alt Hacker NewsAustralia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
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Hacker News is social media, isn't it?
If they scare teens of Instagram the danger is some of them will go to places like 4Chan.
Makes one wonder if/how quickly they will come for closed WhatsApp groups and Telegram channels next.
Everyone supporting this in the comments deserves to live under CCP style internet censorship.
I have seen a swift uptick in "Australians" negatively posting on social media networks about the new restriction.
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.
I don’t know why they don’t just ban or restrict the hardware. It’ll be easier to enforce.
Social media is cigarettes. There are lots of studies showing the negative impacts to say that limiting their reach is probably good for society and individuals.
Just about all arguments against this are the same arguments that would stop governments limiting booze or tabaco
I really hope other nations, including the United States, copy this. Australia proved that it is possible. I think the results will be so overwhelmingly positive that others will take notice. Good job Australia!
Reading "Anxious Generation" is a must for all parents in this day and age.
I've said this before, but if countries want to mandate compliance, they should be required to provide the mechanism for compliance.
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...
Been seeing ads all over NYC for a teen edition of Instagram.
That wasn't world first, the world first is China
Should have been done 20 years ago, all the millions of miseries that could have been prevented, if politicians hadn't fallen for the Zuckerberg/Sandberg narrative.
Tech people imagining their own preferential boogeyman harms that might flow from any action intended to reduce the harms of their products. Again.
Many of us grew up without social media and turned out to be fine!
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.
Modern social media is worse for our mental health than cigarettes are for our physical health. This should be a no-brainer.
how Corporate/Gov knows who is Teen on these account???? isn't this is just precursor to digital ID ?????
The only appropriate comment here would be invoking Goodwin Law. Everything else is too mild to describe the journey of former democracies to totalitarian regimes.
Every concern about "teens" is explicitly mirrored by a concern about low-capacity adults, which is why Australia et al are so concerned about "disinformation" and the need to control speech of all kinds. This effort should be seen in that light.
Full support.
unlike me, these young people might even be able to travel to the United States one day...
So-called social media is proven to be just a huge scam operation and manipulation mechanism for the ultra-rich robber barons at Silicon Valley. Denying it from kids is same as denying tobacco or alcohol companies sell amd advertise to them. Hopefully future generations have spend their childhood reading, studying and socialising with other kids, not living fake lives and being hunted by slimy adult men. Hopefully they take a one look at this shot and go ”nope, not for me” and do something with their lives.
Good for you Australia. I hope EU follows suit soon.
Society is like poorly written software with lots of patches, new features are added (social media) and then stuff randomly breaks. A fix is eventually deployed, sometimes the fix works; sometimes the fix causes more bugs.
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
Just a reminder that the Australian government has chosen to not ban sports betting advertisements including live odds and crosses to betting companies inside sports broadcasts
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
This is a good thing!
"It's just kind of pointless, we're just going to create new ways to get on these platforms, so what's the point," said 14-year-old Claire Ni.
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.
this is an egregious violation of their civil rights.
the law of unintended consequences looms large.
any kid who cant figure out how to slide right by a government hack is a looser, and while we should feel a little bad for both of them, presumambly someone will take pity and fix there phones up , and let them know that there is sex and everything on the net
I don't necessarily think this as it is will "work" but I'm all for someone at least trying to do something. Yes, there are a bunch of externalities and potential second order effects that don't sit well with me but, at this stage, I'd rather some attempt at trying to regulate than throwing up hands and saying its all too hard.
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
Regulating dark patterns and recommendation algorithms would benefit everyone. Banning social media until age 16 and then suddenly allowing teenagers into the toxic social media world feels half-baked and somewhat misses the point to me.
All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.
I support it.
Australia compliance etc etc...
....
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.
Starting Jan 1, 2026, Texas SB2420 is also requiring ID verification for all app stores. It's not about "think of the children", it's lazy parents who chose unAmerican totalitarianism and billionaires weaponizing government to eliminate privacy and make data brokers rich.
This is a brilliant idea!
I'll take on the low status role of not knowing if this is a good idea.
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 :)
I sense a great disturbance in the force - millions of teens muttering "for fuck's sake" and tossing their phones onto the sofa.
Wake me up, when September ends.
This has nothing to do with protecting kids...This is the classic "OH WONT SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!" meme that governments fall back on to terrorize and coerce the herd. There's an obvious push by neo-liberals to implement a digital application (ID) that they can use to "authorize". What the UK and Australia and the US homeland security really want is the ability to see a troublemaker and to toggle a switch on their digital certificate\token to dissociate them from the internet. No doubt they've got legions of Keycloak systems stood up and ready.
Now, all we have to do is mandate that you pass a psychiatric test in order to use social media or LLMs. In this way, we can protect the mentally disabled. People are killing themselves after going on sites like Reddit. It's too dangerous to the mentally disabled.
now do the rest of the world
Yay for the Aussie government. Hope the sociopath tech bros take notice and clean up their toxic products. And the little tech bros protesting here.
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"!
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It will be interesting to see how this pans out. I think many in tech are afraid that this will lead to a positive outcome.