Taking away their freedoms is the wrong approach. They need to go after the social media companies for not protecting users from harm, regardless of age. The platform needs to be the start of regulation, not the citizen.

👏👏👏👍

It is probably not going to succeed; young people are approximately the only minority whose rights can be restricted completely arbitrarily and which tends to have fewer, not more, rights over time. But still a good thing to try and I wish them the greatest success.

If this law had even a tiny bit to do with protecting children they might start considering all the perverse incentives and counterintuitive outcomes. But since it is just a surveillance measure that they are couching in "won't somebody think of the children" they do not give a fuck.

The real players pushing this are unelected members of the intelligence community who are entirely insulated from accountability so they are going to push until they get their way no matter what it costs the country or how many politicians it costs their positions and/or souls.

Reality is social media companies are publishing companies and need to held to the same standards as publishers.

Is there a right to communication medium?

Just to be absurdly weird: Spent shell casings with writing on them seem fair to ban. Maybe? I dunno. (I’m just being cheeky)

This also reminds me of “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.”

Surprised to see so many people on Lemmy in favour of social media. It's horrendous for everybody, adults and children alike. I don't think kids should be on there.

Usually for things like this, I'd be fine with parents handling it and controlling their own kids' access. But social media is too pervasive, you'd turn your kid into an outcast if they didn't have it when 96% of their peers did.

Good on them. Wish there was more details on how to support them.

What I find fascinating about this whole thing is the almost universal simping that has occurred in defence of these large websites like Facebook, Twitter (X), Reddit etc. I find it amusing that people who would decry using these large websites suddenly need to defend them.

It's pretty depressing to see how many people have been ignoring the genuine harm that can occur using social media. During recent filings in the US, Meta hid and defunded research that showed a causal relationship with mental health and social media usage in under 13's along a myriad of other issues identified.

These new restrictions aren't perfect and really should be reviewed in the future, however something does need to happen and asking the industry to self regulate has resulted in no meaningful changes occurring.

Good on em, parents should be regulating internet access and not the govt

It’s a blunt tool, sure…because it’s not intended to target people with the resources and wherewithal to organize a lawsuit against the government.

Problem is that the vast vast vast majority of kids under 16 see literally no upside from social media.

Have to fo old school.with SMS

Or any one of a zillion other ways like.signal or whatsapp or Telegram or whatever.

Would be more logical to just ban smart phones from teenagers. There's lots more harmful things there than just social media.

They can use dumb phones thus not violating their right to communicate.

Grow up addicts. You can communicate with tons of other apps.

Legally our constitution has very few rights in its texts, stuff like freedom of speech are added on top via 'implied rights' which come about due to other laws or commitments (e.g. UDHR). I do wonder what legally challenging a violation of such a nebulous concept entails, but good luck to them and fuck the bans.