn’t do this because XYZ”. And I am aware that you weren’t responding to me. I was saying that it’s going to be problematic to enforce and isn’t likely to have the results intended.
It’s not about the handful of people per hundred who commit a murder. Because murder being illegal isn’t a deterrent and we have scientific studies to back that up. It’s about how 75-85% of teens will find a way to circumvent the law because they don’t understand the dangers and parents aren’t doing their part. So the rest of us will have to jump through hoops to use any social media.
If 75% or more of people the law effects aren’t following the law, the law doesn’t do what is intended and is going to have to be reworked.
The thing about kids getting a VPN, free or paid is that it will spread like wild fire. It only takes one kid who knows how to do something. They tried this at my highschool, blocking websites and such. That was more than 20 years ago and we knew how to use VPN’s or similar then and once we figured it out it was an open secret.
I’m not saying the law shouldn’t exist or that we should do nothing. I’m saying that this isn’t going to be effective as it is and could end up leading to worse things.
teen go to website
1/1/2000
Lawyer sues tech company
Lawyer points to law text
I don’t see many options between asking for a birthdate and asking for ID for this problem. I don’t see any way that this can be enforced that isn’t problematic.
A large part of this will help maintain liability for harm to young people. How ages is verified is irrelevant
How ages are verified are irrelevant? Until a whole collection of faces or government IDs inevitably leaks!
Are you over 16: Yes/No.
That wasnt difficult.
If this would indeed be the case, I would be really happy.
They have no specified otherwise so its a case of why would they waste money doing otherwise.
To avoid said potential liability? Or because the law would include actual enforcement, like it was proposed at least in some places?
Facebook/Meta has developed software to estimate the age from a video.
Comes with the territory. The point is to control who has access to what information so that they don’t get wrong ideas.
if you think AI software will be able to differentiate between a 15 year old and 16 year old then I have this cool bridge in Brooklyn that you might be interested in.
This is delusional to the point where it feels like we’re literally devolving.
Trusting your face to Facebook is just as terrifying, thanks.
(Plus I have concerns as someone who still looks teenage in her 20s)
Problematic for who, the tech companies? They’re practically printing money. Let them spend it on actual solutions to issues that are causing problems for the World.
It forces them to implement solutions that make having anonymous accounts impossible.
Problematic for the children who are having their rights taken away. This change bans children from connecting with their friends in other countries, other states, and even other cities.
Even something as simple as hopping in a voice call with your squad to play Deep Rock Galactic is now illegal for 15 year olds. That’s ridiculous. The fact that they can break the law is great, but they shouldn’t have to break the law in order to do something so harmless.
What about using Zoom to speak to a doctor or therapist? What about contacting queer support resources through social media? What about using a text based suicide hotline? According to the law, that’s social media.
it’s not a problem that can be solved by tech.
The senate inquiry outlined the two likely solutions :
Uploading ID to the website.
3D face scanning. This will include continual monitoring so if another person comes into view they will have to face scan in. Remember, its prohibited for chidren to even watch prohibited content with their parents.
How can it possibly be legal to 3D face scan a child, especially if it needs to be authenticated by a remote server somewhere.
I can only ever see option 1 working
Lol those options harm children
I’m well old enough to satisfy these checks and I also do this. If I’m feeling productive, I’ll pick a random date.
So what? There will be a “Yes I’m over 16” check box which will be as meaningful as the “Yes I’m over 18” one on porn sites?
Any hope of governments or social media sites enforcing this will come with big ethical and technical compromises and I dont think anyone is actually going to really bother.
We already have limits on what children do with other potentially harmful things like fire, sharp objects, heights and roads and they all come from parents. If this law has any real and positive impact it will be the message that it sends to parents.
Then I read that chat apps and YouTube would not be banned, and scoffed
Literally chat apps are social media. You can post stories and pump memes and news. You can even have bots that scrape and post content. YouTube is just a matter of checking a box whether it’s “for kids” and they already do that. Basically the whole thing is stupid
So even in perfect scenario where this ban “works” it would still have zero intended effect as teens can consume all of that rubbish but not talk back and can jolly continue any harm on “allowed apps” like wtf is even this supposed to do lmao
Eh, I don’t think this is the best solution.
The assumption is as soon as you turn 17 you’re smart enough and have the critical thinking skills to navigate social media without it negatively affecting you? Kinda dumb.
There could be an argument that at least try to block it while young peoples brains are still developing, maybe there’s benefit in that.
Older people than 16 are still duped by propaganda, and become addicted to social media, and all the negative consequences.
What we need is regulation imo. Good, smart, progressive, altruistic regulation that is for the benefit of all. Ain’t gonna happen though, because sOcIaLiSm and “mUh FrEeDoMs”.
Yeah, there are adults (in both my generation and the previous one) who have fewer critical thinking skills than today's teens and young adults. This feels like a band-aid solution to avoid actually fixing the problems of (1) not teaching critical thinking and logic and (2) the toxic content, misinformation and disinformation on these platforms (I recognise the second one is much harder whilst trying to preserve security and privacy as well).
The older generations always think the younger generations are lazy and lesser. They don’t believe they can parent because they know how shit they were at parenting. So they are voting to take away parental rights and give those rights to the government. And then say they are pro small government.
Sounds like a pretty weak law. It will require a birthday when creating an account and accounts under the age of 16 will be restricted/limited. As a result users (people under 16) will lie about their age.
Companies don’t like this because it messes with their data collection. If they collect data that proves an account is under 16 they will be required to make them limited/restricted. However they obviously collect this data already.
I wonder if Facebook and other apps will add/push education elements in order to become exempt.
I doubt it, and if they do, they’ll classify a whole bunch of nonsense as educational content in order to do so, e.g. religious content as science.
I mean YouTube has educational content, but that is far from its primary purpose. Assuming YouTube is completely unrestricted it wouldn’t be hard for Facebook to add enough content to be arguably educational.
Hell plenty of people use TikTok for educational reasons. I’m not saying it’s right, but you could argue TikTok is educational in the same way you can argue YouTube is educational.
Now if YouTube is forced to classify it’s educational content the same way they classify children’s content (aka poorly), maybe that’ll work.
Any stonger, and they wander into China “Great Firewall” territory.
Lets not make every country into an authoritarian shithole.
Oh I agree. I wouldn’t want a stronger law. I’m just not too concerned with this one. I think if there are concerns with social media we should discuss how to solve them for everyone.
We generally say 16-21 you are an adult so fuck it, whatever happens to you is your fault and ignore the predatory nature of organizations.
We should outline the specific concerns and determine what, if any, steps we can take.
As an example, gambling. I think it’s fair and reasonable to allow gambling. I think ensuring gambling isn’t predatory is a reasonable limitation. I expect for most people it isn’t a problem but I think providing help to gambling addicts is also reasonable. Social media should be viewed through a similar lens.
No, it merely requires the sites to provide an alternative, such as face scanning using a mobile phone unlock. Using a computer ? Then you’ll have hand over your ID.
The law also explicitly gives sites the right to onsell private information if its outlined in the terms of agrrement.
Re verification per AP,
So it sounds like an ID will not be a requirement.
I suppose a face scan is possible, but I find it unlikely. Obviously if it heads in that direction then the law should be amended to clarify that is also not acceptable.
In terms of selling information I assume that just clarifies the status quo and isn’t new. Not that that makes it acceptable, it just means that’s something to tackle.
Sure, but gov ID is permitted as an option if another non-ID option is also available.
Simply choose between submitting your government ID or, say, switch on your front facing camera so we can perform some digital phrenology to determine your eligibility.
Huh, I thought all kids immediately say they were born in 1969
People should lie about as much as possible to most companies they interact with online anyway (obviously don’t lie to your bank, or doctor, or whatever). Do always, without fail, lie randomly about your age, gender, address (if it’s not relevant) or anything else that’s not actually needed to provide the service.
One way to implement this: chinwag.au/verification/
China Video Game Ban v2.0: Electric Boogaloo
Parents should be parenting, not delegate their responsibilities to a nanny state.
That would require us paying one parent enough to cover the other parent being a child care expert. But nobody gets to profit off of that so fuck society, everybody works, and nobody gets community goods except the wealthy.
Solution is to fund a social safety net, not ban social media.
A social safety net you say… like a place we could gather all the children to teach them things and let them play under supervision?
So are we gonna put teens in kindergarden?
What? No! They can have their own age appropriate place to learn and play under supervision.
Well I hope Australians are a homogenous society. Like they don’t have racial minorities or LGBT kids that have to keep their identities closeted and have no one to talk to. Every Australian is so open and accepting amirite?
Imagine kids have conservative parents that would kick them out if they came out as LGBT, classmates are just constantly using “yo thats’s gay” as an insult, while teacher and administrators dismiss any reports bullying. Have no adult they trust, and the same conservative parents would not let them see a therapist because that being “weak”. Then when they wanna go online and vent and just have someone to talk to, the government steps in and “help” them by banning online communications.
“We Saved The Kids” Amirite?
But what about those Parental Responsibilities you were talking about earlier? Are you saying we now need extra social safety nets for kids who don’t fit the mold and get bullied? Extra places for them to learn and play under supervision? Because I don’t think that’s going to be economical without boarding them there, away from their parents.
Parents should be loving and caring and and set up restrictions on their phone and block acess to danger things, what these restrictions would entail is up to the maturity of each kid.
In the event that the parents are shitty horrible people, they should have supportative environment in school that can help them. Adults to talk to, classmates that friendly and form friendships
In case the parents are not just shitty, and become abusive, there should be a legal procedure to transfer them to suitable guardians.
Unfortunately, there are often shitty/abusive parents, school environment is also toxic, and then social services don’t do anything about it. Therefore there should not be any restriction by the government on the internet. In case 1,2 and 3 all fail, the internet provides a last resort for peer support.
Before attempting to restrict internet access, first fix everything else.
So you do want a nanny state.
The term “nanny state” typically refers to a government that intrude on every aspect of life that should not be the role of government.
Examples:
What food to eat.
Clothing to wear.
Places you are allowed to go.
What time you have to return home.
Bed times.
Having a non toxic school envionment or invervening in cases of child abuse is not typically under the unbrella of “nanny state”.
Otherwise you’d be saying that any country that protects against child abuse to be a “nanny state”.
Funny, conservatives would absolutely include telling parents how to raise their kids in the definition of a Nanny State.
if social media is fediverse, you’re right; if social media is agents of surveillance capitalism, fuck social media
what’s “social” about what most people call social media?
Governmemts doesn’t care, any platform that empowers civillians to communicate with each other is “social media”. Governments love to control and restrict communications.
Lemmy would be considered social media. Eventually they would be requiring social media to verify IDs. So Lemmy instances will be required to verify IDs or be banned from certain countries.
even YouTube got in an exception list. So it’s not an “all or nothing” approach, it seems.
Youtube got an exeption because Alphabet Inc. lobbied them to do so to get kids used to Youtube. Lemmy does not have the lobbying power like a mega corporation, plus, its a good excuse to get rid of a left-leaning platform, since governments tend to be against the left.
even “crash course” alone is enough of a reason to keep YouTube accessible
but but that requires actually effort and budget that we’d have to take away from Australian oligarchs!
Yeah! Parents should totally be allowed to give their car keys to their 14 year old to go out and drive drunk if they feel their kid can handle it.
Parents should be Parenting?
If they haven’t been parenting what have they been doing for the last 40 years?
And if thwy have been parenting how’s that workout for us so far?
There’s been no age ban on social media since the internet was founded but there’s record mental health crisis on young people.
This isn’t even delegating. It’s more of an equivalent of stuffing your fingers into your ear holes and going “nanananan CAN’T HEAR YOU”
Only for 16 seconds? Why?
I work tech in schools (in Australia) there are definitely tech savvy enough kids that will probably spool up their own fediverse instances
I know right. I used to be a kid who bypassed school firewalls and restrictions all the time. This is going to make no difference.
It will likely make a big difference. Freedoms being taken away day by day and we shrug it off.
“freedom” of kids and teenagers to rot their immature brains on “social media”?
freedom to be manipulated by Zuckerberg and his minions?
freedom to learn what a “real man” is from sexist assholes
freedom to develop bottomless insecurities before constructing a semblance of a “self” to get you through the grit of societies
at least they recognize the problem and … pass hopeless laws 🤷
Freedom to raise your kids, and freedom to live your life as you choose, yes. Laws aren’t needed for this. Content management should come from parents, and if websites are pushing agendas or misinformation you don’t want your child on, you should be dictating what they are viewing.
You don’t (lawfully) ban kids from parts of the library because you are worried they might read about things you don’t like, you monitor which books they are reading and tell them not to read such, or discuss why/why not those resources do not agree with or match the principles you agree with.
This is the equivalent of banning kids talking to each other at school, on the bus or at the mall/park. If a platform is pushing harmful information then block that site, or bring a suit against the site for pushing harmful information.
Edit: If you don’t want your kid on certain apps or sites you can start with things like this: families.google/familylink/ Don’t force it on other people with laws, I believe parents should have the choice for themselves. Apps like that allow you to block social media sites, restrict their app usage and reset passwords if needed.
libraries are carefully curated. Popular “social media” of today is a shit show.
no, it’s not “equivalent” to that at all. Are they banning messengers?
Kids in schools talk through game chat anyways. Are they banning games in Australia?
☞ “Exemptions will apply for health and education services including YouTube, Messenger Kids, WhatsApp, Kids Helpline and Google Classroom.”
this ban is not directed at kids, it’s targeting “big tech”.
So instead of demanding big tech companies monitor their broadcasts, they are banning kids from accessing them, how is that not directed at kids? It is explicitly directed at kids.
it’s illegal to sell alcohol to kids, right? Would you consider that too as “banning kids from accessing them”?
Yes?
Marriam Webster: Ban - to prohibit especially by legal means
they could have just demanded alcoholic beverage companies to monitor their bottles, right?
They do. The alcohol dealers can only sell via licensed dealers and are punished for selling irresponsible products and to people irresponsibly. To drunk and you sell them more, you can get your licensed revoked, fined and possibly further penalties depending on where you are. If a you sell to a customer and they get drunk you are legally required to provide them with a safe means to get home most places. Whether that be providing a cab if necessary. Usually they will just call it for you, but often times that is them just dodging paying for it as they could be held liable for it. If a drunk driver leaves your establishment and kills someone, the establishment is also held at fault.
The people are told to drink responsibly.
(Not saying alcohol laws are perfect, but yes, they restrict irresponsible sales as they should restrict misinformation, and the company selling it is the one responsible)
By virtue of you actually knowing what a firewall is, and participating in the conversation, on this platform, you are ahead of 99 out of 100 people.
True, but I was that one kid who showed all of my friends how to use a VPN to bypass all the restrictions as well, and then they taught their friends.
I work with tech security and once a corporate blog post I wrote got from 1,000 monthly views to 100k because kids were looking up proxy tool guides and it was for Roblox lmao
This law is incredibly illiterate
So… they banned social media for a whole 15 seconds?
The ban and age verification requirements apply to pretty much all services which allow communication of information between people, unless an exemption is granted by the minister.
There is no legislated exemption for instant messaging, SMS, email, email lists, chat rooms, forums, blogs, voice calls, etc.
It’s a wildly broadly applicable piece of legislation that seems ripe to be abused in the future, just like we’ve seen with anti-terror and anti-hate-symbol legislation.
From 63C (1) of the legislation:
Here’s all the detail of what the bill is and the concerns raised in parliament.
It’s a good thing we wiped out covid and will never need students to use Zoom again!
Oh, wait
Now ban parents posting pictures of their children under 16.
I DGAF about your kids.
Yeah I agree with you on this. It’ll protect them from the being de-clothed using AI as well. I understand wanting to share moments with your family because kids grow up fast but sharing it with these companies as an intermediary is not a good idea. Sadly I don’t have a solution for them aside from setting up a decentralized social network like Pixelfed or Frendica but that requires skill and patience.
Frankly, decentralized networks make it even harder to take content down.
Wouldn’t it be easier to take content down if the app was not federated? I don’t know for sure but couldn’t you have a completely private instance only for the people you know?
Sure, if it is already private. But if it is not, then it gets copied to different instances and so if the original post gets removed, it is up to each instance to follow and when.
Preach!
One of the craziest wtf moment of my life resulted from an oversharing parent.
At a hot summer day a few years back someone posted a picture of them barbequing in their backyard to our company’s “off topic” teams chat. Nothing unusual. I was over at a friends place so I send back a picture of us sitting in lawnchairs having a beer. In comes the third colleague, first time father with a roughly 1.5 year old at the time. So he posts a picture of his kid running around in his backyard. Completly naked, full frontanl nudity.
It took me a minute to recollect and I messaged him to please take down the picture. I know he didn’t mean any harm and was just sharing his hot-summer-weekend expirence … and he did realise his blunder and took it down. But wtf mate?
After that I immediately googled how to clear my teams’ app image cache …
Papers, please!
Obviously there are workarounds, but I suppose it provides a good justification for parents to deny their kids access to social media.
why would parents need a justification to parent?
Peer pressure is real. Kids get social media accounts way too early because it’s difficult to justify holding off when all of their classmates have them. It causes actual social issues for kids when they are the only one without something. They get bullied etc, so parents are effectively forced to accede. Making it illegal gives parents a reason to say no, which might slow down the uptake.
I’d really like to see a teenager who’d say “yes parent, I’ll not use Instagram because you told me not to”. People who pushed this law are so senile they frankly forgot what teenagers even are.
What? You think every single teenager universally disobeys their parents? I know for a fact this isn’t true. There exist responsible teenagers. Brides, even if a teenager is disobedient, the placement of boundaries changes their behaviour.
For something so menial like social media? That’s equivalent of tying your shoelaces in their eyes. I’m willing to bet you real money that this would be <1% of teenagers. If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if this would have the opposite effect.
Well there is no way to settle that bet, otherwise I would absolutely take it.
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?
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.
What if I’m also uncomfortable with the tech company knowing what country I’m a citizen of?
They know it already.
IP reveals general location.
Sure, and my IP is something I can control (VPN). I also travel, and I’m certainly not a citizen of each country I visit.
This kind of control tend to be ip based, like cookies in the eu. So if they don’t know they won’t know. And if they know means that they knew. Nothing changes on that regard.
That depends on the law. For example, it’s possible that the US could require Meta to verify ages regardless of nationality, so you the EU (for example) would be subject to it.
I’m not saying that’s how any of these laws work, I’m merely saying that it’s possible. If enough people sidestep the law by using a VPN, I could countries use a heavier hand (e.g. verify everyone or don’t do business here).
I will always oppose these types of laws. I set up my WiFi to connect over a VPN to the next state over because my state has ID laws for porn and social media. It’s annoying and increases latency a bit (only like 10ms), so I’ll oppose them even if I can sidestep them.
This is just abstinence education all over again
I always wear a condom when I log into Facebook, so I should be safe
.
Make sure to take a shower after as well, and use proper soap. Also, don’t touch your face.
Now ban it for over 16s
People should be allowed to do as they please. I think, however, people should be presented with all the potential risks in very clear language if they’re going to, in the same way a pack of cigarettes has a warning, access to social media should present similar disclaimers.
You know in the eyes of government, Lemmy is also social media.
The difference being you can’t stop a federated protocol. I was being cheeky, but banning or at least regulating algorithm-based social media would do nothing but good for society. User engagement and user safety are directly at odds in a for-profit model.
Another way to look at this is a back channel method of breaking down the big tech oligopoly.
I’m all for this. Kids are smart. They start using the rest of the internet. They’ll become tech savvy.
Not a bad idea all things considered
Edit: Save for the “Showing your ID” part, anonymity is healthy for the net and far too rare these days
performative nonsense which does nothing for kids or their mental health and harms queer kids who lose one of the first places they can find community.
Then it seems there is something other to fix in society than making sure facebook knows anything about that kid.
The Zuckerbergers of the world aren’t the ones to trust with that.
Yeah that’s why we’re on Lemmy. It’s not perfect but it’s better than zuck, elmo, spez, and pals.
No need for the state to attack kids.
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.
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.
This ban is a wake up call to Tech Industry to implement and enforce rules against hate speech, grooming, fake news, etc. They surely cannot verify the age of a human without any official ID made in the real world. This leads to other problems but that’s not the concern of the government! Social Media wants it’s users, not the government.
what? Why would tech industry care? If anything it’ll have the reverse effect and dimiss tech role in brain rott because “see, kids are not on it! It’s all good here”
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.
Depending on what the token contains.
There are two implementations I could think of:
“This user has been verified to be at least [Age]. Sincerely, [Government Authority]” Assuming this is an identical token thats the same for everyone? Sure. I’m not opposed to this.
“This user has been verified to be at least [Age]. Unique Token ID: 23456” Hell No. When the government eventually wants to deanonymize someone, they could ask the website: “What was the token ID that was used to verify the user?” then if the website provides it, now the government can just check the database to see who the token belongs to. And this could also lead to the government mandating the unique token id to be stored.
Why not just look up how it actually works in the real world instead of hypotheticals
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.
I’m pretty sure they all know this already.
Sure, but I don’t want to hand it over on a silver platter, especially for my kids.
If i recall correctally, Australia tried to fine adults if they didnt have thier phone with them. Ive heard a relaible youtuber say it, but i couldnt find a news article to confirm it.
Went to look for the article. Found something even worse www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-24/…/100774644
Strange that the adults don’t want those benefits for themselves also.
I’d support banning it for everyone as well.
This is good pseudo-science.
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.
How can you look at the state of things pretty much everywhere since social media has become so ubiquitous and think that it has no effect on people, young people especially? It’s full of hate, envy, propaganda, and brainwashing
This is going to harm kids.
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.
I don’t know how they are going to do over there.
Here the plan for the same goal is force any social media company to request a digital certificate when entering, or directly overtaking the ip of the social media and force a certificate check to let the user through. This certificates would be expedited by the government to people over certain age.
The haven’t implemented yet, as they were going to start using the system to ban porn for minors and got a lot of backslash.
It’s technologically doable, some kid will always find a way to enter but vast majority will not (next to a bunch of adults that will stop using them because they cannot be bothered with the same system). Moral considerations aside.
I’d disagree here. Sure in theory you could design some system that authenticates every user on every connection but in practice it would be impossible to maintain without complete authoritarian oversight like North Korea. Even closed authoritarian countries fail to achieve this (like Iran or China).
This would cost billions of not trillions in implementation, oversight overhead and economic product loss. That money would be much more effective in carrot approach of supporting mental health institutions and promoting wholesome shared culture, anti bullying campaigns etc.
It’s not a new problem either. We know for a fact that the latter is the better solution and yet here we are…
Come on, this is silly. You can disagree with it politically but technically it would work fine. I already have a digital ID issued by the government for doing online tax returns. Validating a social media account against that ID would be no more difficult than letting people sign in with Google or whatever. There will always technically be a way to get around it but 99% of people won’t bother.
Nah not a good comparison. Once there’s market people will find a way to easily corrupt this. Remember that this is a 3 way interaction: government, private company and private citizen - the opportunities for bypass are basically endless here. You are comparing it with a 2 way market between government and private citizen which has no incentive to break the system.
Good. Now block Shitter.
Pssst! Hey kid, wanna buy some memes?
Well that’s not going to work out.
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.
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.
Those kids already have exploiters; their parents. The right to communication should be granted to all, and especially the most vulnerable.
They have schools, churches, neighbors, other family, etc etc. There are plenty of organized groups online looking for kids to exploit.
You’re assuming that they’ll find good people online. If they don’t they’ll end up much worse than when they started.
Kids are people and they deserve a chance to try.
I live in New York City. Old timers here remember when 42nd Street was called ‘the Minnesota Strip.’ It got that name because thousands of young people [some as young as 12] would jump on buses and come to New York to live the dream. They’d be met by pimps who routinely patrolled the bus terminal and quickly gathered up as many as they could.
Ok boomer
So, you’re saying my point is relevant, but you’ll ignore it because it involves historical facts?
No. Your point is old people stuff from the physical world. Times changed and your knowledge is out of date. You’re trying to apply physical wisdom to the digital world. Because you’re a boomer who doesn’t understand technology.
So, you think that because it’s online people are safe from exploitation?
gigazine.net/…/20241125-onlyfans-enslaved-women
What they consider as “social media”? Is it every site where you can communicate with others?
This seems fucked if its so.
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
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.
I basically agree, with the caveat that Youth Liberation requires buy in from all the adult influences in the Youth’s life and all that follows…yeah otherwise no notes
You are arguing against yourself. In the first paragraph you say that the parents should keep kids from social media.
In the second, you say that it would be a violation of privacy if parents would keep kids from social media.
Kids need policing, it’s going to need to be done by the parents no matter what the laws are. Personally, I don’t think the laws matter much in this regard.
Not necessarily. It’s up to the parents to know what their kids can handle.
Keeping kids off social media doesn’t have to be a privacy violation. If you don’t trust your kids to follow the rules, don’t give them access to devices they could use to violate them. If I give my kids access to a device, it’s because I trust them with that device. I don’t put any parental controls on it, either I trust them or they don’t get the device. It’s none of my business what they do with devices I trust them to have.
Kids need discipline and trust, not policing. If they break the rules, discipline them (take devices away and whatnot), but don’t surveil them.
And yeah, the laws don’t matter as written because good parents will help their kids circumvent bad laws. My problem is with the government thinking it has a say in how I raise my children. The government should only step in if there’s abuse, but other than that, they should stick to advising parents by providing high quality research to parents.
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.
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…
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?
Oh, I forgot, Lemmy is only lefty and free when they aren’t being told what to boycott by someone else. I guess we do have something in common with Trump voters.
Nooo, imposing our will on the public is ok under some circumstances!
FUCKING SHEEP
My life. My way. Fuck a government telling me what to do.
I guess I am the crazy one. It’s just human nature to want to be controlled and be told what to do. Viva authoritarianism. Dom me harder, Donny.
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.
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?
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.
Oh I’ve got like three at least, that I know about.
You guys are one of them.
uwu
The fact is it impacts everyone else, the public services will have to deal with the fall out.
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.
Wow. You’re such a rebel. /s
If you want to fight authority, start by fighting against the rich assholes causing 30% of stonemasons(and others) to get silicosis from engineered stone. The guys making the money aren’t the ones getting sick. Help them live long enough to get justice and get paid.
Fight against the companies and rich assholes who are still giving lots of people cancer by using asbestos products to save money (and are putting asbestos in products and not declaring it). The people manufacturing this shit are getting rich, not the people installing it (or who have it installed)
And fight back by helping people live longer, so they can get justice against tabacco companies for lying to them and making shitty claims like claiming menthol cigarettes are medicinal. Companies like Vape4lyf had nothing in place to prevent sales of vapes to kids whilst starting petitions claiming they were needed for quitting smoking (what possible use could kids have for vapes other than to START vaping). Every shitty vape company out there is basically advertising their products as safe
Do you think the execs give a shit if your kid dies? Nope, they have lawyers on retainer, and they’ve become increasingly good at fighting any lawsuits and running down the clock. Do you think they give a shit if the people around other smokers die from second hand smoke? Nope, because you can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt a specific company caused an issue. People are suffering.
Nothing says “badass” like a guy who is willing to fondle the balls of the marlboro man whilst he lies to you and dodges responsibility. Vaping is Tabacco 2.0. They’re making the exact same claims they did in the past for other products.
I’d suggest you grow a pair and stand up for people. That takes courage. It’s not bootlicking. What you’re doing is bending over for millionaires who give no fucks about you, and defending them
Prohibition never works. Even if you put an anti-corporate spin on it.
How do you figure?
Seems to be working against Asbestos companies.
And if anyone tries to cut up engineered stone onsite, it will be obvious. In fact, companies are getting actively fined. And my mate who got silicosis I’m fairly sure got a payout.
Seems to be working fine with our Gun control.
Seems to be working for lots of food items
Seems to be working for lots of things. You simply don’t realise it works, because you’re not aware of them.
If Vaping is banned, shitheads aren’t going to be vaping in public blowing smoke in our faces. And, if they’re smoking at home, people like myself can kick them out. I’m not too fussed about the ones who are respectable (I had a housemate who smoked weed, but they did it outside).
Do you really think allow free sale of highly addictive drugs like meth is a good idea? Fuck No.
You keep telling yourself you’re a badass fighting against bootlickers or whatever. But you’re actually just a pawn for the multi-billion dollar Tobacco industry
The fact that you think banning asbestos in construction is similar to prohibition is evidence your education system is fucked too.
The fact that you took my entire response and only responded to 1 part of it says everything. Prohibition has been effective against drugs. Just look at Denver as an example for what happens when they’re legal vs not. The whole city smells like weed now and it seems like everyone is using. If you legalise cocaine, guess what will happen?
Before prohibition drugs were being sold at every street corner.
Even you know your argument is weak, so I won’t be responding anymore. If you want cancer so much, there are easier ways for you to get it. Id rather the people around me live, and I’d rather live a long life too. As others have said, go get help. You have an addiction. I don’t care already since I live in Australia and happy that shit like that is being increasingly banned.
And it’s ridiculous you accuse others of bootlicking in this case. There’s nothing more sheepish that sucking up to companies that trade YOUR health and YOUR money so THEY can be fucking rich
Hahahahaha
Vaping companies like Vape4life were writing petitions on Facebook arguing that Vaping was great to help smokers stop smoking.
Meanwhile, the same dodgy companies were selling vapes to 10 year olds online (they had NOTHING in place to stop underage people buying them). What possible health use could underage people have for vapes?
Meanwhile, every vaping fuckwit around was smoking vapes illegally on trains and in heavily populated public areas. And every asshole (including my ex housemate) was vaping inside (I literally told her not to. I want to do high altitude mountaineering in the future so I need my lungs. And she was getting super cheap rent). When you tell them to do it outside, they always say “vaping is just water, it’s perfectly safe”.
If you want to “eat the rich”, you should be telling Smoking companies to fuck off. They’re lying to their userbase, whilst their exec’s become wealthy millionaires. And when their clients get cancer (or the people around them get cancer), they run down the clock on the lawsuit so they don’t lose any money.
Fuck Tabacco and cigarette companies.
Also, I had some absolute wanker the other day throw a lit cigerette on my nature strip (I was amazed, and I was sitting in the car), on a hot day. I’m lucky I saw him do it and he didn’t start a grass fire (and yet, if one was started, he’d be responsible, not the tobacco company). Everyone in cigarette companies knows this happens and could provide a way to extinguish them in the box, but instead, they know people are chucking them on the ground
i have attached the photo of the guy (if anyone in Victoria happens to recognise him)
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/7ba332d3-824c-4aac-8041-177608b3517d.jpeg">
And it is super common for people to throw cigarettes out of their car, leave them on the ground, or throw their vape cartridges on the ground. Smokers and Cigerette companies had EVERY opportunity to be respectful. There might be some respectful ones, but, there are plenty who aren’t
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
It is easier to enforce access than to enforce ethical algorithm. Sadly, it is not perfect, but it is better than allowing it.
Well we agree but it’s only as much better as it is effective…because when it’s not it’s giving the impression of doing something while in reality it’s legitimizing the stripping of the autonomy.
“best worst case?”
I don’t think there is a technical way to implement this without privacy issues and potential for future misuse and scope creep.
Government doing parenting instead of the parents never works.
I mean, yeah. But also, this isn’t really any different from kids not being allowed to drink alcohol before a specific age, movies and video games having age minima, etc etc.
And I would surmise the same reasoning applies: On average, someone so young has neither the mental development nor the life experience to be able to judge well what they are doing with their own information and how to judge/process the information they get shown.
Of course, this should happen in conjunction with actual education, like I at least had for alcohol and stuff. But it’s an entirely normal thing if it happens as part of a multi-step process (and I am not australian enough to judge how well those things work out in australia in general).
But it IS different. If you compare to alcohol for example, age checks are performed in shops. No record of those is made or available to anyone. There is no centralized infrastructure related to age checks that could be abused in the future to track everyone who buys alhocol.
Yeah but if you think about to, from a law perspective that’s an implementation detail. Sure, from our perspective it’s a really important one, but from the perspective of a lawmaker it’s about whether it should be done, not how it’ll be done in execution (different branches of state, basically).
You are correct that from juridical point of view the difference does not seem great.
Hopefully politicians listen to experts of different fields.
For a second I thought the headline said Australia banned social media for 16 seconds 🤣
What the government should be doing is mandating that a social media/drugs literacy course is taught in schools. Kids should fundamentally understand that things are not black or white, good or bad; things are grey. They have upsides and downsides; risks and rewards. Kids should be taught that Social media is a great way to connect with your friends, but you are also susceptible to being influenced/manipulated/addicted in X, Y, Z ways.
thats a lot of work for the government dude, let them take the easy path
100% agree. I think it’s a good space for libraries to enter too. Internet literacy, media literacy and critical thinking skills are sorely needed to be taught today.
As if those drug literacy courses helped anyone. We were taught about it aged 12 or something, when nobody really had a clue what drugs are. Around the age where it matters, it was all but forgotten.
i don’t think the always thrown around “more education” is an effective answer to everything
you can educate kids up and down about the harms of smoking- if smoking is advertised as cool in popular media, there are cigarettes with colorful and fruity flavors, and it’s easy for the kids to obtain then they will inevitably smoke cigarettes. everybody has known smoking causes cancer for a half century know.
if you don’t want kids smoking, then you must act with force to restrict something. whether it’s the restriction on subliminal advertising, the ban on colorful cigarettes, or prohibition of selling to underage smokers- you need some sort of ban.
i firmly believe in the near future we will view social media as we know it similar to how we see smoking. addictive little dopamine hits that will over time change the structure of your brain. we look back at the 50s and think it was crazy how they smoked cigarettes on airplanes, drank whiskey at work, and everyone bathed in lead and asbestos. they’re going to look back at our time period and see us similarly
so if I were to say “should kids be using social media?” I wholeheartedly believe they should not be using it until their brains are developed. much like I don’t think kids should be smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, or smoking weed
but the ultimate question is- what are the potential harms of a government ban and are those potential harms worth it?
that’s where I am conflicted. a minor not being able to buy cigarettes is something that I don’t really think hurts society very much.
but a ban on a minor accessing certain online spaces… how do you accomplish that? well, you will need to track people’s identities online somehow. this is the part where I think maybe the harms of kids using social media is not worth giving the government power to monitor and regulate social media websites.
Ah fuck. Canada is likely to copycat this, we love copying Australia’s homework. NDP and Cons BOTH already favor this idea except it’s also all 18+ websites. Gov ID to wack off. Puritans are on every wing and I wish we could shake them off.
Wait what? The NDP supports this?!??
Unfortunately. NDP have lost the plot in multiple ways under Singh.
On the upside, people who sometimes wonder if the person arguing with them is a high school sophomore won’t have to wonder anymore.
Like that ever worked for porn.
As of now, there hasn’t been a formal ban in Australia on social media for individuals under 16 years old, but there have been growing discussions about stricter regulations on social media usage, particularly for minors. Concerns around online safety, mental health, and privacy for young users have led to calls for platforms to enforce stricter age restrictions and introduce more safeguards for children and teenagers.
What I find intriguing is the potential for fediverse/decentralized service uptake amongst Australians, should the corporate providers decide it’s too much bother implementing an identity solution for 26m people and simply rangebans them.
In an alternate universe, parents are devoting 10 per cent of their doomscrolling time to studying their router manuals and determining access windows for social media on their LAN. But why obtain a gram of education to address a serious parenting issue when a ton of democracy-threatening legislation driven by politics will achieve a quarter of the same thing?
I’d assume the law would include federated social media. And while that wouldn’t prevent underage Australians to sign up with instances hosted elsewhere, it will impose restrictions on local ones, thus hurting the federation effort.
Take this social media law, plus the software backdoor nonsense from a few years ago, and I can’t help but see a clear message emerging from legislators to Australian developers who’d seek to build great digital spaces and tools: Do not domicile anything in this country. Do not host anything on servers in this country. Expect hostility from authorities toward the anonymity, security, and privacy of the people using your code.
I hope you’re wrong, and they’re going to arbitarily apply the law to King Doge and Zuck, with everyone else getting ignored.
ah yea that’ll work
.