Whether this is good or terrible honestly kind of depends on how they define social media. Is discord social media? Are forums? Is Reddit?
Arguably nobody really benefits from exposing children to feeds full of toxic and angry adults, but that doesn’t mean no communities should allow children. Like, there’s nothing wrong with kids dipping their toes into the Internet and learning and growing from it, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the best thing to just hand them the keys to the worst elements.
Also like, I prefer adult communities over all age communities by a long shot.
This seems like it’s going to be really bad for LGBTQ+ minors. Finding community online at around 13-14yo literally saved my life.
And they expect that a 16-year-old won’t figure that out…
I guess we’ll see what happens.
Unlike in the past, current-day teenagers are less technologically competent than older people. The vast majority will not be able to figure it out, especially those who were using TikTok as a search engine (I wish I was making this up).
You are correct.
Gen-X and older mostly had computers come into their lives during adulthood. It’s something they had to force themselves to be familiar with.
Millennials grew up with Computers. Most of us had the Internet by the time we were tweens/teens. We had to learn shit as it was created. We remember all the weird little iterations in tech, and know lots of ways to use a computer. We had to know how the computer worked to use it!
Gen-Z and younger grew up immersed in fully corporatized technology. The iPhone turns 18 years old next year - there’s not a child alive who remembers a time before the iPhone. Nearly every computer they touch was designed to be as easy to use as possible.
While many of us remember running “install.exe” files from floppies to install software in DOS, kids now literally just browse a bunch of colorful icons with “install” buttons beside them.
I grew up in a world that prioritized computers for learning. We now live in a world that prioritizes computers for entertainment and profit. I used to have to go out of my way to find community online, now I have to go out of my way to escape the largest, most corporately controlled communities online.
Wonder how it’s actually going to be enforced. Judging from the article, it’ll all be up to the tech companies themselves which historically didn’t turn out to be that effective (examples: age fields on services like Discord and Gmail and porn).
The only effective way I can think of is having to send a picture of your ID but that’s hella invasive
There are existing systems that use a digital token created with the ID document. Only this token that confirms the user’s age is sent to the social media site, which means its minimally privacy invasive. Unfortunately, it seems like nothing like this is planned to be used in Australia.
Someone still needs to create that digital token from your ID, which means someone’s still using and storing your data, and potentially selling it or having it leaked.
That’s just the reality of doing business on the Internet. This is by far the best way of doing it right now, not that this information appears to have made it down under so far.
While Australia’s new legislation is ham-fisted and poorly thought out, the intent isn’t wrong and there’s broad consensus for it (77% approval in Australia). We need to do something about the uncontrolled exploitation, manipulation and endangerment of minors by social media services. Corporations are clearly not interested in protecting them and parents are obviously incapable of it as well (although I could have told you the same thing 20 years ago). That’s precisely the kind of issue where the government is supposed to step in with regulation of some sort.
That’s just the reality of doing business on the Internet.
That’s just not true. You can absolutely get by on the internet remaining pretty much anonymous, as it is. Very few services need (and verify) your personal data; when they do it’s basically always when it’s government-mandated, and it’s for things that have a “physical” equivalent.
i.e. creating a bank account online requires your actual ID, but so it would if you tried to do it “offline” in a physical bank (and you largely have a choice on whether or not you do it online).
Then you have stuff like online shopping and such where most people probably use their actual personal information but you don’t have to and it’s generally not checked.
This is an unprecedented change, where suddenly for access to a free service someone needs to ask for and validate some very private details. And it fucking sucks.
While Australia’s new legislation is ham-fisted and poorly thought out, the intent isn’t wrong and there’s broad consensus for it (77% approval in Australia). We need to do something about the uncontrolled exploitation, manipulation and endangerment of minors by social media services.
That’s the issue though; I agree that something needs to be done, but you need to do it more or less correctly on the first try or you’ll probably make it even worse.
Letting natural consequence play its part is better than accidentally making things worse. And doing things right the first time, in a skilled and quick manner, is better than letting a mess remain as it is.
