Social Media Ban Moves Closer in Australia After Tech Trial (bloomberg.com) 28
Australia's world-first social media ban for under-16s moved closer to implementation after a key trial found that checking a user's age is technologically possible and can be integrated into existing services. From a report: The conclusions are a blow to Facebook-owner Meta Platforms, TikTok and Snap, which opposed the controversial legislation. Some platform operators had questioned whether a user's age could be reliably established using current technology.
The results of the government-backed trial clear the way for the law to come into force by the end of the year. The findings also potentially allow other jurisdictions to follow Australia's lead as countries around the world grapple with ways to protect children from harmful content online. "Age assurance can be done in Australia and can be private, robust and effective," the government-commissioned Age Assurance Technology Trial said in a statement Friday announcing its preliminary findings.
The results of the government-backed trial clear the way for the law to come into force by the end of the year. The findings also potentially allow other jurisdictions to follow Australia's lead as countries around the world grapple with ways to protect children from harmful content online. "Age assurance can be done in Australia and can be private, robust and effective," the government-commissioned Age Assurance Technology Trial said in a statement Friday announcing its preliminary findings.
Ban for under 25 (Score:1)
Why not make the ban for everyone under 25 years old?
Re:Ban for under 25 (Score:4, Insightful)
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This achieves nothing. Meta and their evil bullshit isn't the driving force behind the evil of social networks. It's the users who drive the pull here. Block Meta, an equally shitty company will just take their place.
Re: Ban for under 25 (Score:2)
It's been about a decade since I shuttered my Facebook account. It was non stop BS being forced into my feed. I used it to keep in contact with friends and distant relatives but when they started forcing "news" into my feed I no longer saw enough benefit in the platform. Now I constantly warn my mother about the dangers social media.
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Why? It is the old farts that use the "soshul networks" without a drop of critical thinking reading and spreading bullshit AND can vote the bullshit into governments that are the real problem.
Facebook's first enshittification came when they got the 35-50 years old crowd in and the endless user-generated spam began, even before the large-scale introduction of the "make me mad as hell" algorithms.
Ban everyone above 35 from the soshul media instead.
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That would also be an option, but since it will reduce the valuation of our great technology outfit and harm the congress-critter shareholders it isn't on the table. Sorry.
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The issue thats worrying legislators isn't so much the disinfo problem (although thats clearly a real problem), its the fact that the kids seem to be spiral eye glued to their little black dystopia phones 24/7 and its showing real psychological harms to socialization and mental health. God knows its been bad for me, and I at least managed to get my social skills in place well before the publically available internet came into being.
I do hope they keep some solid data on effects. If this doesn't work, then I
lame (Score:1)
Social parasitizes the exploratory instinct (Score:2)
You just talked about the effects on your family on vacations. I've experie
Re: (Score:2)
tl;dr;ai :
Sam Harris describes his cautious use of Twitter, averaging three tweets daily, treating posts like careful writing to avoid regret. Despite this, Twitter negatively impacted his life, acting as a "digital serpent" that fragmented his day with constant checking, even if only consuming content. This disrupted productive time and family interactions, with the platform's addictive nature providing dopamine hits from positive feedback. Even non-toxic engagement broke his focus, unlike the sustained at
Bovine shiat (Score:2, Insightful)
can be private, robust and effective
Utter bullsh*t. This is about obliterating privacy and escalated monitoring. This "IT'S FOR THE KIDS" BS fools nobody.
This isn’t a conspiracy anymore. (Score:2)
can be private, robust and effective
Utter bullsh*t. This is about obliterating privacy and escalated monitoring. This "IT'S FOR THE KIDS" BS fools nobody.
I wonder how you would feel after losing a child or other loved one to suicide. After finding out it was the insanity of social media pressure that drove an undeveloped mind to seek that out as the ultimate “answer”. With digital peer pressure.
No. I do not wish that upon my worst enemy. Nor have I had to endure that pain myself. I just wonder what it would take. For you to see the bigger picture. I’m all for fighting for privacy, but to dismiss this as nothing in relation to child ha
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I wonder how you would feel after losing a child or other loved one to suicide.
It would suck - sure - but as an argument in favour of everyone surrendering their privacy "for the kids!" - It's just plain wrong.
People die. Every day. In a milliion different ways. That's life. It's not an argument in support of totalitarian abuse.
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"People die. Every day. In a milliion different ways. That's life."
Yeah, so lets just close all hospitals then and get rid of medicines while we're at it, lets not try and prevent any harm or save lives.
You probably think you sound like some no nonsense shoot from the hip realist, but you actually just come across as an ignorant twat.
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lets not try and prevent any harm or save lives.
False equivalence and very much a puerile response. Feelings aren't facts and conflating the two speaks to a deeper issue.
Go ahead and surrender you personal agency any way you like, for whatever manufactured reason you prefer. Does not make your reasoning sound or rational.
Says someone who doesn't have kids (Score:1)
When you've grown up get back to us.
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Being a parent doesn't grant you magical super-powers. Quite the contrary.
Parents making the entire universe responsible for correcting their garbage parenting are not a great argument in favour of totalitarian abuse.
Shit excuses, are shit. (Score:2)
Australia's world-first social media ban for under-16s moved closer to implementation after a key trial found that checking a user's age is technologically possible and can be integrated into existing services.
This reads as if Australia as a nation was too stupid to grasp the technology behind user authentication, and only finally started to understand that concept after a legal trial.
Really? You needed a trial to out the corrupt greed of the tech elite lying about protecting revenue streams? Give me a fucking break.
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The trial involved getting kids to take a photo and having an AI calculate their age. Needless to say, I'm skeptical
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Ah, I see. We'll do what we did with alcohol, cigarettes, porn, drugs, guns, and etc... that will show them. /s
Australia has shown that their politicians are just as stupid as the rest of the world. We pass a law pretending that we are doing something about it. We make is someone else's problem.
I'm not saying this because I agree with these companies. I avoid social media. It's just drivel and a fake and lazy method of keeping in touch.
I'm saying this because we are eliminating what works and pretending tha
Uninforcable .... (Score:3)
As always any government that thinks this is in any way enforceable is deluded ...and it will likely exclude people from social media
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It doesn't really matter if it's not 100% enforceable - it needs to catch most kids, and that's already a massive 'win'. Sure, if they could get every single one, then that might be better, but in any policy, there are always outliers, and so a few kids getting social media when they shouldn't is pretty much inevitable. As for excluding people... how socially important is getting onto social media? I don't know, but I don't imagine it ranks terribly highly.
I'd personally like the law in my country to say th
Non paywalled link (Score:2)
Seems pretty weird. You make a peace sign, then a closed fist, and the camera somehow knows how old you are.
They went to the safe space for LGBTQ+ children under 16 place, and the Neurodivergent - Isn't everyone neurodivergent now?
Apparently they aren't worried about the poor children without hands.
All that said, this seems pretty easy to beat.
One thing that is likely an issue is that after protecting children from Facebook, they might just find their way to som
16 is still too young (Score:2)
16 is still too young. In my opinion, Meta products, TikTok and the like should be banned for anyone under 375 years old.