this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
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Landmark legislation sees the Australian government committed to the novel step of child protection by banning social media for under sixteens.

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 9 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Oh those poor kids.

I remember when we banned porn for the under 18s and now nobody under 18 can access porn.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 2 points 52 minutes ago

This is my favorite argument against government regulation.

Anything not foolproof definitely isn't worth doing at all.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 2 points 21 minutes ago

It doesnt need to be 100% effective.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 76 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (6 children)

It's still not entirely clear how the Australian government thinks they're actually going to enforce this.

Plenty of web services already require you to state your age to use them and I believe a large majority of users just coincidentally happen to be born on January 1st, 1900 as a result.

If they're expecting these tech companies to be gathering and storing peoples' government ID's, or something, somebody needs to carefully explain to them using small words why this is a monumentally stupid idea. Does something need to be done about social media addiction and the rampant sketchy behavior of the tech giants? Yes, probably. Is a blanket ban ever the actual solution to anything? No, very rarely.

It's just apparently all anyone can come up with when they've got government-brain.

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

What will be interesting for sure is the difference of this approach vs. the porn approach in the southern US. In this case in Australia? Social media companies will tip toe any line they can because there is so much money to be made and they want every dollar.

PornHub? They just blocked access in 17 states instead of even trying to worry about age verification. They're still getting their users, but now they're coming over VPN.

https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/pornhub-florida-vpn-google-searches-skyrocket/

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

And, Pornhub can probably play the waiting game in those states as well. Enough people in those places will probably get pissed off enough eventually to pressure their legislators into walking those laws back. It might just take a year or two. I imagine everyone involved already knows, but the idiots who wrote the laws need to wait for the headlines to cool off a bit before they can backpedal, in order to save face.

I imagine Facebook or someone of similar size could do the same in Aus. All they have to do is refuse to serve anything to Aussie IP addresses except a message that says, "Sorry, we can't serve your country anymore because of a law passed by [legislator.] Remember, this is all his fault."

Politicians infamously do not give a flying fuck about the opinions of minors, but if they piss everyone else off too the people responsible will either be out on their ears next election or buried under an avalanche of nasty letters from their 40-and-up constituency.

[–] Lodespawn@aussie.zone 10 points 5 hours ago

The commissioner is supposed to come up with guidelines for what is a reasonable check, so we find out when they come up with it I guess 🤷

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 7 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

it’s still not entirely clear how the Australian government thinks they’re actually going to enforce this.

"Awww shucks everyone, looks like we don't get to have internet privacy after all. Don't worry, it's FOR THE CHILDREN."

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 hours ago

Another way to think about this: Why should you have to give random companies your ID because Australian teens need to prove their age?

[–] huginn@feddit.it 17 points 7 hours ago (8 children)

They've set it up so it's a legal mess. The platforms aren't given any mechanism to actually perform verifications (no double blind id system, for example) but are legally on the hook for each and every under-16 on the platforms. A quote in the article suggests it should be the app stores verifying which is even more fucking stupid.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Well, I know how that would go if I were a globe-spanning social media giant. Given that the entirety of the Australian market is roughly the size of New York state (~26 vs ~20 million people), I would say, "Nah mate, we just won't do business in Oz anymore. Bye."

Vanishingly few business make a "New York only" version of their product because it's simply not worth it. Australia already suffers under this problem for a great deal of physical products. Ask any computer nerd about that, when trying to source parts and often video game titles as well. Shipping things to the Antipodes and/or dealing with Antipodean regulations is expensive, for an objectively low number of potential sales.

It would not surprise me to learn if it follows that Australia generates roughly 1.7% of the revenue for Facebook or whoever as, say, India. So in other words, bupkis.

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[–] Affidavit@lemm.ee 1 points 4 hours ago

Magic. That is the only way they can enforce this drivel.

[–] FergleFFergleson@infosec.pub 15 points 6 hours ago

Based on what I've seen over the last few years, it's the over-16s that should probably be banned from social media.

[–] UraniumBlazer@lemm.ee 16 points 7 hours ago

Problem: Higher childhood depression rates linked to social media usage, social media caused disruption in education (like usage in schools), privacy violation of minors, etc.

An enforceable, common sense solution: Very strict privacy protection laws, that would end up protecting everybody, including minors. Better, kid friendly urban infrastructure like dedicated bike paths protected from car traffic, better pedestrian areas, parks and so on. Kids will get outside their house if there is a kid friendly outside. A greener, more human friendly outside where you can socialize with other humans would always be preferred over doom scrolling online. For the disruption in education issue, it is very education system dependent.

What solution these people came up with: Make it illegal for individuals under the age of 16 to create social media accounts. How do they enforce this? No idea. Does this solve any of the above problems? No. Is this performative? Yes.

Speaking from personal experience, social media was one of the most liberating tools for me as a kid. I lived in a shitty, conservative country and was gay. Social media told me that I wasn't disgusting. I was always more of a lurker than a poster, so I thankfully didn't really experience being contacted by groomers and so on. However, many of my friends who posted their images and stuff almost always got pedos in their DMs, so that's a very real issue.

I could ask my silly little questions related to astrophysics on Reddit and get really good answers. Noone around me irl was ever interested/able to talk about stuff like this. I could explore different political ideologies, get into related servers on Discord and learn more about this. None of this was possible without social media.

Banning social media outright is such a boomer move lol. Doing so isn't going to solve any real problems associated with childhood social media usage. It's just going to give the jackass parents complaining about this a false sense of security, when the kids still end up suffering.

[–] Spitzspot@lemmings.world 48 points 8 hours ago (5 children)
[–] Robin@lemmy.world 32 points 8 hours ago (14 children)

In case you forgot, Lemmy is social media

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 hours ago

Old people can use Tor

[–] Lupus@feddit.org 36 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

Honestly - fine with me, tear it all down.

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[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 10 points 8 hours ago

antisocial media

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 7 points 7 hours ago

Let's ban centralized for profit social media.

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[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 14 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I’d prefer 17+. I think it would be fun to have only 1 year on social media.

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 1 points 49 minutes ago

Right as they reach peak awkward jagoff.

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[–] CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work 15 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

What happens if an Australian kid starts running their own Pixelfed or Lemmy site?

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 12 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

My instance is in Australia, and the new laws affect social media like Lemmy. The hard part is that there apparently isn't much guidance on how to follow the law. Do you have to use ID? Is a location-specific popup making you state that you're 16+ enough? Nobody knows.

[–] CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work 6 points 5 hours ago

If you are the sole user on your own ActivityPub site running on your own server, can it even be called a social media site?

I think a mastodon instance started asking aussies to send a pic of them with a bottle of vodka or a pack of smokes.

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee 13 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

We are yet to see. My guess is they charge the kid for providing social media to an underaged user (themselves). Will be very interesting to watch ngl. Also idk how they gonna implement it cos i sure as shit aint handing over my id to the social media companies.

[–] CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work 5 points 5 hours ago

I'm not sure that a self hosted ActivityPub site with a single user could reasonably be called a social media site. I wonder how the law defines a social media site.

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 hours ago

The Australian government is to cowardly to regulate social media to be healthy for all ages.

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