[feb012025]

I feel like everyone in this thread is assuming this is a good faith move by Australia to help kids in school and with socialization.

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

[Sevrene]

I don't think we should normalise children on platforms where the content contains political agitation, sexual and violent content, crypto and fintech scams, etc. Especially when this content is packaged up to them and commodified.

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.

[pizza]

The platform operators have a responsibility to remove garbage from their site. I don’t see how it’s better if adults are the recipients of these alleged harms. And I definitely don’t see how the platform operators are going to clean up their act if — rather than being penalized — they can pretend that the problem has vanished into thin air because a specific category of vulnerable users is now de jure disappeared.

[xethos]

> I don't think we should normalise children on platforms where the content contains political agitation, sexual and violent content, crypto and fintech scams, etc. Especially when this content is packaged up to them and commodified.

I hope we can agree that allowing every social media site to devolve into the above is the bigger problem. There can be some places that are adults-only; just like reality though, the world is better when open-by-default, with some places gated to adults-only.

Shifting focus to "Why are we letting some of the most profitable companies the world has ever seen get away with being a cesspit?" lets us keep kids safe by default, doesn't attack E2EE, and doesn't default to the internet becoming a surveillance state.

If we start by getting Facebook and Twitter (et al.) to clean up their acts, we can all work, yell, and vote together, instead of some yelling about their kids being shown unexpected pornography, and others yelling about the internet becoming a surveillance state.

Because both can be real concerns - but a starter solution can get the vast majority of voters on-board, and garner real progress, instead of giving Facebook more data and control, or governments a turn-key dictatorship.

[plantain]

> These platforms make more money than the ATO (Australian Tax Office) brings in a year.

From their users in Australia? Clearly not.

[protocolture]

>I don't think we should normalise children on platforms where the content contains political agitation, sexual and violent content, crypto and fintech scams, etc. Especially when this content is packaged up to them and commodified.

The law could instead prohibit scams and violence?

>These platforms make more money than the ATO (Australian Tax Office) brings in a year.

Irrelevant.

>but the idea that there isn't a legitimate goal here (keeping children safe)

Almost every other avenue, including doing nothing, has more merit than that which has been implemented.

>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.

Theres some basic negative freedom implications from those, but they dont intend to ban a class of person from accessing a mundane element of human society.

[paganel]

> I don't think we should normalise children on platforms where the content contains political agitation

Why not? Why won't you give political agency to young adults? I'm saying this as a kid who grew up in Romania, just after Ceausescu had been executed, so throughout the '90s, I do very well remember all the political news and commentary coming my way (I was a teen), but I can't say that it bothered, not at all, it made me more connected to the adult world and hence more prepared to tackle real life just a little bit later on.

I won't comment on the other stuff, because that would make me bring back memories of watching TV1000 (a Swedish TV satellite channel) late at night on Saturdays, also in the early '90s, I won't say for what but suffice is to say that I turned out ok.

[Hizonner]

> I don't think we should normalise children on platforms where the content contains political agitation, sexual and violent content, crypto and fintech scams, etc.

You mean like the outside world?

What happens when these hot house flowers of yours reach whatever magic age and get dumped into all of that, still with no clue, but with more responsibilities and more to lose?

I haven't noticed a whole lot of governments, or even very many parents, worrying about doing much to actually prepare anybody for adulthood. It's always about protection, never about helping them become competent, independent human beings. Probably because protection is set-and-forget, or at least they think it is... whereas preparation requires actually spending time, and paying attention, and thinking, and communicating. Maybe even having to answer hard questions about your own ideas.

... and since when are kids supposed to be protected from politics? We used to call that "civics class".

[jorblumesea]

yeah social media is proving itself to be a bad actor like big alcohol, big tobacco. No incentive to do the right thing or improve anything. ripping audiences away from them is the only way they'll understand.

[jfindper]

>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.

If you think the arguments are eerily similar, I feel like you haven't really been listening to the arguments against these types of age-verification-for-websites laws.

I mean, there's some similarities, of course. But I think there are some very stark differences.

[yfw]

If we are so concerned about the materials make the platforms moderate them like they used to do. Banning them reeks of favoring the murdoch outlets which are free to spread misinformation

[colordrops]

> I don't think we should normalise children on platforms where the content contains political agitation, sexual and violent content, crypto and fintech scams, etc. Especially when this content is packaged up to them and commodified.

This may be true but it has nothing to do with what the person you are replying to said.

[pryce]

The ingredients for this legislation trace back to an organisation called "Collective Shout"[1], by Melinda Tankard Reist, who readers may be aware of from their previous efforts to pressure Steam to restrict games with adult content

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

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Shout

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Tankard_Reist

[Nursie]

My favourite micro pressure-group in Australia is the Pedestrian Council of Australia.

Whenever there's talk about car safety measures, e-scooters or anything else, the press goes to the official-sounding "Pedestrian Council of Australia" for comment. And obligingly, Harold Scruby who is the CEO, Chairman and entire membership of said council will hold forth.

He's been spectacularly successful at getting himself listened to, as if he represented something.

Collective shout are just as illegitimate.

[msuniverse2026]

That is just a thought-stopping reference. Why does this literal nobody who nobody has to listen to have the total backing of both major political parties? That is the real question and it obviously goes back to narrative control and the move from democracy to an authoritarian managerial state.

[1121redblackgo]

I actually do think people directly see the negative public health impact, its so visceral in so many parents lives, and that that is the driving force behind all of this.

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.

[jfindper]

I think this might be true at the parent level, but less and less true as you climb up the government ladder.

The shitty part is that when the parents really do believe something is "for the kids", it becomes that much easier to push through laws that have awful side effects (intentional ones or not). Which is why "for the kids" is so common, of course.

[jmathai]

It's very unfortunate. As a parent, I feel like it requires regulation at the national level because I can't win against Meta (FB, Insta), Google (Youtube), Snapchat and TikTok.

[noosphr]

Banning the printing press in Europe would have stopped the 30 years war.

Somehow I don't think anyone here would approve of the long term consequences.

The end result of this will be that everyone needs to give their real name and address to view social media.

Anything you say or watch that the current government doesn't like will result in police coming for a chat.

[treis]

It's not that the people don't genuinely believe what they're saying. It's that they've deluded themselves into thinking their ideological right is "for the kids".

There's always been Reefer Madness sorts of people. Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll, Video Games, DnD, Rap Music, Homosexuality, and on and on. Today it's half woke mind virus and half DEI (for lack of a better term). Most of the people that spout this stuff genuinely believe they're fighting for the kids.

[yfw]

Its not good faith because its already broken by vpn. And its forcing kids with no credit cards to download free and malware ridden ones. How would you measure any level of success from this initiative? Doing something isnt a solution if it has tons of bad sideeffects

[endgame]

Of course they aren't. If they were actually helping kids, they would be going after algorithmic feeds in general and the most predatory platforms like Roblox (especially given its recent scandals), doing something about kids being exposed to gambling advertising, etc.

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)

[AuthAuth]

>going after algorithmic feeds

This is such an older person take. Users really like Algorithmic feeds and see the removal of such a feature to be platform destroying. Cronological feeds are still easy to game and abuse.

>predatory platforms like Roblox

What makes roblox a predatory platform and what would you change to make it not a predatory platform? To me Roblox is a predatory platform because of the age group of people not because of the platform design.

[palata]

> kids pretending to be adults so they sneak through these filters

The real question is: how hard does it make it for them to pretend to be adults? We just need it to be hard enough that most kids won't do it.

> platforms winding back their (meagre) child safety efforts since "children are banned anyway"

If the law forces the platforms to properly ban children, I don't see how they can do that. If you're thinking that the platforms will just say "it's illegal for children to join, so we don't have to do anything because they shouldn't come in the first place", then I don't think the law is made like this.

> everyone being forced to prove their age via e.g. uploading ID (which will inevitably get leaked)

Some countries have been working on privacy-preserving age verification. I find it's a lot better than uploading an ID.

[roguecoder]

Kids pretending to be adults know they are doing something wrong. They are likely to practice acting like adults, don't pressure each other to join, and are harder for predators to find.

[raincole]

> algorithmic feeds in general

Do you only use /new of HN...?

[Barrin92]

>We've been hearing politicians complain for years that they're losing the youth when it comes to long-standing foreign policy positions,

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.

[MSFT_Edging]

To be fair, "anti-semitism" claims have been 90% bad faith. Gaza was the internet's Vietnam.

We got just as mad at the internet letting our citizens at home see the brutality as we did with Jane Fonda and calling her "Hanoi Jane" after she traveled to Vietnam to bring light to the conflict(not a war).

I don't think there's any merit in being upset at dead children being reported because it messes with our national security goals. If the goals don't have public support with truthful reporting, they're basically illegitimate.

[feb012025]

I would reject the notion that shifting public sentiment is a result of foreign influence campaigns, which is not to say it doesn't exist to an extent.

I've seen plenty of real information, from non-anonymous American journalists that I'm certain are the largest factor in any sea-change amongst Americans.

And despite the claim, I've yet to see solid evidence of large, pakistan-based accounts wielding massive influence on twitter. Most anonymous accounts that focus on current events tend to be located in America, Europe, or Canada from what I've seen.

[jfindper]

Agreed. I'm no fan of social media, and especially not a fan of TikTok and Instagram. But I really doubt this is about the kids more than it is about getting another foothold along the path of controlling internet access wholesale.

[aus_throwaway]

The Australian government didn’t do this because of any concern about children; it’s to punish (mainly) Meta for backing out of the Australian Social Media Bargaining Agreement [1]. Other social media companies are collateral damage.

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...

[stephen_g]

Just in case anyone is sceptical, is quite literally paying for sharing links - the legslation [1] says in part 52B that

    For the purposes of this Part, a service makes content available if:
         (a) the content is reproduced on the service, or is otherwise placed on the service; or
         (b) a link to the content is provided on the service; or
         (c) an extract of the content is provided on the service.
     (2) Subsection (1) does not limit, for the purposes of this Part, the ways in which a service makes content available.

Part 52B (1) means that the code explicitly defines that a social media site publishing a user post containing a link to a news site as being considered exactly the same as the social media site ripping off and publishing a copy of a whole article!

The supporters of the bill then went around pretending that social media sites were ripping off whole articles and showing them on their sites with their own ads, when they are actually just linking and showing the title, thumbnail and sentence summary that the news site provides in its meta info!

In the end, the news media bargaining code is effectively just a shakedown to extract money for nothing from tech companies. Part 52B makes the whole thing indefensible.

1. https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2021A00021/latest/text

[strangattractor]

Meta == Phillip Morris - This is a public health issue and will likely need to be treated like tobacco. Kids can't vote so I don't see the political motivation.

[josho]

Good analogy.

The solution, however, isn't prohibition or age restrictions; it's either regulating the algorithms or holding these companies responsible for the adverse outcomes their platforms contribute to. Safe harbor laws made sense when tech wasn't filtering/promoting content, now that they are influencing the material we see, these laws must no longer apply.

This may mean adopting a modern equivalent to libel laws. Something akin to: if an algorithm pushes false information, the company behind the algorithm can be sued for harm. Disallow terms of service that force arbitration or cap liability limits.

[JohnMakin]

They'll vote eventually, and preferably won't be damaged in irreparable ways by then

[roguecoder]

That makes me wonder, if only teenagers could vote would they ban adults from social media?

[lisbbb]

I just can't get behind any of it, sorry. The puritanical moralizing feels so good until you cause a revolution or the species goes extinct.

[cmxch]

Handwaving “public health” doesn’t make it so.

[whimsicalism]

Scrollable video is killing the Dems in general, not just because of Israel. It's like all the worst of local news crime reporting on steroids.

[feb012025]

Each party is splitting into factions. I imagine the establishment of both parties think social media is a problem

[henryfjordan]

Youtube really wants to send me down the alt-right pipeline. I watch a few WW2 history videos and suddenly I must identify with "Mr Mustache" as the kids say. TikTok wants to radicalize me the other way, and shows me every video of a cop abusing their power that they can find. It cuts both ways.

I think what's killing Dems is that they don't understand the medium. Mamdani did really well by making good social media posts. Him and Trump had a grand old time at the whitehouse because they have a competent grasp on social media in common. Newsom has been trolling lately and his approval ratings are only going up.

Dems being a million years old is killing the dems.

[rstuart4133]

> I feel like everyone in this thread is assuming this is a good faith move by Australia to help kids in school and with socialization.

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...

[makeitdouble]

The report title

> School behaviour improving after mobile phone ban and vaping reforms

Vaping !?

If we're discussing effect of phone bans at school, I think looking at a period where nicotine addiction was also strongly reduced makes the numbers pretty hard to interpret.

[protocolture]

Is that the same report that failed to mention they changed the testing methodology for the year after the phone ban, and that an improvement was expected in SA test scores regardless?

[tiew9Vii]

Australia is a huge contradiction.

“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.

[girvo]

Indeed. We will stick them in prison, but they can’t use social media. It’s a farce.

[NoPicklez]

How is that a contradiction?

Its not uncommon for laws that allow for teenagers (14 or above) to be tried as adults for more serious crimes.

Should we prevent kids from doing things we think will harm them? Yes, should we give harsher penalties for kids who commit more serious crimes? Potentially.

[0xbadcafebee]

There's no motive other than "easy politicial win". The kids aren't gonna vote against you (they don't vote), parents will vote for you, you get to show people you protected children and passed legislation. Politicians support anything that keeps them in votes and campaign contributions.

[protocolture]

Kids dont vote, but when they do they tend to come in radicalised and swinging. Voter intention in Australia has shifted heavily towards minor parties over the last decade. While this is currently being captured by our preferential voting system, the tipping point is 1 - 2 elections away.

Isolating kids from current events and society can easily be seen as a potential extra bullwark against changing voter intentions, because Minor partiers tend to favour social media engagement against paying for expensive ads.

[realityloop]

All the ban does is stop kids from having accounts, if the service allows anonymous usage then they can still find somewhere to doom scroll. My teen son has been blocked from Snapchat, and was this evening doom scrolling on Tik Tok until I blocked it on our home network.

[Extropy_]

I'm curious to understand why your approach to TikTok is banning it. Why do you think this is the right solution? Are you concerned at all about your son's ability to cope independently from oversight and control?

[stevage]

> We've been hearing politicians complain for years that they're losing the youth when it comes to long-standing foreign policy positions

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.

[swiftcoder]

> The ban doesn't stop teens consuming social media content like tik tok.

That is exactly what the ban aims to do? TikTok is literally listed in the article as one of the platforms ordered to ban access by under-16s

[feb012025]

I'm very surprised you've never heard anything like this.

Here's Hillary Clinton onstage a week ago: https://x.com/prem_thakker/status/1995961131215847749

[DavidPiper]

As another Australian, I have also never heard this.

There is a lot of Australian-American political confusion/conflation in this whole thread.

[patrickmcnamara]

Non-American countries are also importing a lot of American politics. I'd rather that didn't happen and is alone worthy of curbing in my opinion.

[b00ty4breakfast]

It's also a massive propaganda channel. We can argue about whether any one particular state is involved in that or not but gut reaction is that if this were the real concern, their solution would be to regulate and censor what is posted online rather than kicking them off the platform and thus detaching them from the teat of (alleged) indoctrination. (that push for censorship also exists).

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.

[ang_cire]

> It's also a massive propaganda channel.

The problem is that school curriculum is as well. I remember going to school in Texas and hearing the phrase "Northern War of Aggression" to describe the Civil War.

Censorship is never about cutting off information, it's only ever about cutting off information that the censors don't like. Given how openly hostile both AU and the US's governments are to progressive politics and worldviews, I am dubious that this isn't about controlling kids' access to a more open view of the world than their schools will give them.

[gary_0]

This worldwide push for online ID verification is absolutely not in good faith, and I'm shocked at how few people on "Hacker" News are seeing it for what it is. Imagine going on 1990's or 2000's Usenet and telling those folks they'd have to upload government ID to prove they weren't children and keep using the system. Virtually everyone would have shouted this Big Brother shit down until it was their dying breath.

[AnonymousPlanet]

Parts of Usenet actually mandated real names. The idea was to make discussions more civilised. It didn't. And on top of that people were now subject to stalking and doxxing. I remember a poster who had a link to a defamation site in his signature. The site was targeted at another frequent poster in that newsgroup, detailing his address and his alleged intellectual failings.

[bamboozled]

America had all the access to free information and voted in an authoritarian anyway so what’s it matter ?

I don’t care anymore about this emotive argument that you’re putting forward. The government knows everything about you because you pay for internet. Maybe you pretend to yourself you’re someone anonymous because you use a VPN but if they want to know who you are, they know.

At least maybe this ban will stop some of the idiocy bleeding into the next generation.

[serial_dev]

But think of the children! Or the terrorist! Or communists! Whichever makes you accept the surveillance state.

[wahnfrieden]

All popular grooming platforms were already excluded from this policy

[kQq9oHeAz6wLLS]

I thought that was curious as well. Roblox is allowed? Really?

[papichulo4]

Why does the motivation matter so much? It’s not a global ban, it’s not a permanent ban, nobody is going to jail. It’s like seeing if moving the smoking age to 18 will improve health outcomes.

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.

[bamboozled]

Don’t you know this is the end of democracy as we know it because kids can’t easily look at toxic content online anymore ?

[ricardobeat]

> Rahm Emanuel is campaigning for the same thing in America.

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?

[roguecoder]

He is a pro-authoritian-control Democrat, so it is unsurprising that he is more worried about control of information than he is the Constitution. His background is in finance and his political goal is generally management of the country by a monied elite without particular oversight.

He was paid by Goldman Sachs to help Clinton get elected by raising massive amounts of money. During Obama's term he structured the DNC to be about his personal power rather than supporting Democrats across the country, costing Democrats the midterms. As mayor of Chicago he covered up a murder committed by a police officer and refused to comply with transparency laws.

On the other hand, this particular position is probably just part of the Israeli campaign against TikTok: Emanuel volunteered for the IDF and has long been an anti-Palestinian activist.

[xedrac]

Both can be true. The question is, do the benefits outweigh the consequences? I'm of the opinion that parents need to help regulate teen exposure, not the government. It does feel a bit like censorship.

[lawlessone]

Just my anecdote addled opinion but i seems like most of the people being mentally "cooked" by social media are in their 30's ,my generation, and up to maybe late 60's.

[immibis]

¿Por que no los dos?

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.

[gspencley]

In most legal jurisdictions that I know of, kids aren't legally allowed to be able to access to pornography either. How is that working out?

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.

[triceratops]

The insistence on perfect age verification requires ending anonymity. Age verification to the level of buying cigarettes or booze does not.

Flash a driver's license at a liquor store to buy a single-use token, good for one year, and access your favorite social media trash. Anonymity is maintained, and most kids are locked out.

In the same way that kids occasionally obtain cigs or beer despite safeguards, sometimes they may get their hands on a code. Prosecute anyone who knowingly sells or gives one to a minor.

[lisbbb]

I don't see the danger of pornography, tbh. Oh, much of it is sick, sure, but violent video games are far more harmful. Would it be better to depict loving, caring relationships? Hell, yes! But there are so few of those these days.

My teenage son struggles to have any meaningful dialog with any of the girls his age. It's like he doesn't exist. The few kids who are "dating" is basically the exact scenario that MGTOW depicts--girls only go for the elite jocks and ignore everyone else like they don't even exist. Everyone is miserable. Many will eventually grow out of it, but I don't think the females will ever view themselves as doing anything but "settling" because of the nonsense programmed into their heads. And yes, social media is largely responsible for how extreme the situation has become. In the 90s, girls were picky, but nothing like now. So all that young men have left is like AI chatbots and porn and it's better to not take that away from them, too.

[oblio]

It could be designed to be anonymous.

Government runs authentication service that has your personal details.

User creates account on platform Y, platform Y asks government service if your age is >18, service says y/n. Platform never finds out your personal details.

OAuth for age verification.

[thfuran]

>The only way to even attempt to enforce these things is with government mandated age verification

Yes, that's what they did.

[protocolture]

Seems like they were particularly angry with our 6 News Aus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6_News_Australia

Where kids were reporting on and educating each other about news and politics.

[chemotaxis]

> I feel like everyone in this thread is assuming this is a good faith move by Australia to help kids in school and with socialization.

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.

[soulofmischief]

This is an extremely unethical experiment.

[lo_zamoyski]

Asking "cui bono?" is always a sound question to ask in a political or commercial context, but it should not be the only one. Don't fall prey to appeal to motive. Even if the motivation is self-serving, it need not be bad per se.

[observationist]

It's four horsemen of the infocalypse 101. Look at the platforms they allowed to continue - discord and roblox, the specific worst of all socials with the most predators, least effective countermeasures.

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.)

[vablings]

> 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.

This is just complete bullshit. Ah yes, my solution to this problem is just to require every single family to be infinitely better in every way imaginable. What is the proposal if that can't happen? We just execute people who don't meet the "stable loving family environment" No doubt in my mind you are from the generation of a stiff upper lip

[jstummbillig]

> I feel like everyone in this thread is assuming this is a good faith move by Australia to help kids in school and with socialization.

Really! My experience is quite the opposite. I see a lot of people explaining why it's a bad idea.

[whompyjaw]

Maybe. Do you forget that people use to not have phones or social media and they still had independent thought? Just because kids aren’t introduced to videos and comments about politics at a young age, doesn’t mean they’re going to be brainwashed by the ruling government. Societies operated just the same before social media.

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

[multiplegeorges]

> they're losing the youth when it comes to long-standing foreign policy positions

It's well known that foreign actors are all over social and that the west's foreign policy is (rightly so!) hostile to them.

[giancarlostoro]

> I don't believe they're overly concerned with "helping the kids" unfortunately

We don't need laws for most things, and yet we've built ourselves a society where everything is a law.

[pokstad]

As someone with kids, I’m really surprised to hear this. I viciously keep my kids off social media. There’s no political connection. It’s a safety and mental health concern.

[energy123]

70-74% of voters in Australia and the UK want this. It's also a bipartisan legislation. It has nothing to do with a conspiracy among politicians.

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.

[dalemhurley]

Clearly this comment is propaganda. This bill had bipartisan support and the Labor government has a significant share of the young voters who are over 18.

[clickety_clack]

I think adults are barely able to take reasoned political positions in today’s online environment, but at least an adult has the experience to make the attempt. Exposing kids to the type of online political persuasion we have today means that we are exposing them to something they have not got the tools to navigate. They just get swept up into whatever the popular idea of the day happens to be. To me, the argument that separating kids from social media separates them from today’s political onslaught is one of the best arguments in favor of it.

[morshu9001]

Yep, ADL and others publicly supported the US TikTok forced-sale specifically because of Israel, including the bill sponsors.

[mbix77]

Maybe they will use more common sense then getting manipulated by bot farms.

[jimbokun]

TikTok is not going to make kids better informed about foreign policy.

[stephen_g]

Yes, specifically Australian Labor hate social media because while they are to the left of the overton window here, in reality they are a centre-right party pretending to be progressive. But social media is where the actual progressive people congregate.

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.

[t0lo]

Congrats for arguing for... enabling child exploitation?

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.

[XorNot]

The policy has like 70% popular support.

"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)

[dmitrygr]

The enemy (AUS) of my enemy (social media's effect on kids) is my friend (this ban). Their motivation is only mildly interesting.

[cess11]

Whether intentional or not, one consequence of a success in this area would be to isolate older people from the views of young people and to stifle the younger generations influence on these communication media in the future.

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.

[Lendal]

I chuckled when I read that, when over-16 is considered elderly.

What will we do when we no longer have the views of 14 year olds at our fingertips? Well, hopefully they will write their views down on notepaper, and in two years we'll hear all about it.

[awesome_dude]

A conspiracy theory? This time of the year? In New hampshire????

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"

[nextstep]

I don’t think the US will ever enact a similar ban. The power to shape young minds is too great, even if these service also increase suicides in children to some degree.

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.

[Nursie]

What "they" want is secondary - it's a pretty popular move here in Australia, it's what people largely want.

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.

[epolanski]

> We've been hearing politicians complain for years that they're losing the youth when it comes to long-standing foreign policy positions, etc...

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.

[solumunus]

I think not letting children get barraged with misinformation and foreign propaganda might help them.

[bdangubic]

unfortunately there is nothing we can do in any society without seeing comments like this… whatever “move” is done comments like this will be there with endless “analysis” about “motivation” for the move… it is what it is…

[feb012025]

The nature of democracy and open dialogue I suppose.

But really, when banning a large portion of the population from social media, political motives should absolutely be entertained. Politics is inextricably related to social media in 2025

[callamdelaney]

"I think drugs are harmful, but I get the sense there's a political motive behind this."

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.