516
Australia’s teen social media ban is a flop. But there’s no joy in ‘I told you so’ (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
166 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 168 points 7 months ago (73 children)

It was never designed to protect children

Glad to see it's not even working. Let's keep fighting aginst these evil laws

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 73 child comments
    •
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 15 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Former Facebook higher ups have gone on the record to say the Facebook uses destructive algorithms to keep people hooked, they know exactly what they are doing and don't care how it affects us as long as they can squeeze more info from us for more profit. Thinking Silicon Valley tech billionaires actually care about you? Bro, you need to wake up.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    We're talking about Australian legislation not social media itself. The problem is real, the legislation is ineffective and poorly implemented. Calling the legislation evil is a stretch. Modern social media is most certainly evil.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 31 points 7 months ago (36 children)

    There is no problem to solve that hasn't already been addressed with parental controls.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 36 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (20 children)

    There is a problem with social media addiction but the solution isn't restricting teens from it. The solution, as with most things, is education. Educating the kids, educating their parents and making sure they both have the tools available to them to make smart decisions.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 20 child comments
    •
  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    You can't educate someone out of an addiction. That's a fundamental misunderstanding about addiction...

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    No but you can educate their support networks and build other systems to help them work through their addiction.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Or we could focus on preventing the addiction to begin with.

    Great examples include making people wait until adulthood to smoke nicotine or cannabis, or to drink alcohol.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago*

    I don't know how you solve problems, but I certainly don't go all in on the first highly expensive dumb idea I have without researching the fuck out of it first. If our politicians are listening to anything the the social media companies are saying and not assuming everything they say is an attempt to make more money for themselves then we have much bigger problems, namely the suckers we have elected.

    Refining this solution is a terrible idea. It flat out doesn't work, its a non-starter. Prohibition has never worked effectively. The only path this leads to is pushing even more of Australian population's personal data into honey pots and breaking our financial system.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • load more comments (3 replies)
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    Maybe, just maybe, parents shouldn't let their kids in awful places, and also awful places shouldnt let kids in. Turns out parental controls are bullshit, and the only real answer is RTFM or dont use it at all. A business and its customers dont exist without each other, so the blame is on both sides.

    All that said, the government definitely could help the parental understand and controls side of thing too using regulation.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (7 children)

    That's a bit like saying 'there is a problem with smack/nicotine/alcohol addiction, but the solution is not restriction, it's education'. You can educate all you want, but very clever people make a lot of money by saying 'fuck your education'.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
    •
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    But the idea that we just need education is ridiculous. It's the exact defence that the social media platforms espous, because they know it's bullshit and ineffective.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Dunno, I'm not the one paid to come up with solutions. But, at the very least efforts like this teach kids that there is a problem. Like, yeah, we can easily circumvent the measures, but the gov still thinks it necessary to implement them.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Right. But have you ever actually interact with a) children or b) addicts?. Both groups well known for being totally reasonable and receptive to logical arguments! Trying to persuade them that the thing they love is actually causing them harm is nigh on impossible. 'I'm not concerned about her welfare, I'm just being mean'. 'other kids may get addicted, but I'm fine, totally in control'. 'if it was bad there would be laws' Etc etc.

    I'm not Australian, but I can at least referenced the attempt, and the court case in LA when telling the kid to put the tablet down. I'm not saying the law is the end of the matter, but just saying educate your kids is also far from the end, and is the line the social media companies emphasis because it moves the blame from them to parents

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
    load more comments (1 reply)
    • load more comments (1 reply)
    • load more comments (1 reply)
    • load more comments (1 reply)
    • load more comments (2 replies)
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (8 children)

    If you set parental controls on your own teen's device, all you're doing is isolating them from their peers and making them the kid with the weird parent who doesn't let them post on tik tok.

    Social media isn't what it was when we were growing up. It's designed to prey on them the same way slot machines create gambling addictions.

    I'm no puritan but I do truly believe banning kids from social media and restricting teens at a legislative level would be a net benefit for society. Same as alcohol or drugs.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    Prohibition didn't work for drugs either, so why would it work here? Why do we need to learn that lesson over and over again?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Underage drinking is still more common than it should be, despite strict laws. The point is, it doesn't do any good to go after the consumer, regardless of age. in order to make a meaningful impact, legislation would have to destroy or significantly neuter social media companies altogether, globally. Anything else will be a disappointment.

    The more effective way to reduce these harms is through social/cultural change, but that's easier said than done.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    Underage drinking is still more common than it should be,

    Sure, but it's significantly lower than legal drinking.

    We as a society acknowledge the harm of underage drinking so prohibition is effective. Prohibition of adult drinking was puritan bullshit the majority didn't agree with so it didn't work.

    I think you'd find a majority of parents agree social media is shit, but they're unwilling to isolate their child. In this case prohibition would be effective.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    It will be effective if the prohibition takes the form of these companies no longer existing, at least in their current form, OR if the majority turn against them, making them irrelevant. An age gate won't do anything, not on its own

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • load more comments (2 replies)
    • load more comments (2 replies)
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    The issue with this argument is that many kids don’t have good parents, and some don’t have any parents at all.

    Are those kids just supposed to be left to the mercy of bad actors because of their circumstances?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Good intentions without the spirit of cooperation or respect for consent is still evil.

    The main problem with all of these internet surveillance tools being marketed as ways to protect children is that people are engaging with them on that basis.

    As far as I'm concerned they haven't done anything to establish that they actually intend to protect children or that this is a reasonable way to do it. This seems like a solution to a different problem that ignores all of the problems it creates.

    Parents should be responsible for their children. A random website creator shouldn't have to be responsible for your children.

    Websites aren't stores where people walk in off of a public street. They are services that people reach out to and engage with specifically and intentionally. If we can address the non-consensual non-intentionality part of internet tracking and surveillance a lot of this stuff goes away. So maybe rather than regulating the website to protect your children we should be regulating the website to protect consent.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
    load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 52 points 7 months ago (25 children)

    I mean, social media should be banned for everyone, not just teenagers. It's a great evil in the world today, and in a functional democracy that wasn't braindead, we should ban them outright for the mass harm and destruction they have caused.

    That being said, I fully understand that the motivations of countries for these kinds of bans have little to do with the harm of social media and are much more about surveillance.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 25 child comments
    •
  • [–] 22 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    Which type of social media are we referring to here?

    Doesn’t Lemmy count as social media?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    There's a list of 10 or 12 social networks that are banned: YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc.

    Lemmy is still legal.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 18 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Lemmy is legal because it’s too small for them to notice.

    And YouTube is an incredible resource for finding information. It’s not social media at all.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 27 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Its also an incredible resource for finding misinformation and disinformation unfortunately.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago

    That's an issue with any form of information sharing, though. Your local library is full of false information as well, whether that's because it's outdated or because you live somewhere like the US where all school curriculum books have to be approved by a Texas based group per federal law.

    Lies spread faster than the truth, and the internet is great at spreading information.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (15 children)

    It's so bonkers how most of the older generations agree that being on the internet cannot make you social, yet became the default method to communicate.

    Ban it for everyone? I mean, lemmy itself is a social network platform, if you want it to be. But I know what you mean: social media being the most used platforms, Google, Facebook, Tik-Tok, etc . . . And for that, yeah, I do agree with a full ban. We need a cultural reset, where we aren't being fed sensationalist bullshit and pure brainrot as entertainment via an algorithm trained on our insufficient capacity to regulate our attention.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 15 child comments
    •
  • [–] 23 points 7 months ago (11 children)

    In my view social media is probably not the problem, but the algorithms they use that are designed to be addictive and manipulative.

    I saw an article once arguing that the algorithms should be regulated in a similar way to medicine. Give some base ingredients they can use freely (e.g. sort by newest first), then require any others to run studies to prove they are not harmful.

    There would be an expert board that approves or declines the new algorithm in the same way medicines are approved today (the important bit being that they are experts, not politicians making the decision).

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 11 child comments
    •
  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    This is the correct response. Social media, as a construct, is not evil and dos not do harm to anyone. The commodification and commercialisation of social media by capitalistic companies is what has caused the harm we see today.

    All of the harms and evils of social media can be boiled down to a single concept: the algorithm. Because algorithmic recommendation of content wants to encourage people to stay on a platform (for capitalistic reasons), and the most enticing and attention-grabbing content is hate-content, these companies have forced hate-inducing concepts down the throats of people in an endeavour to make more money and destroyed individuals and families/friends in the process.

    If we regulate the algorithms, we regulate the harm without disempowering anyone. We can, and we should, regulate algorithms on social media to turn it back into what it was 20-odd years ago - a measure to keep in touch with people you know or care about.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Social media does cause harm. It tricks you into thinking you are socializing with those near you when you aren't. It tricks you into thinking people are talking in good faith, similar to in person communication. Finally, social media is a huge attack vector for scams and abuse due to the anonymity and ability to connect anywhere in the world.

    All of these things produce an overwhelmingly negative social experience from social media. That wouldn't be a problem if our defining trait wasn't how we socialize in groups. Socializing is as important as water and food for humans.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] a comment that isn't shown here: deleted, from someone you've blocked, or on another page. view the thread from it
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Yes, and if I spend too much time on here it affects my perceptions of people in real life. I do a few other things that aren't really healthy as well. I'm sure I could do better.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
    • load more comments (2 replies)
  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago

    I wish I saw this kind of insightful point of view more often in the discourse over social media. It's stopped being about being social once algorithmic content curation became the norm to drive engagement and advertising money which is the real evil.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    excellent take, I never thought of regulation on something digital like an algorithm (concerning social media) to be, I guess, possible when some government officials barely understand what an IP address is.

    But that's the thing, where's the motivation for this board of experts to exist coming from? There is already plenty of empirical evidence to support the claims of the harms of social media, but in spite of this, change is glacial.

    That is why I just generalize and say that social media is the problem, because most people won't care to hear anything deeper. They are already addicted, and don't care for a cure.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    There is already plenty of empirical evidence to support the claims of the harms of social media, but in spite of this, change is glacial.

    I think at one point you could make the same argument about medicines. The problem is that politicians are appointed with a popularity contest.

    I don't remember all the arguments of the article, but when you think about it, the harms of social media are medical. It's possible that we could expand the scope of the current medicine approval boards to include algorithms, with their job not being to understand the algorithm but to understand the research on mental health.

    I don't have all the answers, but I do think it's an idea worth exploring.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
    • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago

    I agree, social media is harmful for all, no matter the age. We shouldn't be destined to further segment and disfranchise individuals solely because they're "inferior", based on age or any other discriminatory factor - the thing is, who is the victim and who is the abuser in this case? Because the situation at hand seems like the victims are getting punished for the wrongdoings of the abuser.

    This is where we are at, the corporations flipped the script, and we as a society gulped it all down, tightening the handcuffs around the wrong hands.

    But besides the point, relating to the logic within your statement, who are you trying to ban here? Because you mention both "everyone" and "them" - which consequently makes it ambiguous, which introduces double meaning.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent