Australia’s parliament has passed a world-first law banning social media for children under 16, putting tech companies on notice to tighten security before a cut-off date that’s yet to be set.
The Senate approved the social media ban late on Thursday, the last sitting day of the year, following months of intense public debate and a rushed parliamentary process that saw the bill introduced, debated and passed within a week.
Under the new law, tech companies must take “reasonable steps” to prevent under-age users from accessing social media services or face fines of nearly 50 million Australian dollars ($32 million).
“We know that social media can be a weapon for bullies, a platform for peer pressure, a driver of anxiety, a vehicle for scammers. And worst of all, a tool for online predators,” he said.
Well intended, but I think the prediction that it will overall be toothless will be the correct one. So many workarounds – a major one being parents who will enable it either intentionally or being complacent of the kid bypassing the block.
The West is far from being able to enforce this heavy of a policy to scale, and frankly I am not sure if it ever will be. Doesn’t matter if this stuff is essentially digital opium, people want the unfettered freedom to consume, for better or worse.
Given the way many parents use their phones as babysitters, it’s bound to be ineffective. But it might make more people aware that early behavior patterns can be harder to fix later on.
HOWEVER, I expect to see constitutional challenges ahead. Because it is a major restriction on free speech. Don’t young 'uns have rights, too?
It sends a message out to parents, at least. Maybe some will start to exercise parental control. Supposedly most Silicon Valley execs won’t let their kids use social media. Cynical nerds.
More should be done about restricting social media. For all of us, not just kids.
Notifications, endless scrolling, algorithms etc. its all designed to keep you addicted and using the apps all day long, with billions of dollars behind its design.
Its turned into something genuinely disruptive and it did not used to be like this, when huge company’s got involved it got enshittified over night. Regulate it more.
The algorithms are out of control now. If you casually click on something with a woman on it your feed will be 100% sluts for months on end and it will take a lot of work to get it back to something normal.
I don’t want to excerpt the entire document. But read it, and you’ll see there are plenty of grounds for concern. Obviously, there is this rider: “(e) Encourage the development of appropriate guidelines for the protection of the child from information and material injurious to his or her well-being, bearing in mind the provisions of articles 13 and 18.”
I don’t think that is a get-out-of-jail card exactly. Because the interpretation of the previous articles will still apply, as will implications of lowering the voting age to 16.
The King will not overturn it otherwise we have a full-blown constitutional crisis.
I’m going to read the whole thing later, but china already has screen time limits for minors on video games and social media.
As to anyone else accusing me of being off topic, I only posted this to show that Australia isn’t the first country in the world to limit social media for minors, china started doing this years ago.
Yeah, I remember a mortifyingly embarrassing moment maybe a year ago where a girl I’d met randomly in a bar was adding her Instagram to my phone at the end of the night, and 90% of the preview videos that showed up on the search function were scantily clad K-pop women dancing.
I barely even used Instagram at the time and don’t think I’d previously watched any such videos on there (I definitely hadn’t made a habit of it!), but obviously nobody is going to believe that, like nobody here will believe that and nor did she. So awkward.
It took me quite a few weeks after that of actively avoiding those videos and deliberately watching other stuff instead to get the algorithm to repopulate that screen with cooking and science videos.
I mean many might disagree but I for one believe limits on children for social media is needed. We got children spending too much time on social media, getting bullied or bullying others, too much stupid TikTok videos.
What extent the regulation should be is something else however.
Would seem to be the opposite, what should have been controlled by parents is now being passed to the state, those parents will now wash their hands of it.
Just don’t use it.
The horror! Just for prevention, what sort of thing would one want to avoid clicking on to prevent one being fed 100% sluts for months on end?
This is a good point. The people who invented social media are capable of banning their own children from using it, one would think other parents could do the same.
I’d guess the parents I see who allow their kids to gaze at cellphones while eating don’t give a toss.
We would hope that parents will do their jobs, but not all will, and their poor parenting leads to social problems. So a matter of time before the state gets involved.
