Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I agree. It's where I think the content approach in the UK is so problematic - especially stuff like content that is lawful but harmful. I get the motivation and very often it was well-intentioned and from a family who had suffered an awful event and campaigning to prevent it from ever happening again. For example stuff around eating disorder content or self-harm content - I get thatit's politically difficult to say no. But that is also the job of elected politicians because laws aren't powered by good intentions.

Although on the definition point I think that sort of problem doesn't worry me so much. To an extent that's exactly what courts are for - working out what a statute means and we've a very long body of judgements from courts working out what is and isn't obscene for examle.

[Jacob]

I'm not particularly up on the particulars of Australia's social media ban, so...

How does it have a high cost and infringe on everyone's freedom?

How is it trivial to circumvent, so teens will use it all the time anyways? Is there an off the shelf VPN solution that allows you to use all you pre existing accounts etc?

[Valmy]

How does it have a high cost and infringe on everyone's freedom?

How is it trivial to circumvent, so teens will use it all the time anyways? Is there an off the shelf VPN solution that allows you to use all you pre existing accounts etc?

There are an infinite number of potential social media options Teens who want to use social media can use. And most of it will barely be recognizable as social media to the Boomers trying to enact this policy. And attempts to enforce it will require tons of virtual ID checks and personal information being stored to monitor who is using what. And all this information will be easily stolen and used by nefarious actors all over the world.

I mean we have a minor porn ban and virtual ID requirement in Texas. All it has done is shut down Pornhub in Texas. But the internet is full of porn of every variety, not just from a few famous websites. My 15 year old son is constantly exposed to thirst traps that I doubt anybody would even consider porn but it is obviously inappropriate content for minors. It is a fools errand. But wow is our personal privacy and data going to suffer tremendously.

[Jacob]

There are an infinite number of potential social media options Teens who want to use social media can use. And most of it will barely be recognizable as social media to the Boomers trying to enact this policy. And attempts to enforce it will require tons of virtual ID checks and personal information being stored to monitor who is using what. And all this information will be easily stolen and used by nefarious actors all over the world.

I mean we have a minor porn ban and virtual ID requirement in Texas. All it has done is shut down Pornhub in Texas. But the internet is full of porn of every variety, not just from a few famous websites. My 15 year old son is constantly exposed to thirst traps that I doubt anybody would even consider porn but it is obviously inappropriate content for minors. It is a fools errand. But wow is our personal privacy and data going to suffer tremendously.

I think there's a massive difference between restricting social media and restricting porn.

When it comes to porn, typically consuming it is a solitary activity and porn from one place is as good as porn from any other place (subject to taste and quality concerns). Porn is often shared around for free, and typically the producers are located overseas. I agree that trying to stop it is essentially like building a chain link fence to stop a flood.

Social media, I think, is different. The key part of social media is the network effect. You want to be on the same social network as your peer group and where all the "cool influencers" are. This means that a dodgy social network in China isn't going to replace Instagram for you unless everyone you care about go there as well.

Secondly, while social media companies tend to be slippery and unethical they're still easier to come to grips with than porn producers. If Twitter or Tik-Tok fail to put in adequate controls to adhere to the law the government can levy significant fines or even turn them off altogether.

Maybe it'll be as easy to sidestep as everyone gets a VPN and uses their old accounts, or maybe it'll be trivial to make a new account pretending to be older and everyone will just reconnect. I guess we'll see. But I do think that the characteristics of social media makes it more susceptible to control than porn.

[HVC]

On the social media side of things would it be easier to lock out phones. Something like provider side parental control that parents option when the activate the phone number? There's a lot less social media option then there are porn options so easier to control. Has the benefit of not having to track users trying to figure out what agree they are or having to provide personal information.

[Jacob]

On the social media side of things would it be easier to lock out phones. Something like provider side parental control that parents option when the activate the phone number? There's a lot less social media option then there are porn options so easier to control. Has the benefit of not having to track users trying to figure out what agree they are or having to provide personal information.

Yeah that seems like a reasonable place to start