Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
reuters.com
reuters.com
My concerns about this are that it will lead to
(a) normalising people uploading identification documents and hence lead to people becoming victims of scams. This won't be just kids - scammers will be challenging all kinds of people including vulnerable elderly people saying "this is why we need your id". People are going to lose their entire life savings because of this law.
(b) a small fraction of kids branching off into fringe networks that are off the radar and will take them to very dark places very quickly.
Because it's politically unattractive, I don't think enough attention has been given to the harms that will flow from these laws.
The risks are not worth the rewards of half-heatedly trying to stop kids communicating with other kids. They're still going to bully each other and what have you. They're still going to develop unrealistic expectations. They're probably even still going to use social media in practice.
So, when the government issues this ban, the kids would listen to their parents a lot more easily.
I don't think this is much of an issue at all. The path of least resistance, by an overwhelmingly wide margin, is just using a proxy, TOR, or whatever else to bypass the filtering. Sites will be doing the bare minimum for legal compliance, and so it won't be particularly difficult.
Beyond that I'd also add that for those of us that were children during the early days of the internet, "we" were always one click away from just about anything you could imagine in newsgroups, IRC, and so on. It never really seems to have had much of any negative effect, let alone when contrasted against the overwhelmingly negative effect of social media.
I don't really know why that is, and I half suspect nobody really does. You can come up with lots of clever hypotheses that are all probably at least partially true, but on a fundamental level it's quite surprising how destructive 'everybody' communicating online turned out to be. And that obviously doesn't end just because somebody turns 18.
But I also think some of the consequences you fear (widespread scams, a mass shift to “dark” networks, extreme social isolation) are not guaranteed. They will depend heavily on how the law is implemented, how platforms handle age verification, and what healthy social alternatives (offline or moderated) are offered. I do believe it’s possible to design a safe system.
Personally, having seen many dire predictions fail to materialize in the past, I don’t view this as either a “clear net benefit” or an “inevitable disaster,” but rather as a social experiment with real potential for success as well as serious unintended consequences.
I support the Australian law and would like to see something similar in my own country. We can’t simply assume an invisible hand will resolve this issue for the better. Still, it’s worth watching closely and following the empirical data over the coming months.
Arguably parental control should have been enough to avoid all of this but the regulation still helps parents. It’s way more difficult to ask kids not to have social media when all of their friends have it.
I would have preferred stricter social media platform regulation for everyone forcing tech companies to take responsibility for what happens on their platforms. It’s not that they are dangerously only for kids
Edit: > or use an Australian Government accredited digital ID service to prove their age
Here you go. If you’re concerned about your personal data, only use platforms that integrate and use this.
1. Kids are already moving to platforms that are not included in the ban, groups of friends will choose their own apps to make their group home, including Russian and Chinese apps ( already happening now)
2. Some kids have found ways around the included platforms...not surprising
3. One of the reasons they are spruiking is to stop Cyberbullying. Its ironic then that a big problem in schools across the country is physical bullying in the school grounds, with the educational authorities doing nothing about it. I know this one to be fact and have multiple instances that I personally know of where it happens and no action is taken. Our Government doesnt want to know about this at all
4. The platforms that have been banned are mostly "Big Tech" something that our Government hates with a passion, while many others go untouched. Discord is not included nor Telegram (how are these not social media, they literally allow people to socialise). I feel this is more of a weakening jab at Big Tech by our government to "stick it to them"
5. Day 3 and its pretty ineffective so far. There are many under 16's still have accounts on the blocked socials, and within the Family circle the only one that has been banned is actually 17, having her Instagram blocked ??? so not an awesome start at all.
Platforms may offer it as an option but must also offer a reasonable alternative, so no one who is 16 or older is prevented from having a social media account because they choose not to provide government ID. This includes situations where other age check methods return a result the user does not accept."
The antisocial media may be irrelevant, but I still fail to see why a government should be able to proxy-control the flow of information. So I am totally against this. I am also against antisocial media, but I don't see why a government actor should filter and censor information here.
That said, I fully support laws that ban phones at school, I chose my kid's school because they do not allow any electronic devices on campus outside the computer lab where kids can go to to do research. Every day when I bring my kid to the school bus, I see that children say hello to each other and start chatting. There's another very well ranked school that picks up kids in front of my apartment and they allow phones. The kids all stare fixedly on their phones as soon as they sit on the bus. Having a country wide ban of mobile devices in all schools would I think serve most of the same purpose as the social media ban while having a lot less externalities.
Those who do that, are not interested in this ban working, they are the individualists assaulting the community.
> a) normalising people uploading identification documents...
we have technical measures for which there is no need for the end user to upload anything. With oath you can basically have a simple age check; nothing more.
> (b) a small fraction of kids branching off into fringe networks that are off the radar and will take them to very dark places very quickly.
You can always minimize the fraction, but you can never make it go away.
> Because it's politically unattractive, I don't think enough attention has been given to the harms that will flow from these laws.
This was a politically bold move and there will be no harms that will come out of it; especially when compared to the status quo.
Those who feign concern about this usually have vested interests into stopping this bill; their "interest" is just another attempt in stopping it albeit with a more "nuanced" approach.
Consistency at school means more and more parents and families are practicing their internet exposure the same way as well.
How this is being done might not be the greatest, and it might change how social media is used, or invite the next thing after social media. Most platforms have dreamt of being a users core identity service as well and that might be it.
The multiple independent studies that show the effect on children developing brains from scrolling and screens alone, let alone the content (be it social media etc) is something worth offering an approach to as well, parents can't be expected to be DIY and self-educate against the types of software that are so optimized to achieve their independent objective of the software - keep us using them.
I've seen this argument a lot, and I don't think it really matches reality - I very much expect that the problem users of social media who are teens will tend to be the ones that will want to get around the ban (and will easily be able to).
Kids who just have an account because they are "pressured" to probably aren't actually really using it much or problematically?
And the other problem is that everyone knows it's a silly law so I don't think there will be any less pressure to have accounts because enough kids will be evading it. The ban will only motivate many kids (if you know much about how teenagers think)
The reasonable approach to solve this problem is verification protocol that mandates integration with the apps chosen by users. You have your wallet with digital ID and you use only it on any website, sharing the bare minimum of details. No uploads of anything anywhere. Independent wallet providers ensure privacy and prevent state overreach.
> (b) a small fraction of kids branching off into fringe networks that are off the radar and will take them to very dark places very quickly.
Unfortunately dark places existed in mainstream social media too. It’s something that should receive sufficient attention from law enforcement, nothing has changed here.
This law in Australia explicitly prohibits companies from using ID document verification for their age gating specifically because of concerns like this
I personally think, Facebook and Twitter need to be taken down because Zuckerberg and Musk are using the ppatform to interfere with politics.
We've long lost this war.
I'm in Italy, staying at my 3rd Airbnb. I was surprised when the first asked me, casually, to drop a photograph of my passport in the chat. I checked with Claude: yep, that's the law.
(I'll remind you that Italy is in the EU.)
On checking into this place last week, the guy just took a photo of our passports on his phone. At this point I'm too weak to argue. And what's the point? That is no longer private data and if I pretend that it is, I'm the fool.
This is dependent on implementation.
From what I have heard (from ConnectID), some sites are using services like ConnectID as a way to have your bank verify you are of age without releasing any ID or specific details.
But I don't think it's all of them, and I agree it's a risk.
This already happens, and I don't see how a law like this would significantly change the volume of edgelords and incels funneling into imageboards
It's also important uploading to where. To Facebook. And the bulk of advertisements Facebook runs are literal (with literal meaning of the word literal) scams. And they are powerless[1] to stop it.
[1] not incentivised
Soo... we already have a problem with some youths running into extremist content on Facebook, TikTok, Telegram ... no "fringe" network needed.
But most importantly, there's no expectation of kid to be on social media anymore, which is much more important than whether they are actually there or not.
A good law would just have completely banned these platforms from the country. (Even the Canadian Kik, because freeware, therefore closed source, therefore a platform.
EDIT : Looks like it's instead the Australian Kick, The Register had it wrong ? Same deal. (Especially with its owners having a gambling background.))
I wish the EU would be bold enough to do this, especially with Trump's bullying, but I have already been disappointed in the past, despite the situation clearly calling for strong actions like these...
I ask if those harms are worse than what social media has done to a generation of young people?
I fully support this ban and even restricting online time marginally, tbh, until they're adults. The internet is not the place it once was. The primary focus of the internet today is to entrap you and monetize you at any cost. Social media is absolutely vile and ruinous for the development of young people (it's not helping adults either, mind you).
The network effects doesn't matter that much for the Tiktok's of the world.
it’s a difficult balancing act, and I tend to agree as blocks are put in place, there are very likely two groups of outcomes: the kid gives up and finds other alternatives which can be healthy or unhealthy, the kid perseveres and bypasses the block
both provide good learnings and shape development, but blocking isn’t the answer, communication, understanding, and moderation is
the alternative that one could flood the kid with unfettered access till the kid becomes nauseated and desensitised doesn’t really work either because it can be too risky
the best solution may be something in between, make it a hinderance more than an inconvenience, like the parent post, and go for the greatest impact on network effects, the evil genie in me would make all these platforms super unreliable, spotty at best
but hey, it’s a developmental milestone for the average generation member to rebel against the member’s previous generations
Congratulations, Australia, you just drove a ton of kids into the arms of psychopaths like 764.
If you think Instagram and even 4chan are bad, that's nothing compared to the groups that sadly, are usually kids that were groomed themselves, who goad other kids into self-harm, violence and suicide through extortion, love bombing and literal cult shit.
Instagram might make you feel sad, but it doesn't threaten to kill your family if you don't strangle your pet cat and carve CVLT into your chest for a bunch of organized pedophiles online.
You might not know it or think too often about it, but most "real life" services we use require online identification, at least in Europe. Even on a simple rental agency portal in Germany it's recommended to "verify" your online identity to get more chances. Which means: just do it. Sure, you're free not to do it, as landlords are free not to care about your application at all.
Do you want to renew your car papers? E-ID is there (or whatever existing alternative).
Bank? The same.
In Germany the government[s] are pushing for Digitalization since years, which many laugh at as "ahah, what a joke, it's just filling an online module and sending a fax". It was true 5 years ago. Now I was super surprised because I recently had to do some bureaucratic BS and it's like any "normal" internet service that would require an identification (which is not just via a credit card or so). It's still not 100% accurate or "frictionless" but they're seriously getting there, which is super hard in a country where govt office A won't share data with govt office B. Compared to standing 1 hour in line to get just a stamp on a paper this is light years ahead.
The same will happen to these platforms, because that's the only solution we can think of, as of today. We all stand and watch Facebook making profits off our kids, making them depressed, etc. If you fine them, you're a communist, if you block them, you're a Nazi.
This is the most balanced alternative: you can still run your business here, people can still use social media, but let's not fuck up anymore our new generations, children, teenagers. They are the grownups of tomorrow.
Also, as some other comments mentioned elsewhere on HN: assume your data is already stolen or "publicly" available (maybe hidden somewhere).
1. State level actors and well funded not for profits are fighting an information war to influence our kids. And they are very good at it. Down to having troll farms to talk one on one. Every time something new happens in the world, my younger kids ask me about what they saw on Tik-Tok and their initial understanding is shaped by a well funded actor, and is often completely a false narrative. The solution is be open and talk about it with your kids.
2. Criminals are even better at social than state level actors. They are smooth. And they are on platforms you wouldn't expect - like games. And criminals aren't all about fraud. They sell drugs, they try to physically steal in real life from your kids,they'll try to get your kids to do something embarrasing and blackmail them with it, and even can be human traffickers. Again, the solution is be open and talk about it with your kids - and make sure they know it's ok to ask, and it's especially ok if you think I shouldn't share this with Dad or they person is saying not to show your parents.
3. Sexual predators are even better at social than the criminals. The difference is that the predators can't hide behind national borders so they are very careful. Same solution as $#2, but this one is really tough because when your kids come to you about it, they may have shared something with the predator that the predator is using to extort them into hooking up. Don't attack or blame your kid, focus on making sure the predator never gets to them
I do not believe for a minute that social media was good for my kids as they grew up, but I'm not sure that you can even begin to fix it the way AU is trying to - regulating speech, association using prohibition is dipping a colander in the river to filter the silt.
Like I can't think of any analogous place in physical space I'd let my kids hang out unsupervised, and the amount of time I intend to spend watching (supervising) them scrolling Insta or TikTok on anything like a regular basis is zero, and the likelihood of their choosing that as a thing they want to do if I'm otherwise available to do something fun with them is also probably somewhere around zero, which means... no social, since it ain't happening supervised.
Like I also wouldn't take them to a bad part of town and leave them there for hours. Why would I do the digital equivalent? Even if we talk about it afterward... why? Maybe occasionally as a "here's how to spot shit" lesson but not enough that they'd need an account or anything.
I don't have answers to give. Certainly not a fan of the government approach of "everyone must prove their age online now", which I believe is how the AU law is done. (casual listening to Security Now podcast about this for a long while now)
As someone who remembers the near lack of anti-war voices on network/cable news in the lead-up to the Iraq War (Donahue on MSNBC being the lone example), I'd like to get more details on your strongest example here.
Not any of the three points you bring up there.
Those superpredator bogeymans you make up here, have to actively seek you out and have a limited budget in comparison.
State actors are after everyone, not kids primarily. In the current state of thing I would have no qualms just shutting down X, Facebook, YouTube Shorts and TikTok live for starters for all.
I'm not sure I agree with this. Our societies globally have become hugely polarised and are manipulated daily because of social media. The damage done by social media is 100x greater than any good that came from it and the lives of adults have been affected by on it a societal level at least as much as the danger to kids.
It isn't possible, but if social media was suddenly completely unavailable I think the world would get a lot better in a very short period of time.
I bet that if I would meet you, I would unleash multiple similar cases to you personally for less than 1 hour. I am almost sure I can ask such kind of questions that would reveal your kids giving better (less brainwashed) result than you do.
The cutesy 'fun' language of 'troll farm' itself deflects accountability from what are coordinated psychological operations. It makes it sound like some rambunctious kids in basements having a little weekend fun.
I don't think the framers of this law are even worried about what kids are saying or who they associate with, as long as it isn't the criminals, sexual predators and state actors you mention.
Frankly if kids were visiting a physical hang-out where they could expect to be attacked by such people, any and every responsible guardian would order them to never go there.
I think phones and social media are harmful, but I get the sense there's a political motive behind this. We've been hearing politicians complain for years that they're losing the youth when it comes to long-standing foreign policy positions, etc... And suddenly they ban social media. Rahm Emanuel is campaigning for the same thing in America.
I don't believe they're overly concerned with "helping the kids" unfortunately
These platforms make more money than the ATO (Australian Tax Office) brings in a year. I think they have the moral obligation and means to create safer spaces- either inside or seperate from their adult platforms; they can reduce or prevent the types of harms when children are exposed to this type of content.
Whether this approach is the best one, or even worth it as it is written in law is definitely something you can argue, but the idea that there isn't a legitimate goal here (keeping children safe), just isn't true. I know not everyone that says this always has good intentions, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be preventing harm upon them.
If you look back at vox pops from when drink-driving laws were introduced, or when seatbelts became mandatory, or when ID requirements were tightened, the arguments for and against were eerily similar. We haven’t changed much in that regard, but now people wear seatbelts, children can’t buy cigarettes as easily as they used to, and drink-driving rates have fallen. I think these are noble goals.
I happen to think there are plenty of valid points regarding harmful content on steam and valid arguments about the harms of social media, but I do not believe Collective Shout is a benevolent actor in combatting those harms or steering the solutions, as their proposals nearly always deliver harmful effects on LGBTQ people - and this fits with Reist's previous work[2], eg under Sen. Harradine
I love being cynical, but I actually do buy these efforts as being purely "for the kids", kind of thing. Sure, there are knock-on effects, but I do buy the good faith-ness of phone bans in school and of these social media bans for kids.
The bill was put up for public comment for less than one business day before being rammed through Parliament. Australia is just sending out one of the horsemen of the infocalypse so that other countries have an excuse to follow suit. Like how our "Assistance And Access" Act was a test run of the UK's "snooper's charter".
This law will just lead to:
1. kids pretending to be adults so they sneak through these filters
2. platforms winding back their (meagre) child safety efforts since "children are banned anyway"
3. everyone being forced to prove their age via e.g. uploading ID (which will inevitably get leaked)
When Twitter added its location feature and it turned out that political accounts with millions of followers are run out of Pakistan or India you have to be crazy to still deny the scope of foreign influence that is exerted over social media.
You see it with the rise in anti-semitism or Russia's explicit promotion of influencers targeting Western youth. Why on earth would we let our kids be brainwashed by foreign intelligence agencies? There is no reason to assume this is some "hidden agenda", this is as big of a public issue as the mental health of teenagers. The United States used to have media rules that limited foreign ownership in companies with a broadcasting license, and now 14 year olds get their political lessons straight from Moscow, it's ridiculous.
News Corp wanted Meta et al to pay for the privilege of sharing links to News Corp articles (imo, ridiculous). Meta played along for a short period, but has now refused to engage, which has clearly upset News Corp (and their shrinking top line). It’s slowly changing, but it’s an unfortunate truth that News Corp still has incredible influence over Australian politicians, hence this had bipartisan support.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/12/meta-coul...
Most Australian schools banned phones a while ago. Attempts were made to measure the outcome. For example, South Australia saw a 72% drop in phone-related issues and 80.5% fall in social media problems in early 2025 compared to 2023 [0]. Other states reported similar results. These early figures are a little rubbery, but overall look very good. The social media ban is in part a response to that success.
The only major concern I have is de-anonymization of the web. It's worse than just de-anonymization. They've opened the gate for organisations like Facebook to demand government ID, like say a photo of a drivers licence. It contains a whole pile of info these data vultures would like to get their hands on, like your actual date of birth and residential address.
The sad bit is I doubt de-anonymization was goal, in fact I doubt they put much thought into that aspect of all. If it was the goal there far more effective ways of going about given the corporations permission to "collect whatever data you need to make it work". They could have implemented a zero knowledge proof of age service. But given the track record of their other computer projects, a realistic assessment is it had near zero chance of being implemented at all, let alone on time and on budget.
But if they had of insisted the providers implemented some sort of ZKP themselves, I would have found it hard to argue against given the past experience in schools.
[0] https://ministers.education.gov.au/clare/school-behaviour-im...
“Kids” are no longer old enough to use social media as they are “kids”. At the same time Australia states are updating laws believing “kids” are old enough to be treated as and tried as adults in a court of law.
I have literally never heard this.
The ban doesn't stop teens consuming social media content like tik tok. Your argument seems like quite a stretch.
Maybe Australia and the US are not involved in any social media propaganda campaigns but, at least in the case of the US, there is most certainly an abundance of precedence.
I don't know the sincere feelings of these types wrt the safety and well-being of children but I don't think the goal is "getting them back" wrt policy or whatever.
It’s ruining their lives as far as we can tell, and at the end of the day it’s just one country testing it out. It’ll be stastically significant, culturally close enough of a sample set for us to learn from.
I’m curious to see what the 1-2-3 year effects are. We need to let some real life experimentation happen, somewhere, instead of accepting what every conglomerate wants.
I get that “it’s easy to say” for me as someone completely unaffected by this law.
The study that was posted last week regarding at school banning of phones was enlightening. It improved scores within two years after a bit of resistance. Boom!
I want them to have a chance at being healthy and well-educated; we can’t stop teens from smoking altogether but we can sure limit their access by default.
I get the sense this is supposed to signify something; don't know the name, but looking at their profile, great career, Obama's chief of staff. What's the implication?
Current social media is terrible for children (and everyone, but we let adults drink and smoke) - this is known. They've been told many times they need to change or they'll get banned. They have not. This is known. It reminds me a little of when Australia banned Amazon because Amazon refused to charge GST (their version of VAT or sales tax).
The surveillance part is about adults having to upload their identity. This concern is entirely separate from the part where children are banned.
The only way to even attempt to enforce these things is with government mandated age verification. Few people want that as it represents a massive violation of privacy and effectively makes anonymity on the Internet impossible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6_News_Australia
Where kids were reporting on and educating each other about news and politics.
I mean... you can say that about most of things in life. Behind every social movement or policy, it's always a mix of good faith, cynical fearmongering, and opportunism by people or organizations who stand to gain something from it. Does it matter?
If you think that social media and smartphones are harmful to the youth, you (a) should probably be glad that someone is doing something decisive about it; and (b) you get a large-scale experiment that will hopefully prove or disprove that.
The purpose of a thing is what it does. Australia's policies do not protect children. They quite brazenly and blatantly leave children vulnerable and exploited. The question of what those actions accomplish has a simple answer - narrative control, censorship, and weaponization of public discourse against dissent.
The real solution to these problems are cultural. If you want the best outcomes for kids, then reinforce stable loving family environments, empower a culture of resilience and competence and capability, impose accountability for wrongdoing, negligence, and careless operation. If teachers and families are leaving kids vulnerable, the solution is better education and more information.
None of the policy Australia crafted does anything good. It's just another power grab using "won't you think of the children?!" as the excuse. Next year it will be terrorism or drugs or money laundering, and they'll keep constricting around civil liberties until they have absolute control.
They'll also put various racial and ethnic officials in prominent positions, so that you may not criticize anything lest you be deemed a racist or bigot (super effective social engineering.)
Really! My experience is quite the opposite. I see a lot of people explaining why it's a bad idea.
Edit: Dont get me wrong, there could be ulterior motives, but kids will have other ways to educate themselves on the happenings of the world beside social media
It's well known that foreign actors are all over social and that the west's foreign policy is (rightly so!) hostile to them.
We don't need laws for most things, and yet we've built ourselves a society where everything is a law.
It's not just about the kids either. People know those kids are going to grown up and impact them one day. An avalanche of broken people is not conducive to what I want on a purely selfish level as a non-parent.
This social media campaign though I believe actually came from a campaign by the newspaper The Daily Telegraph, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Labor are always trying to placate News Corp media, and News Corp media still blatantly tell their readers not to vote for Labor. It hasn't worked for decades, but Labor seem to believe that one of these days it will be different (it won't).
So politically it ticks some boxes for them, helps them suck up to the newspapers that will always hate them, helps diminish social media spaces where their opponents (actual progressives) congregate, and generally demonising "big tech" does just play well politically here.
The esafety report stated it was not allowed for sites to screen all users ages, and that all services had to provide a non id method of age verification.
"What are they really doing?" is a stupid conspiracy brained question: trying to win the next election obviously and whatever you may think, representing the electorate.
(I hate the policy personally)
Personally I suspect these elderly people in powerful political positions to be quite afraid of kids, it wouldn't be the first time in history, but it's likely the first time they're this old and as alienated from younger generations as they are.
Perhaps we're seeing patriarchal class societies mutate into primarily gerontocratical societies.
Apologies, you might be right, you might not, but unless you have some actual evidence you might as well be saying "The Moon landing was a Hoax"
The same algorithms that showed IDF war crimes compilations and turned a generation against Israel can be reshaped to push a different, right-wing narrative. The David Ellison’s of the world have too much power to allow regulation getting in the way of this.
Labor have been failing at giving people what they want recently, and are generally considered rather lacklustre and weak. But like the vaping ban (which was predicted to be and has now been confirmed to be a backward step), this is something parents are generally happy about.
No conspiracy needed.
What's the alternative? Going back to TV lying that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and that in Libya there's a genuine rebellion against Gaddafi?
I'd rather have multiple actors fighting to push their views on social to be honest.
I also don't like how quick is social media to jump on labelling anybody with a different opinion as a troll or a bot. This is especially common on Reddit where basically every single subreddit is heavily biased in some direction, heavily moderated to push some views and some views only.
Instead, what we should teach in school is how to treat news (any news really, even your friend telling you he's got a Playstation 7 but he can't show it to you): questioning it, verifying the sources, questioning the possible motives and biases of the source.
I'll be frank: I didn't mind Russia pushing their own news through channels like Russia Today globally. I always thought it was very important to get the views of the other side.
But my view also requires my (normal to me) attitude: question, question, question, verify.
Problem is: it's hard, it's exhausting. Claiming something false takes 5 seconds, debunking it can take hours. Most people already got their problems, and just don't do any of it.
Social medial is a drug, it has serious effects on the brain function and mental health of children and adolescents. On top of this social media allows predators to freely interact with children.
If people are going to do drugs, which they probably will, they should be able to balance the pro's and cons.
As the parent of a teenager affected by this ban (plus one who has aged past it): I wish that it had been in place 8-10 years ago, before either of my kids got smartphones. We tried to be reasonably conservative in their introduction to devices and social media, on the rationale that it would do them no harm to delay using those for a couple of years through their early brain development. The real difficulty turned out to be the network effect of their peers having access to social media, which increased the social pressure (and corresponding social exclusion) to be online. Not having access to Snapchat/Discord/etc. at that point meant that they were effectively out-group, which is a Big Deal for a teenager.
We ended up allowing them onto social media platforms earlier than we'd have liked but imposed other controls (time and space restrictions, an expectation of parental audits, etc.) These controls were imperfect, and the usual issues occurred. My assessment is that it was a net negative for the mental health of one child and neutral for the other.
I realise that HN is primarily a US forum and skews small-government and free-speech-absolutist. I'm not interested in getting in a debate with anyone about this - my view is that most social media is a net negative with a disproportionate harm to the mental health of non-fully-developed teenage brains. This represents a powerful collective-action failure that is unrealistic to expect individuals to manage, so it's up to government to step in. All boundaries are arbitrary, so the age of 16 (plus this set of apps) seems like a reasonable set of restrictions to me. I am unmoved by the various "slippery slope" arguments I've read here: all rules are mutable, and if we see a problem/overreach later - we'll deal with it in the same way, by consensus and change.
I strongly disagree with this legislation and have found it hard to 'steelman' the other side, which your comment/opinion does well. I found it very informative so just wanted to share my appreciation for you posting it here.
Feels like a huge component to me as a parent. What do I now need to know and do and react to, and how does my behavior affect the mental health of my kids.
> As the parent of a teenager affected by this ban (plus one who has aged past it): I wish that it had been in place 8-10 years ago, before either of my kids got introduced to Rock n' Roll. We tried to be reasonably conservative in their introduction to music and lyrics, on the rationale that it would do them no harm to delay using those for a couple of years through their early brain development. The real difficulty turned out to be the network effect of their peers having access to Rock n' Roll, which increased the social pressure (and corresponding social exclusion) to be dealing with vinyl. Not having access to The Stones, AC/DC, etc. at that point meant that they were effectively out-group, which is a Big Deal for a teenager.
> We ended up allowing them a radio earlier than we'd have liked but imposed other controls (time and space restrictions, an expectation of parental audits, etc.) These controls were imperfect, and the usual issues occurred. My assessment is that it was a net negative for the mental health of one child and neutral for the other.
I'm being a bit facetious here but my point is that everyone who is in support of this kind of Parenting-as-a-Service is not identifying any real issue the government should concern itself with. Just that kids are doing something new and sometimes scary and gosh it's just hard being a parent when they don't listen.
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/01/davos-2025-special-a...
The first part of that article is an absolutely scathing, on-point criticism of mainstream social media. I find myself agreeing with everything said, and then, suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the article pivots to "therefore we need completely 24/7 mass surveillance of everyone at all times and we need to eradicate freedom of speech". That article is like a perfect microcosm of this entire international shift in internet privacy.
People and their governments seem to agree that modern social media is a problem. The difference is why. The people think it's a problem because it harms people; governments think it's a problem because they don't control it.
I think that the root cause of this shift to mass surveillance is that people in democratic countries still have a 20th-century concept of what authoritarianism looks like. Mass surveillance is like a novel disease that democracies don't yet have any immunity to; that's why you see all these "it's just like buying alcohol" style false equivalences, because an alarming number of people genuinely don't understand the difference between normal surveillance and mass surveillance.
Could you elaborate further on how preventing a sizeable proportion of its citizens from communicating through these established spy-nets, causing them to disperse out to unpredictable alternatives they might not be able to control, increases mass surveillance?
It’s not Orwellian. If it were, then not allowing kids to vote or drink before they become adults would be Orwellian.
We are simply banning kids from a harmful activity until they are old enough to decide for themselves. The ban has to be at a social level decided by the democratic process, because there’s a coordination problem here: it’s not a harm that can be remedied at the level of the individual.
The real villains here are the social media companies that have profited from the misery and manipulation of children, to their ultimate harm.
I find it hard to believe anyone would argue in good faith against this ban. In tech circles there are a lot of vested interests that don’t want other governments to protect the children in their countries from harmful products. Shame on them.
This is a very simplified view. The topic has been disputed for years, and societies has tried to find alternative solutions. But turns out, there is no other well enough working solution at the moment, hence the nuclear option. And sometimes that is the only working option anyway.
Should be noted, this is not a first. Social Media has already been restricted to various degree for kids of certain ages in several countries. Australia is just raising the age from the usual 12, 13 up to 16.
> I find myself agreeing with everything said, and then, suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the article pivots to "therefore we need completely 24/7 mass surveillance of everyone at all times and we need to eradicate freedom of speech".
So it's a poor article, so what? These attempts are not new. There are regularly political attempts pushing towards stricter regulations and more surveillance. Some work, some not.
> That article is like a perfect microcosm of this entire international shift in internet privacy.
There is no shift. Those views have always been there, even before the internet. This is a normal part of societies, including democratic. There is a constant power-struggle between control and liberty in any society, and the balance is always shifting depending on how good or bad certain problems are at that moment.
But a certain thing which is missing here BTW is a complete ban of all open media, for everyone in all ages and groups. For Government, kids on social media are not a big problem, that will only bite them in the decades to come. But people now, today, who are getting radicalized against the standing order, those are a problem. And nobody demanding for a ban is good sign for a healthy enough democracy. Because think about in which countries this is not the case..
I remember when social media was sane 15+ years ago. The problem is the business model, not socializing. It's crazy to ban it when being a teen is the beginning of socializing!
Jonathan Haidt talks about how once social media usage became ubiquitous among teenagers around 2015 mental health problems began to skyrocket. And a big part of this was the algorithm serving up content designed to make people feel bad, but another part around feelings of being bullied turned out to largely be kids seeing their friends hanging out with each other without inviting them and this provoking feelings of alienation. That’s inevitable, I felt bad when I found out about parties or hang-outs I didn’t get invited to at that age as well. But I didn’t even know about 90% of them, and those I did I heard about through passing references rather than a stream of pictures and albums about how much fun everyone was having without me.
I think some level of a sense of isolation is inevitable under those circumstances, though I’m not sure that by itself would rise to the level of banning it outright. At least not before trying other interventions like addressing Meta’s “19 strikes before banning you for CSAM” rule. Kids are just the canaries in the coal mine here. Whatever these services are doing that is cooking developing brains is still turning up the heat on adult brains too, we can’t try to pretend we can be psychologically healthy engaging with something that we know is spiking depression and anxiety in our kids.
The culture of interacting just changed as more people got online and more tools became available to expand access to things. You used to just be able to have an unsecured comment section where anyone could come to your website and directly modify the page’s HTML and most of the time nothing would happen. You ought to have sanitized your inputs but there just wasn’t this background miasma that was going to flood your comment section full of spam, scans, and injecting malware into the page if you left an open text-entry box on the internet. Once it hit a certain scale and there was a certain amount of money in it then a lot of mess came with them.
Then we got the one-two punch of social media apps on phones, and everywhere we saw these get adopted, we saw depression and anxiety increase en masse.
My own theory is that if you have to pick one thing it's the phone, because screen time/attention skyrockets when you get one of those, and they can have you freaking out about whatever clickbait they're feeding you pretty much 24/7. When I grew up there was just a computer in the den and when I wasn't in the den, whatever I'd viewed on it was out of sight, mostly out of mind.
Before then I used to use lunarstorm. Was that the sane period of social media? Maybe, my memory is fuzzy: it's been a while.
The algorithms create the engagement, the engagement lures in the ads, not the other way around, at least that's what I think right now.
Complaining about ads is kinda like complaining about homeless people. You are just servicing your own annoyance without actually engaging in critical thought. It is selfish behavior.
Also, what's an 'ad' is an extreme spectrum nowadays with free stuff given out in exchange for a post, people trying to act like paid influencers to fake it until they make it, paid influencers, and listicle affiliate link slop.
But you can’t solve that issue with policy. It’s a cultural issue. People are not willing to pay for the content they consume (with money).
Not to mention you would collapse the US economy (I’m not sure if you’re US based, just speaking from my perspective), and likely others, if you applied a blanket ban on ad-supported media.
Alright Australian lawmakers, you heard the man, chop chop!
When much of government ( federal, state, local ) communication is done via social meda, would it be legal to ban anyone from accessing it?
Or are official government social media sites required to be accessible to everyone?
This muskian "I am above laws so I'll break up the USA/EU" is asinine and societies should come down on it like a ton of bricks.
Pretty well executed - I'm impressed. Given how seamlessly this occurred, it will undoubtedly be rolled out in Europe next year, as the EU has expressed an interest in doing so, but was waiting to see how the implementation went in Australia.
If you try searching them in Facebook, you get a message telling you your search has been stopped and you should seek help you sicko, searching for... "Age abuse material" maybe? I don't know why it freaks out on those three letters, but it does.
This was in the news a year ago, and they still haven't changed it. Go and try if you want.
So allow me to doubt that the implementation is going to be smooth. For you maybe. If you instead end up in some algorithmic Kafka nightmare, don't count on your social media friends to notice.
She says only one of her friends has been challenged by a platform so far, and that was by Snapchat. That friend got another 14 year old friend to pass the facial age detection check on her behalf.
All of my (adult) friends living in AU had to perform various forms of age checks on almost all platforms they used, which seems to be very far from invisible.
I'd much prefer anonymous, safe, reliable age checks (that can be done!) that don't require me to spray my personal data at the dozens of companies either in the weird jurisdictions or with dubious privacy commitments records (like Bluesky using Epic Games services, famously fined over half of billion dollars for violating children's privacy laws and deceptive practices). Yeah, that's doable. No, won't happen because it's a out the control.
I’m a 40 year old man and I’ve been impacted. A huge circle of people I know have been impacted. A number of companies now want to scan my license or my face, which will be fantastic when they keep it (despite saying they don’t) and then get breached in 6 months.
It seems like a handful of sites havent even switched over. Most are just estimating. Theres no clear indication that the execution has been anything but botched, unless convenience for older people was the only metric.
There's a long way still to go on this. It's one of those changes where positive effects are experienced early but many if not most of the negative effects will surface over weeks, months or years.
at some point, you just have to say that parents need to start parenting again. i'm a parent, and i can tell you it's not that bad.
How are you going to prevent kids and teens from joining everything that's bad for them online??? I think regulation is just band-aid.
the ideal solution would be to have parents say "No screens" until a certain age, unless it's supervised, or on a managed device that just lets them get their homework done.
* The ban only targets ten services.
* The ban applies only to actually logging into the service - everything can still be viewed when logged out. Users are still being tracked while logged out.
* Reddit (and possibly other services) are complying simply by using heuristics to detect under-16 users - they're not even employing any reliable verification measures.
I'm very interested to see how their socializing evolves in response to such a shock. Do the social behaviors of pre-internet times re-emerge? "Third spaces" reappear overnight? We shall see!
I hope that's what will happen. That this is only really a problem for FANG, for the tech industry and doesn't actually prevent social media.
Edit: in case someone decides to disagree with me, here is a non-exhaustive list of issues that social media has created: isolation from the real world, unrealistic expectations in terms of looks/status/success, dehumanization by turning people into likes-dislikes, dehumanizations by creating influencers whose sole purpose it to pump cheap crap to their "followers", a vessel for state actors to spread the current flavor of propaganda/racism supported by "the algorithm" that creates echo chambers rather than promoting diversity of opinions, dopamine producing machines that glue us to the screens.
There is nothing social in social media, in-fact, it should be called the "anti-social media".
> Users confirmed to be under 16 will have their accounts suspended under the new Australian minimum age law. While we disagree with the Government's assessment of Reddit as being within the scope of the law, we need to take steps to comply. This means anyone in Australia with a Reddit account confirmed to be under 16 will be blocked from accessing their account or creating a new one. Note that as an open platform, Reddit is still available to browse without an account.
“Confirmed to be under 16” sounds like they’re not trying very hard to identify them. But maybe I’m just spared any attempt at checking since my account is 12 years old.
I wonder if allowing browsing without an account is compliant with the letter or the spirit of the law—an account is not required for at least some forms of damage. But I’ve paid no attention to this law since I live in India now.
To date, proving you are old enough is almost always (over-)implemented by having to reveal your legal identity and the exact date you were born.
If the whole world goes down the route of AV / age-bans then I hope we at least get some kind of escrow service where you visit an official office, prove your age to a disinterested public official, and then pick a random proof-of-age token out of a big bucket. The bucket’s randomness is itself generated when it was filled up with tokens at the Department of Tokens, and maintained by a chain of custody.
You could do it on polling day: ballot boxes get sent out to polling stations filled with tokens and get sent back filled with ballot papers, with the whole process watched by election monitors. Now everyone has (a) voted (b) picked up a proof of age/citizenship token. It would improve turnout, though I believe that’s already mandatory in Australia.
Australian teens can still scroll TikTok, Instagram, and watch Twitch streams from logged out accounts. They just can't comment, like, or upload their own content.
One might argue that this removes the algorithmic feeds. But I would wager that social media companies will just use browser fingerprinting to continue to serve algorithmic content to logged out users, if they aren't doing this already.
My take. This ruling seems to impact the content creators (from Australia specifically) more than the content viewers. Which I'm not sure is the intent of the legislation.
In all seriousness though, I'm curious what counts as social media, can they not play MMORPGs anymore for example? Are niche forums included ? What about chat apps like Whatsapp? Phone texting? Email?
I'm also curious if say TikTok and YouTubed simply deactivated their social features? No comments, DMs, and so on for example? Would they be allowed again?
I have seen the way heavy social media use changes some peoples personalities. it's scary. these platforms don't just home communities: they're engines, with tendencies. including numerous ways in which these platforms are implicated in youth suicide.
I am absolutely convinced that children should be discouraged from these engines just as they should be discouraged from alcohol.
I totally recognise that if that means these platforms demand proof of ID, that changes their privacy profile and some people will choose to stop participating.
perhaps this can offer some stimulus for other ways of online community forming. Thanks everyone here: I've participated in a few online conversations about the topic this week, and this is the only interesting one :)
Text-only:
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echo url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/world/asia/australia-social-media-ban-under-16.html \
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links -dump 1.htm|sed -n '/Effect/,/region./p'
https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1S5G8h...
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When I was 9 we had a cheap TV for about 3 months and it broke. Family decided we didn't need one.
At 36 I got a TV for a couple years. My kids watched Blue's Clues, etc.
At 38, I again got a TV for a couple years. Then decided dumb late night shows were not helping the insomnia, so cancelled cable, but started streaming HBO.
Since then, I have enjoyed high quality streaming series on occasion. But no live TV, no TV "news", and strictly avoid anything with ads.
When I see a live TV on, with the strange voices and non-logic of ads, and the bizarre posturing they call "news", I get a little sick. Even "nature" and "history" shows have strange pacing and repetition. The transparent sucking sound of ads needing tamed attention-providers warps everything.
I think being sheltered from regular TV, TV ads, and TV news, has been tremendously positive for my mind and life.
Not being exposed to "social" media sites, which are often not actually social, and often unhealthy when they are, is a great win. Quality can sometimes survive in rare small social-conversation sites, not driven by ads or agenda.
Most people I know want to keep their kids off social media, but do not want them to be ostracised.
Given that law, it might now be possible to keep your kids off the networks.
In my experience, at least for younger teens, it’s a small subset of kids enabled by their parents that push everybody else into the mouth of the kraken.
Example from my life:
Kid A has an Instagram account curated by her mum, who is more than happy to set up all kinds of communities, etc., for the kids in the class to cite: “finally be able to better communicate and stay in touch”.
Sure, you can keep your kid out, but social isolation is not easy for teens. Given that law, you could get Insta-mom banned.
Passing laws that affect all of us because you are too lazy and ineffectual to raise your children properly is unacceptable.
> showing my ID [in person] was a simple, controlled transaction: one person looked at it for three seconds, handed it back, and forgot about it. The information never left that moment. But online, that same verification process transforms into something far more risky. A digital journey through countless servers, databases, and third-party services, each one a potential point of failure.
> What appears to be the same simple request "please verify your identity", becomes fundamentally different when mediated by technology. The question isn't whether these digital systems will be compromised, but when. And unlike that movie theater clerk who can't perfectly recall my birthdate minutes after seeing it, computers have perfect memory. They store, copy, backup, and transmit our most sensitive information through networks we don't control, to companies we've never heard of, under policies we'll never read.
The UK government wishes to police social media more heavily, and has been using internet porn and illegal immigration (two unrelated issues) to push through digital ID. The exact same mentality - controversy, panic, dubious solution...
In this case, we have a genuine issue and a dubious solution.
The answer: meet in person. Talk to people offline.
And then they're on platforms with zero protections because nobody knows they're a teen... end result is worse.
Extremes are bad on either end. unrestricted internet access, even to those who can't defend themselves against harmful content is an extreme, some balance is long due. Since most other western countries chose to risk their kids in the name of liberty, let's wait and see whose trade off works out for the best instead of speculating what will or won't happen.
I wish more countries would experiment like this, and even more countries would learn.
You can't argue for UBI or drug decriminalization because some country experimented and succeeded and then oppose this sort of stuff. In the US, states are supposed to experiment with laws like this, but they don't have enough power to regulate interstate communication or commerce.
Initially, it will only be required if you're logged in. Obviously that won't be effective, so the next logical step would be to require that everyone logs in to use a search engine.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-11/age-verification-sear...
As we go down this road platforms will need to be banned for everyone. For example VK wasn't on the list and they won't implement age checks. They and many other sites will need to be banned until you are left with a white list of acceptance sites. Add in age verification on those sites for everyone.
Kids will learn how to overcome the ban. VPNs will become the standard.
These communities already had active mods that would remove anyone underage that they found, so it doesn't really make sense in this case that Discord is now requiring them to prove their ages.
Meanwhile kids are finding ways around the ban. Kids are asking their older looking friends to pass facial scans for them.
As kids find alternative platforms, perhaps they will be vendor locked to them instead of the Meta empire.
Now it's very logical to spin that expensive infrastructure down, removing free communication channels which can dangerously synchronize people against the state, and leaving only channels of control: digital ID, CDBC and a white list of governmental "services", all else outlawed.
People of 2010s uploaded their personal data into the cloud because they thought that was cool, people of 2030s will do because their telescreens demand them so.
Everyone who thinks this will stop at "think about the children" is beyond all repair.
In football we call this an own goal
Imagine a whole generation of teens with attention spans longer than 15 seconds…they might actually realize their incredible potential!
This social media ban is not so much about banning kids from social media.
It's more about banning social media apps/companies from accessing kids.
The SM apps are entirely about exploitation of their audiences via algorithms to push advertising and political positions. That needs to be stopped.
This is a start.
It's a bit like the bans on under 18 (Australia) drinking without supervision. We know that the bans aren't "perfect", but they work for the majority of the time for the majority of the kids.
>the days leading to the ban, some teenagers said that they were prompted to verify their ages using a facial analysis feature, but that it gave inaccurate estimates. The law also states that companies cannot ask users to provide government-issued identification as the only way to prove their age because of privacy concerns.
I feel like there's definitely a problem here with social media and its effect on society, but our first approach should be to increase transparency and accountability, rather than to start banning things by force of law.
Unfortunately this legislation hasn't addressed any of my real concerns with social media (it's the algorithms and engagement farming) and it is creating new problems.
It is similar to the tax approach - it is not bad that we are paying taxes, what is bad that the Government implies how to count the taxes.
The counter point is that doesn't this basically mean everyone, including adults, now has to identify in order to use social media? Without a national electronic ID where personal data never leaves government's systems (they've already got it) and the social network just receives a yes/no bit when they ask "is this person old enough?" this would mean a huge amounts of identification data would be willingly and voluntarily "leaked" to foreign private services. Scan your passport and send it to China in order to use TikTok?
This mass identification process could either make also large groups of adult people leave social media sites or condition people to upload their ID data to whatever site happens to ask for it.
https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/63901/documents/746...
>regulations which prohibit the provision to UK children of a Relevant VPN Service (the “child VPN prohibition”).
Kids are very good at identifying hypocritical behaviour and scare tactics. It'll end up counterproductive like the D.A.R.E. program.
If the kids are forced out, the adults should be too.
Seems like local school districts could reintroduce such a platform (perhaps one already exists) for class discussions to continue outside of the classroom... but without the temptations of the outside world [which these u16 bans rightfully seek to limit]. Hyper-walled gardens, actual community-based social spaces, sans predation.
As always, I imagine with the unlimited timelessness of childhood multiple clever work-arounds will persist, regardless of any law. May the cat-and-mouse be merry.
It goes through numbers, potential ways it's gonna be implemented, and also which other platforms are affected.
For example:
> Dating websites are excluded along with gaming platforms, as are AI chatbots, which have recently made headlines for allegedly encouraging children to kill themselves and for having "sensual" conversations with minors.
It wasn't enough the online pedo or weirdos trying to get your kids through chats or games.
It wasn't enough the instagram meat grinder that leads to depression, social anxiety, etc.
Now we even have to worry about chatbots leading kids to suicide.
What a hell of a world are we building - no wonder people don't want to make kids anymore.
The "social" part is severely decaying.
The average Australian punter is getting absolutely screwed by our current government and all involved parties.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/clyd1dvrll1o
Sugar is pretty bad for teens as well but I don't think banning that will solve health issues anymore than this will help teens.
Personal decisions > a government trying to be mom
Governments always end up doing the most damage when their control is "for the good of their constituents."
This might seem like a good thing while they're parenting for you on things you agree with, however, there will likely come a time when they do something you don't and by then it will be too late.
but my concern is that will lead to a less educated population. there is positive, life changing learning that can happen on social media. kids finding their tribe by connecting with people like them in other parts of the country / world. kids discovering skills / crafts they become passionate about. heck, even learning how to communicate effectively with others. i think social media is a treasure when it is used correctly.
ofc, i agree with the concerns and ofc the right "solution" is one that enables the positives and minimizes (and ideally eliminates) the negatives. and having social media as a closed, proprietary, centralized product that can't be tweaked (e.g, choose your own custom algorithm, or filter out a "type" of content that you don't want to see, etc.) is the core problem here. a decentralized social media would allow even regulators to apply much more fine-grained controls so that they don't have to remove access entirely.
but sadly bec. we don't have a good way to apply fine grained controls to how we use social media, it seems blanket banning entirely for an entire group of people is the best approach. like, i get why it may be necessary (it seems like most / many australians are currently on board), but i really hope this inspires people to build better social platforms that give more control to users.
I’m not sure why Australian policymakers chose to take this step now, but regardless of the motive, it feels like a meaningful starting point. Social media’s engagement-driven echo chamber model has contributed to a deeply divided world, and governments stepping in can at least make parents’ jobs a little easier.
I will do everything in my power to keep my kids' connected to their social networks. I have a strongly opposing view: social media is one of the best inventions and there is no way or need to protect people from participating.
With all the negative effects they bring the society has to learn how to live with it instead of pretend fighting.
From a technical perspective, this is impossible to enforce cleanly. Anyone with even basic internet literacy can bypass it with a VPN + fresh account + throwaway email. And of course, the teens most determined to get around it will be the ones the policy is supposedly protecting. The bigger issue is the false sense of security. Parents and politicians get to feel like something has been “done,” while the actual online risks don’t disappear — they just move somewhere less visible. If the goal is genuinely improving teen mental health, digital literacy and real support systems work far better than regulations that will inevitably leak.
A lot of my family growing up lived in different cities. We kept in touch via social media. PSTN was expensive and impractical. Postal mail was obviously less practical.
Does this new ban move kids to using email to keep in touch with friends and family? Are they now completely isolated from the rest of the world?
Surely Discord harbours more bullying than Twitch (where image sharing isn’t even a feature).
Think for a moment instead of just accepting whatever the media is telling you to think.
How many social networks are there?
Are some of those decentralised?
Will kids move to unmoderated underground ones in response to this?
Will the government expand these laws now that it achieved a foothold?
Parenting and teaching your kids to think and understand how the world works is how you really solve the problems. Not building weak fences and encouraging government over-reach. Raising and guiding your kids is YOUR responsibility, not the governments.
All this came about because some absolute slog of a parent had their kid kill themselves and blamed social media. Where the hell was he while their kid struggled?!
Can't say I mourn it, quite the opposite.
So, good move by our Aussie friends.
Talking about the dangers of D&D or the Satanic Panic seemed idiotic to me and still do.
But when people explained why something was bad I would listen. Did their concerns seem legitimate?
I'm 50 and I've never smoked a cigarette. In the movies it looked cool. But I saw older people with horrible health issues and also the smoke smelled horrible and made their breath stink. Those people were not lying to me about the danger of tobacco.
So are people lying about the dangers of social media? But if you think it is bad for teenagers then how do you convince them that it is? I would rather have commercials with teenagers talking about how they were depressed or developed eating disorders or whatever from looking at social media. Then they stopped and now they are happier with more real life interactions.
I can tell you that I deleted my facebook account in 2016 (didn't use it much) and haven't been on instagram in 5 years. I don't miss it at all. All facebook ever did was annoy and anger me.
I'm heavily against any form of mandatory form of identification for using non-government online-services.
Is it even possible to do the former without doing the later?
Then Facebook convinced people social media was supposed to be about your "real" identity, which made us sitting ducks for scammers and propaganda. Now we have governments demanding we provide our identity papers before we are allowed to participate.
That said, some of the subcommunities I've seen created, particularly among young women, seem obviously unhealthy/toxic and regulation is probably needed there. I'm thinking of things like '#edtwt'.
But I also think we need to avoid ruining things for smart, responsible kids by focusing on the worst.
stop dilution our attention - shorts, infinite scrolls, predatory algorithms - this needs to be controlled really
and yeah of course scams and pedos etc - surely Big Tech can crack down on that also
again why a good behaving majority needs to suffer, because of minority crap + bad incentives of ads driven platforms?
Because they are deeply involved.
It is not about protecting. It never was.
I also don't like antisocial media.
Still, I dislike censorship more than that antisocial media.
Reading "Anxious Generation" is a must for all parents in this day and age.
Notably the central theme presented by these same "Australians" was that there should be no changes, limits or restrictions to the types of information collected by social media companies, or how they handle such personal information, rather that everything should be exactly as it was... how very convenient.
Some were even so incensed about their personal privacy that they wrote how much they disagree with having to share their SSN with online platforms.
As many of you would already know, mentioning a "SSN" is a give away that the "Australians" are not genuine people. These accounts are perpetuating the lie that Australians must provide a government identity to access these services. While an ID can be used, it's not mandatory and is actually one of the less convenient options, in comparison to 3rd party verification or a face photo.
Seems a bit of a disingenuous argument to complain about taking a photo of one's face for verification, but having no qualms about using the social media network to post photos of oneself for public viewing.
Just about all arguments against this are the same arguments that would stop governments limiting booze or tabaco
The rollout of this has been pretty rough all things considered, much of it because the mechanism for compliance is flawed. Anthony Albanese's latest instgram posts are full of comments from teens saying things like, "how am i still on instagram if you banned us". The primary reason for this is most providers are leveraging age-estimation techniques, because the law specifically states:
> 63DB Use of certain identification material and services
> (1) A provider of an age-restricted social media platform must not:
> (a) collect government-issued identification material
(1) Original bill: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bi...
(2) Bill that passed after rewrites: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bi...
Anyone arguing against this ban is delusional what social media does to undeveloped brains. There are plenty of studies to support this as well.
Social media is harmful to children. We are talking about 10 yo having access to non-stop stream of inappropriate content for their age. You can blame the parents but social media is now fact of life that cannot be so easily escaped.
Like buying alcohol, gambling, driving, voting and other similar things which are restricted under particular age, the discussion should be about at what age is safe for children to participate in the public discourse.
I really hope similar controls are implemented across EU.
Good for you Australia. I hope EU follows suit soon.
And so we move forward, like Gordon Freeman in unforeseen consequences.
Nobody said nothing as social media and the attention economy took over the world.
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” — Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park
the law of unintended consequences looms large.
Claire Ni concluded it best. They are just going to find new ways. Imagine a kid stopping using something because of the law or government ban. Those lawmakers are just delusional if they think they can pass a law and the kids will stop using social media.
Also, dont buy the this is the slippery slope to more authoritarianism etc. as an argument against it because if they're going to go down that path they would anyway whether they did this or not frankly
Anyway, it might not work 100% of the time, hell maybe even <10% but any additional friction to knock this kind of social media from being so ubiquitous is a small victory in my eyes
that kids watch
And parents have asked the gov to ban
But they won't because tax revenue
So don't try and tell me this government is all about the kids
....
But then also global measures?
> Teen account holders under 18 everywhere will get a version of Reddit with more protective safety features built in, including stricter chat settings, no ads personalization or sensitive ads, and no access to NSFW or mature content.
I've seen the data showing teen sanity nose diving concurrently with social media penetration. I'm also a borderline kook libertarian.
So I appreciate the arguments in both directions, and I think the only way to find out if it works is to try it out. Preferably on a remote isolated island without nuclear weapons, in case things go badly :)
The Aussies passed strict gun control laws in 1996 .. suicides and homicides decreased significantly. Another field where we Leaders of the Free world (or not) can learn from the "World down under"!
Text of the screen:
"Your Atlassian account is not age verified.
Laws in your country require us to verify your age before accessing some products, including Jira and Confluence. This process takes 5-10 minutes. This can be done using two pieces of government ID or by performing a face scan."
At least as much mental and societal damage is done by elderly falling for bigoted, scammy, manipulative nonsense online than by teenagers having their self-esteem lowered.
As recent holiday gatherings have shown us, the young handle social media far better then the elderly.
/s
AUS: we agree, and like smoking, won't be letting our kids do it
NH: but freeze peach!