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performative nonsense which does nothing for kids or their mental health and harms queer kids who lose one of the first places they can find community.
Then it seems there is something other to fix in society than making sure facebook knows anything about that kid.
The Zuckerbergers of the world aren’t the ones to trust with that.
Not a bad idea all things considered
I support this move. Some here are delusionally arguing that this impacts privacy - the sort of data social media firms collect on teenagers is egregiously extensive regardless. This is good support for their mental health and development.
Strange that the adults don’t want those benefits for themselves also.
I’d support banning it for everyone as well.
This is good support for their mental health and development.
This is good pseudo-science.
How can you look at the state of things pretty much everywhere since social media has become so ubiquitous and think that it has no effect on people, young people especially? It’s full of hate, envy, propaganda, and brainwashing
There is no published science definitively proving that it is harmful or helpful. The effects of this particular legislation, if it is impactful at all, remains to be seen. I’m just offering my opinion based on my personal experiences. I expect it to have some success in reducing acute adolescent mental health issues. If the matter is ever settled through consensus, I’ll defer to that.
This ban does nothing.
Anything that does not force ID verification is useless.
Anything that does verify ID would mean that adults also have to upload their IDs to the website.
What will happen is either this becomes another toothless joke. Or the government say “okay this isn’t working, lets implement ID checks”, and when that law passes Lemmy Instance Admins would be required to verify ID of any user from an Australia IP.
Y’all want that to happen?
So what hapoens if other countries start catching on and also pass such law?
Eventually the all internet accounts would be tied to IDs. Anonymity is dead.
Government provided open id service which guarantees age. Website gets trusted authority signed token witch contains just the age. We can do this safely. We have the technology. They could even do it only once on registration.
Digital id’s exist already in the EU, and many countries run a sign on service already. We aren’t far from this.
No. I don’t want governments to know what social media I use, nor do I want social media to know what country I’m a citizen of. I don’t want any connection between the two.
I’m pretty sure they all know this already.
Sure, but I don’t want to hand it over on a silver platter, especially for my kids.
Depending on what the token contains.
There are two implementations I could think of:
“This user has been verified to be at least [Age]. Sincerely, [Government Authority]” Assuming this is an identical token thats the same for everyone? Sure. I’m not opposed to this.
“This user has been verified to be at least [Age]. Unique Token ID: 23456” Hell No. When the government eventually wants to deanonymize someone, they could ask the website: “What was the token ID that was used to verify the user?” then if the website provides it, now the government can just check the database to see who the token belongs to. And this could also lead to the government mandating the unique token id to be stored.
Why not just look up how it actually works in the real world instead of hypotheticals
This ban is a wake up call to Tech Industry to implement and enforce rules against hate speech, grooming, fake news, etc. They surely cannot verify the age of a human without any official ID made in the real world. This leads to other problems but that’s not the concern of the government! Social Media wants it’s users, not the government.
This ban is a wake up call to Tech Industry
what? Why would tech industry care? If anything it’ll have the reverse effect and dimiss tech role in brain rott because “see, kids are not on it! It’s all good here”
If i recall correctally, Australia tried to fine adults if they didnt have thier phone with them. Ive heard a relaible youtuber say it, but i couldnt find a news article to confirm it.
Went to look for the article. Found something even worse https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-24/can-border-force-search-your-phone-when-you-travel-to-australia/100774644
Not a bad choice.
Probably going to get downvoted for this, but this just makes kids look for VPN’s and other ways to skirt this restriction. It may make VPN’s less useful for the rest of us as a result when certain services are forced to comply with the law, breaking those services for those of us using VPN’s. It sounds like a great idea but I don’t know that the implementation will make a noticeable or effective difference.
Most kids are not going to pay a subscription for a VPN, I don’t think that would be as big of an issue as you think.
No, they’re gonna download “free vpns” and get infected with malware and turn their device into part of a bot net.
Or use Tor and end up finding things worse than just “social media”.
Are the government gonna ban those too?
Congrats, you now live in China where the all benevolent government have 24/7 surveillance to keep you safe.
There are free VPNs that are subsidized by payers and are legit (though most are not). Calyx and Proton to name two.
Also Tor is free, and the most popular site on the darknet is Facebook, so I dont think you’re informed about the nature of Tor traffic.
Also here, where a VPN or proxy is a “must” for using the internet normally, there are also some ran by charities. But yeah, the omnipresence of shady free VPNs is very concerning.
Well unless they go for free vpns and get data mined to the moon and back… Which is a far worse outcome imo.
There are free vpn services? How do they data mine you?
Well they have to host the servers and pay for them somehow… So they take all of your traffic going through their servers and sell it. They know when you go to any website, at what time, and how long you were there… That’s why anyone recommending a VPN strongly recommends vpns that do not keep logs of what their clients do when connected to their servers. Even some paid vpns double dip and keep logs and sell them as well as charging for access.
To be fair, I wouldn’t really count on a VPN not collecting logs - if I can’t check it, better assume they’re collected. This may not matter as much, but I still wouldn’t rely on this for anything sensitive.
Also, the free VPNs can harm you in more ways than just selling your traffic logs, such as making you a part of a proxy botnet.
Just because it isn’t perfect it doesn’t mean it’s useless.
Just because there is no way to stop 100% of all crime it doesn’t mean taking measures to reduce crime is futile.
There is a lot more to this than just blocking the site. It will also change social norms. Right now, if a 14 year old as social media, nobody bats an eye; but with the 16 year requirement, through all the sudden, parents aren’t too comfortable with letting their 14 year old have social media. So not only will they need to find some free VPN totally not spyware to use (and even know that that exists and how to use), they will also have to hide it from their parents, as it is no longer socially acceptable for 14 year olds to have social media.
And before you say “Kids can easily get a free VPN and hide it.” Never underestimate tech illiteracy.
Kids accessing social media shouldn’t be treated as a crime.
The future of such restriction is:
Exhibit A: People’s Republic of China and the “Great Firewall”
Nope, lets not go there.
???
How is restricting access behind an age requirement the same as the “Great Firewall”. Right now, as we speak, you cannot use social media until you are 13. They are just increasing that requirement to 16.
There are many many many other things that are already lock behind an age restriction and I don’t see you freaking out. Here are a few examples of things locked behind an age restriction:
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alcohol
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gambling
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cigarettes
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pornography
Media has age restrictions. Books have age restrictions, movies have age restrictions, games have age restrictions. Media has had age restrictions for a very long time and it’s high time the same standards are applied to social media.
Whats gonna happens when politicians realize kids are just gonna click “I’m at least [Age]”?
They’ll implement ID verification.
Then kids will use VPN to bypass it.
So VPNs get banned
Either you have a toothless law, or you live in a country with Great Firewall of China.
Yup… right what I suspected! The Slippery Slope Fallacy!
Whats gonna happens when politicians realize kids are just gonna click “I’m at least [Age]”?
Many pornography work like that and can, as such, be easily bypassed. But does that mean we should drop the age restriction for access to pornography? Of course not!
Here is another example:
Murder. Murder shouldn’t be legal and it is not. However, despite this restriction, some find ways to get away with murder. Does that mean that laws against murder are useless since we cannot stop murder 100% of the time? I highly doubt it.
It is impossible for any law enforcement to prevent 100% of all crimes, but that is not justification for those law to not exist.
Either you have a toothless law, or you live in a country with Great Firewall of China.
False dilemma fallacy.
Again, I’ll refer to pornography. Many pornography work on the trust system. By your logic, that means we should drop all laws restricting access to it. However, that is absurd.
The point isn’t to stop 100% of all usage. It is simply there to reduce the usage. You are forgetting that we are talking about human beings. Beings which have a natural tendency to conform to social norms as to not be cast out of their tribe (since humans cannot survive in the wild without each other, such would be a death sentence).
This law would set the societal precedent that people need to be of a certain age to access these social media apps (as shown by scientific data, which revealed that social media usage can have many negative effects on a developing mind). This societal precedent will, hopefully, make it taboo for people bellow 16 to access social media, which will, in turn, reduce, but not outright 100% stop, underage social media usage.
The point is to prevent the detrimental effects to the mental health of teens and preteens. That doesn’t work unless you plug the holes. That’s the problem. Fallacy in argument or no fallacy.
The point we’re trying to make isn’t that we don’t want the restriction. We just understand that it’s not going to work specifically because it requires the same thing the under 13 privacy laws already include. Companies to comply (which they will, probably with detriments to legal users), and that parents be involved in what their children are doing online and restrict that accordingly to comply with the law (which we already know they aren’t).
I as a full grown adult am not willing to provide my details (picture of a government issued ID or similar) to most online entities. I certainly won’t ever be giving it to social media or a porn site of any kind. But that’s what’s going to end up being required to enact this law and make it enforceable. Is the law going to fine parents whose children aren’t in compliance? Is it going to fine businesses for not enacting enough restrictions? Is it going to outlaw VPN’s for use on social media?
Where is the burden of proof and who’s privacy gets invaded in order to enforce the law?
I was not (in my original comment or any subsequent ones in the thread) intending people to take this as “we shouldn’t do this because XYZ”. And I am aware that you weren’t responding to me. I was saying that it’s going to be problematic to enforce and isn’t likely to have the results intended.
It’s not about the handful of people per hundred who commit a murder. It’s about how 75-85% of teens will find a way to circumvent the law because they don’t understand the dangers and parents aren’t doing their part. So the rest of us will have to jump through hoops to use any social media.
If 75% or more of people the law effects aren’t following the law, the law doesn’t do what is intended and is going to have to be reworked.
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The thing about kids getting a VPN, free or paid is that it will spread like wild fire. It only takes one kid who knows how to do something. They tried this at my highschool, blocking websites and such. That was more than 20 years ago and we knew how to use VPN’s or similar then and once we figured it out it was an open secret.
I’m not saying the law shouldn’t exist or that we should do nothing. I’m saying that this isn’t going to be effective as it is and could end up leading to worse things.
Us right now are on a service that’s totally going to follow this law. /s
Now everyone gets to hand over their ids to the tech companies.
We should make a bet how long it will take before the ID databases get leaked.
Australia requires mobile phone providers to verify IDs before providing cell phone service. As a result, in September 2022, Optus leaked the records of 10 million Australians including passport and drivers license details.
So negative 2 years, 2 months.
But this is just asking for more.
It would take too long.
Making the bet that is, it would be leaked before you are done setting up the betting system.
Tech company’s probably already have enough info to know a person age without requiring an id. They could even use ai for something actually useful
Identification would need to be handled by a 3rd party to even remotely work. Then they pass on the “yes they’re over 16” tick to the social media platform, with no actual identity details.
Edit: and likewise, Identity company have no details about the social media account name or anything. Just a token transfer of sorts.
Identification would need to be handled by a 3rd party to even remotely work. Then they pass on the “yes they’re over 16” tick to the social media platform, with no actual identity details.
The legislatiion specifically allows SM sites to handle ID.
I guess Australia.gov can be the site in the middle handing out the tokens
Now ban everyone else (except Lemmy of course).
teen go to website
please enter your birthdate
1/1/2000
welcome!
I’m well old enough to satisfy these checks and I also do this. If I’m feeling productive, I’ll pick a random date.
Lawyer sues tech company
But we asked for the birthday
Lawyer points to law text
Company fined
I don’t see many options between asking for a birthdate and asking for ID for this problem. I don’t see any way that this can be enforced that isn’t problematic.
Problematic for who, the tech companies? They’re practically printing money. Let them spend it on actual solutions to issues that are causing problems for the World.
