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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
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[+] -28 points 7 months ago (46 children)

I don't think they are evil. A bunch of people with good intentions who didn't understand the problem are trying to solve it with a gut feeling rather than analysis and evidence. It's really disappoi ting that they would waste so much of our time and money like this.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 31 points 7 months ago (36 children)

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

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (6 children)

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

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    You say that, but evidence shows its not a working solution. Its a piece of legislation that doesn't actually achieve anything close to the desired outcome of stopping a significant number of people under 16 from accessing social media. Further than that, there isn't an actual way to make this work without banning VPNs and implementing a Chinese style great internet filter.

    Nicotine, Cannabis and alcohol are all banned in Australia for under 18s and you are kidding yourself if you think that has had any significant impact on stopping under 18s from getting their mits on them.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    Well, thats what you get when non-tech people try to regulate tech. At least we have correctly identified a problem, and are now trying to solve it.

    Tech companies taking advantage of regulators lack of knowledge to continue abusing their customers is a different problem.

    This solution might not work but we will learn and try something else or refine it until it does work, or until social media somehow isn't predatory and doesnt need the guard rails.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 0 points 7 months ago

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

    I mean, I agree with you, but highschool is a thing... these laws are basically useless to my knowledge. I think about 50% of my grade had smoked weed by tenth grade, and half again were addicted to nicotine by 12th. The only reason I didn't fall victim to those (as many of my friends did), is because I was educated, by my parents, from an early age, about addiction and these substances. I never even tried them, because I knew better, thus never got addicted.

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  • [–] 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'.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (6 children)

    Restriction is fine if it's a workable solution, but this one is not and anyone with half a brain could see that from its very first announcement.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (4 children)

    What's your solution then? Great Chinese internet filter and banning VPNs?

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 0 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Lol almost like education is the solution. Great work!

    Efforts like this teach kids the law is the problem and teaches them to learn how to circumvent it, and in the mean time it also acts as a tracking tool for everyone else in Australia.

    Its problems are numerous, benefits inconsequential and easily replicated through other means, and in your own words the only current solution is to teach kids there's a problem.

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  • [–] 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

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  • [–] 0 points 7 months ago

    I'm not saying "just educate your kids". I'm saying instead of our government putting their effort into a pointless and likely quite harmful law, they should have looked into developing a useful education program for both parents and children that looks to raise the bar of how our population interacts with social media. Its not a short term solution but it is most certainly an effective long term solution. The current ban isn't even a good short term solution. It does nothing but 1) teach kids that our laws are dumb and should be bypassed, 2) disconnect disadvantaged and isolated kids from their support networks and 3) invade the privacy of all Australians.

    Arguably banning the current social media business models altogether for everyone would be a better solution but that has similar issues to the current under 16s ban. How do even enforce it without also banning VPNs?

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    Surely there's always time for both the kids and parents to set aside to learn every new technology and the appropriate controls to restrict them.

    And when someone says it makes far more sense to just not give their kids said technology until they are older, we have people like you arguing on behalf of the technology.

    Aww poor little facebook, we dont want to hurt its fee-fees! Let's just give it another chance! I'm sure we can trust it this time if we just learn how to use it right!

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    How am I arguing on behalf of the technology? I want people to understand the technology so they know how to protect themselves effectively if they use it and so can make effective decisions on how their kids interact with it.

    The technology sucks, but the technology is not going away and any fucking moron can bypass the age verification. If you think age verification is stopping teenagers from using tiktok then you're an idiot. I'm arguing that the implemented solution is not in fact anything close to a solution, and that pulling this thread and trying to implement something in the same vein that would actually work is a terrible idea because it fucks the privacy of every Australian on the internet, even more so than the current solution.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 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?

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (4 children)

    Prohibition didn't work for drugs either

    I didn't realize it was common for 14 year olds to drink alcohol and take heroin where you're from...

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 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

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  • [–] 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?

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Guess we just let for profit companies and authoritarian states suck up all the data on everyone whether it works or not then.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    I didn’t say I approve of the current tactics, I’m just pointing out that circumstances can be more complex than simply saying ‘let the parents sort it out’ and leaving it at that.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] -1 points 7 months ago

    I don't agree that the legislators left the spirit of cooperation or respect for consent out because they are evil, I think they left them out because they are ignorant. I think they are inexperienced with both technology and social media and have failed to appropriately engage people that might have helped them come up with a functional solution rather than an ineffective brute force.

    I do however agree with everything else you've said above.

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