In further news, millions of teenagers have become experts at vpns and bypassing online restrictions
So where exactly are kids supposed to go? People will go on about "they should just go outside" but kids have literally had the cops called on them for the crime of walking around their own neighborhood "unsupervised". I've seen calls to ban kids from all sorts of places - planes, theme parks, restaurants, libraries. I've seen these "mosquito" things put up to drive kids away from public places. Kids are spending all their time on social media because they have nowhere else to go.
I think this perspective (that teens have nothing else in their lives other than social media) is harmful. I don't understand why they're not able to do the same things teens did before social media......
Police being called on harmless teenagers by the same busybodies over and over again kind of sorts itself out after awhile.
This is the travel range for kids in the UK by generation. Such a map would be far worse in the US or Australia
They can't do the same things teenagers did before because the world has been growing more and more hostile to teenagers. More places have banned kids. We have these mosquito things making noises to drive teenagers away. It's become more difficult to get around without a car. Parents have become more helicoptery, not letting their kids out of the house. And "sorts itself out"? Here's what happens. Some asshole calls the cops on teenagers just hanging out. The cops, with nothing better to do than harass innocent people, show up and chase them away. Now those teenagers don't feel safe going back there, because they don't wanna get cops coming after them. Or maybe the cops don't stop at chasing the kids off! Maybe they get arrested for "loitering" or some nonsense. Maybe they get accused of dealing drugs because teenagers hanging around is strange and suspicious, and the cops love to frame innocent people. Cops getting called isn't some silly and frivilous thing.
I'm old enough to remember I spent my days riding my bike around town, exploring the woods, hanging out at friends' houses, going to the pizza place and hitting baseballs at the school field with my brothers.
They will create their own places... which might not actually be desirable the government lol
If only this applied to the parents as well... No more using your children online to make a buck as an influencer.
I assume that was already the case before, as far as I know that's also not allowed here in my EU country (but I'm just making assumptions).
After a quick Google, I agree that your making assumptions as for the EU in general.
All of a sudden their test scores start going through the roof.
Attention span >3 minutes would be something already.
Now kids will be forced to hide being a victim of cyber-bullying from their parents. Great work!
If their parents are social media
If they don't have an online presence and neither do their peers, how would they be cyber bullied?
I'm sure bullying will go on, old school, in the streets, but cyber bullying is one of the things that will go away with this
I think this is great. There are about one or two generations worth of people that had social media while being kids and I think they should stop acting as if it's the end of the world if it would go away. I fully understand that you grew up with it and don't know any netter but believe you me: you can do without, you can survive without, you will be better without.
Go outside, touch grass, have fun, be a kid again.
A few years ago the Australian government spent an enormous amount of money on a proposed firewall to protect the children. After years of development they were ready to pilot test their white elephant, and discovered that, on average, the Australian 12 year old could bypass it in ten minutes.
It's unlikely that the government could even enforce an obstacle as robust as the "are you 18+" checkbox that porn sites opt in to. This new law will not have any influence on under 16s online presence.
I'm an Australian, and I don't remember the 'firewall' that you're talking about. Do you have a link or something to remind me?
Oh those poor kids.
I remember when we banned porn for the under 18s and now nobody under 18 can access porn.
This is my favorite argument against government regulation.
Anything not foolproof definitely isn't worth doing at all.
Theres a scale of influence, with a big difference between foolproof and entirely unenforceable.
In this case, it's effectively unenforceable, so what's the point in wasting time and effort drafting something that won't actually make any difference?
Good luck with that.
It doesnt need to be 100% effective.
It's still not entirely clear how the Australian government thinks they're actually going to enforce this.
Plenty of web services already require you to state your age to use them and I believe a large majority of users just coincidentally happen to be born on January 1st, 1900 as a result.
If they're expecting these tech companies to be gathering and storing peoples' government ID's, or something, somebody needs to carefully explain to them using small words why this is a monumentally stupid idea. Does something need to be done about social media addiction and the rampant sketchy behavior of the tech giants? Yes, probably. Is a blanket ban ever the actual solution to anything? No, very rarely.
It's just apparently all anyone can come up with when they've got government-brain.
It’s still not entirely clear how the Australian government thinks they’re actually going to enforce this.
Since identity verification checks for minors is an absolute nightmare security scenario we are deciding to pull all operations out of Australia.
I recently switched from 1 January 1900 to 1 January 2000. It feels good to be young again.
What will be interesting for sure is the difference of this approach vs. the porn approach in the southern US. In this case in Australia? Social media companies will tip toe any line they can because there is so much money to be made and they want every dollar.
PornHub? They just blocked access in 17 states instead of even trying to worry about age verification. They're still getting their users, but now they're coming over VPN.
https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/pornhub-florida-vpn-google-searches-skyrocket/
And, Pornhub can probably play the waiting game in those states as well. Enough people in those places will probably get pissed off enough eventually to pressure their legislators into walking those laws back. It might just take a year or two. I imagine everyone involved already knows, but the idiots who wrote the laws need to wait for the headlines to cool off a bit before they can backpedal, in order to save face.
I imagine Facebook or someone of similar size could do the same in Aus. All they have to do is refuse to serve anything to Aussie IP addresses except a message that says, "Sorry, we can't serve your country anymore because of a law passed by [legislator.] Remember, this is all his fault."
Politicians infamously do not give a flying fuck about the opinions of minors, but if they piss everyone else off too the people responsible will either be out on their ears next election or buried under an avalanche of nasty letters from their 40-and-up constituency.
And, Pornhub can probably play the waiting game in those states as well. Enough people in those places will probably get pissed off enough eventually to pressure their legislators into walking those laws back.
Nobody's going out to protest this shit. There's too much stigma around it. Even though I'm sure this frustrates huge swaths of the population, it's politically shameful.
I imagine Facebook or someone of similar size could do the same in Aus. All they have to do is refuse to serve anything to Aussie IP addresses except a message that says, “Sorry, we can’t serve your country anymore because of a law passed by [legislator.] Remember, this is all his fault.”
Why would they do that though? Large sites like Facebook are the only ones with resources to handle ID verification. They can do it and let their competitors die.
I don't really have a positive outlook on how this is going to play out. Shy of big money flooding into free speech orgs that can legitimize the fight, or a polarizing leader like Larry Flint, I don't see this going well.
The commissioner is supposed to come up with guidelines for what is a reasonable check, so we find out when they come up with it I guess 🤷
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