How are they going to enforce it, ask everyone their id on every social media platform? Politics these days are just creating "problems" to solve them instead of solving actual problems.
Better to shrug everything like this off, better for your health.
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ask everyone their id on every social media platform
May sound ridiculous but it isn't far from reality. UK and I believe some European countries do this already. Some US states also do this for porn websites, AFAIK.
Youtube changed how their age restricted videos check works a few weeks ago, so that unofficial front-ends or scripts no longer work. In countries where age verification is law, it is not possible to watch these videos, or even see them in a search, without having an authorised 18+ account. Depending on country, the only way to authenticate is to use real ID.
Personally, I really don't like it. I don't want to make it easier for Google or anyone else to link my real identity to what I do all over the internet.
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Yes, it would not at all be easy to police. The definition of "social media" is vague enough. And I can see a service choosing to not officially operate within Australia, so the only thing the officials could do is completely ban access to their website, which most democratic countries would be unwilling to do.
There's no way this law is going to pass anyway, the services you mention would fight it tooth and nail. TikTok would not be okay with losing the mad profits that come from children on their service.
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Yup, that's the problem I see with that "ban-under-some-age" thing. I rather like the core idea, mostly out of privacy concerns (considering how kids misuse social media typically to disclose too much information about themselves or their... acquaintances), but I'm fairly sure that in practice it would lead to actually worse privacy, probably with something like mandatory ID verification (because how else can you enforce that anyway).
"Yes, we know it can be seen as a little bit invasive, but it's to protect the children, so, papers please!" I can see this one coming from a hundred miles away. As you point out, that's what Google already does for YouTube. All excuses are good to harvest more data.
Ah, if only parents would... I don't know, parent or something 👀
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I am 52YO. I was born in an essentially socal media free world, only had to get used to it later in life. Hell, I only was introduced to the internet in the first part of the 90's, when I was already over 20YO. I know who I am, what I want, what my principles are, and how I want my day to be. Not saying anything I say or do is more correct than anyone elses convictions, just saying I know who I am by now.
If I spend just a few hours of watching tiktok, then I'm upset, angry at women, unreasonably pissed off at various things, and love a strange thing more than I've loved anything in my entire life - while none of the mentioned entities have done anything wrong or right towards me, nothing has changed in my life, I have no real reason to be so miffed or excited with things.
However, as a social media relative noob, it is clear to me what is happening, I can feel it twist my emotions, and a day or so later - the whole thing means nothing to me again, and I am back at my "old" self.
Now imagine growing up with this as the centerpiece of your life. You have no previous convictions, no previous moral compass, no own principles, you are just laid bare to the raw attack of input from these hidden others with many agendas - might it be clicks or interactions, or more sinister ones. How should any young, innocent person form a coherent, responsible self in their formative years with such input "helping" shape them?
I'm sorry, I wholeheartedly agree with such "bans". It should not even be a ban, it should really be parental control from beginning, but we see that lacking severely when it comes to online activities. Most parents don't restrict, check, or even seem to care what their youngsters consume online, or how they interact with it, or the effect on them afterwards.
And yes, I know there is also some good coming from certain social media, but without control measures the bad overwhelmingly outpaces the good imho, and I think we should push for similar restrictions worldwide.
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I grew up without any social media either but then again you fail to grasp that school was our social media. All the things that are happening on social media were just regular crap back in school. Or at least it was in my schools. Dudes busting into the girls changing room during gym, girls flashing or dancing provocatively. People trying to get other people to act or dress certain ways or listen to certain music. All the "factions" like jocks and nerds and whatnot. I don't know what school is like these days but I guess they are all on their phones doing that stuff and mostly ignoring each other even though they are communicating online. Honestly I don't see how any kind of ban would help in any way. All of those "sheltered" kids in convents and cults are way worse off that anyone on social media. And most people who baby their children end up with grown up babies that can't handle the real world when the time comes. I do not know what the answer is but this really doesn't look like it.
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Sorry, you can't compare school socialising (without constant internet) with Internet Social Media algorithms, this is really far fetched.
Take Tik Tok for example, from the principle it's really addicting dopamin-wise (short videos/stimuli/cues) and heavily affects your reward system of your brain (addicting + shortens your attention span, your ability to concentrate and to relax without stimuli) + the algorithm on the technical side isn't bad at all / much work put into, but you don't know the consequences of it,
like what is shown to you and Tik Tok is heavily unmoderated and used by right-wing extremists, incels, fanatic islamist, alt-right, China, Russia etc. - all those you don't wanna be influenced by, but you probably will. And this risk is high at a young age, like RCSWE said, you are just building your moral compass, your character and many other brain/character-shaping stuff.
So where do you have those scary good algorithms, dopamin-reward-addiction stuff and so many unmoderated stuff with heavy influencing from bad actors in old school socialising, hm? The most unmoderated stuff would be a kid bring in a porn magazine, lol.
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i kinda agree with you, basically because of my parents with my little sister (mostly my dad) he always gives his phone to her already when she was like 3-4, broke multiple phones always gets angry and sad and throws a tantrum when she has to stop using the phone, she is 11 now, doesnt go to school and only thing she does is using dads phone without supervision stays awake till 4am on the phone
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What a wonderful it was without the social media crap, noone constantly glued on their telephone and you actually had human interactions, and when you say you aren't constantly glued to your phone, people even react like that's weird.
And yes they give small children even phones, which leads to all sorts of physical ailments such as their back/neck getting curved or eye problems (needing glasses) because they stare at their screens too much.
Even with cartoons for baby's/toddlers they engineered it so that they tested baby's on what color a bus should be, how many seconds a frame should last, i can't remember the name but 2 guys earned billions from that model, kids are just being used there as well, from the moment they get born.
Smartphones (with social media) have been a disease, a curse to society, and AI will finish the job where noone can distinguish reality from fake anymore.
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I think this is one of those things which are better in concept than in practice. There can be a lot of negative mental health impact from social media, especially on teenagers. This and protection from predators are strong reasons to keep kids off of social media sites. But I’m not sure how this could be reasonably or practically enforced in a meaningful way.
I have seen commercials lately about certain privacy settings being turned on by default for users under a certain age, which are restrictions on who they can contact/ interact with (eg, just their friends). There’s similar issues with enforcement and verification here too, but that feels to me like a step in a better direction than an outright ban.
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Imho it's a good idea for 2 reasons
1 - we all know social media has some undesirable effects on people, and young people are especially vulnerable, so simply removing them from the equation should help. My personally experienced example is realising how addicting online attention can be - I lowered my social media use back in high school thanks to realising that, but plenty of people will get addicted instead.
2 - the presence of kids among adults has long been affecting the adult spaces in how we should act, what topics we should or shouldn't broach and what is the life experience of the other anonymous person speaking.
So yeah, it basically helps nearly everyone who stays and nearly everyone who leaves.
Is what I think.
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These are very good points. I just think it could honestly be handled better than "let's ban them from using it". That just seems extreme. I mean outside of like perse matchmaking in Halo I don't really mingle with kids and honestly I'm scared shitless of even that exposure. There is a LOT of witch hunting going on and a LOT of thought crimes or "conspiracy to commit". I'm more worried about myself and other people getting wrongfully canned than children.
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it could honestly be handled better
I mean, that's true for literally every policy in theory vs in practice in the world :D
But sure, I didn't write out a comprehensive opinion, just some general thoughts. However - even if it seems extreme, is it always a bad thing? For example I wouldn't want an exception to banning use of fire near my gas station. But if you want some moderation, I think you could just prevent new registration, and leave ones who are registered there already. After all, they joined under old terms of service which usually allow joining social media when you are 13 and above afaik. Unless you meant going soft on something else, like making a separate platform for <16 crowd.
If I understood you correctly though, the witch hunting is another problem of extremity. I sure wouldn't want to get some heinous accusations for treating another user like a person just because they are a kid. But at least a ban all across the board makes the average person safe from such accusations if they don't go out of their way to mingle with kids, so there's that.
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Here is a bit more context from BBC.
At this point, it is just a proposal to go to parliament. The plan isn't to punish minors or their parents, but to have (I quote here) "social media platforms to show they are taking reasonable steps to prevent access".
So... not sure I have a hard opinion on this at this point. On one hand, I do think social media has too much power on its users nowadays, and should be regulated to some extent (which extent? very debatable); on the other hand, this one screams "I'm a politician, look how I will protect the children". Let us hope the parliament there is able to actually come up with something that is reasonable, enforceable and efficient.
(Oh, wait... parliament... politicians... hm... good chance the whole thing will derail, huh?)
Cheers!
Edit: hey, I did not know that the Australian Prime Minister was Albanese! ;D
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(Oh, wait... parliament... politicians... hm... good chance the whole thing will derail, huh?)
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There’s always a new evil industry. Today it’s social media. In the 90s it was video games, in the 80s direct to video, in the 70/ dungeons and dragons, in the 60s rock n roll, before that comics, once upon a time radio, before that movies, at one point was music, and even books were deemed a social evil at one point.
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A good decission.
There are a lot of negative mental health impact from (a)social media, especially on teenagers.
The negative sides from (a)social medias are clearly much bigger as the positive sides, so a better approach would be to close all (a)social media stuff because they create people with more mental health problems, unhappier, more (online) addicted, often dumber and more hate filled in the end.
And the few owners of such (a)social medias get richer and richer and they, plus their companies, act with each year more like a$$holes (Elon Musk is a perfect example).
(A)social media is sooooooo much wasted lifetime, unimportant, unneeded, for the real life. Absolute sad.
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It really is an addiction but all the negative stuff is going to happen whether kids or anyone for that matter has access. I mean it's just a platform and anything happening there was happening before it was there. I mean it doesn't effect me I don't use any of it but it seems silly.
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I get why they want to ban kids from social media and to some extent I agree, but I'm also well aware that there's no easy way to implement this without obliterating any of the little anonymity still left online. But yeah sometimes I wish there was two separate versions of the internet, one for minors and another one for adults, that way we wouldn't have to worry about kids even being present i the wider net.
But I guess the best option would be for parents to drill into their children's mind to never interact with anybody online unless they know them from real life, and even then to be cautious. Kinda like how back in the day we were taught as kids to never engage in conversation with strangers and to not trust anyone.
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It's a very difficult thing to be sure. There are GOOD reasons behind it and yet all of this stuff was going on before the internet and it's all going to happen if kids can't even get online. It's just the world. Those actual bad people out there will find a way. Just like crackheads find a way to get that $20 they need for the next hit.
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It's a sensible idea as almost any parent can confirm.
In practice though, good luck with that. I can't imagine how it would be enforced.
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I approve the idea that kids should experience life without the burden of social media, so that they can establish healthy and robust ways to communicate, to build trust and relations.
They should be allowed to start their lives without hateful division, so that they later have a chance to reasonably assess what they experience online.
I have no idea how they want to reassure that social media platforms keep kids out but hefty fines are usually a good motivator.
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Just wondering what people think about this. I do understand it's intent is to protect children since clearly most people online are sexual predators. Sarcasm aside this kind of legislation scares me but maybe I am just being silly.
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