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Australia

Big Tech Slams Australia's Youth Social Media Ban 128

Major technology companies criticized Australia's new law banning social media access for users under 16, which passed parliament on Thursday with bipartisan support. The legislation threatens fines up to $32 million for platforms failing to block minors. TikTok warned the ban could drive young users to riskier online spaces, while Meta called it a "predetermined process," questioning the rushed parliamentary review that gave stakeholders only 24 hours for submissions. Reuters adds: Snapchat parent Snap said it leaves many questions unanswered. [...] Sunita Bose, managing director of Digital Industry Group, which has most social media companies as members, said no one can confidently explain how the law will work in practice. "The community and platforms are in the dark about what exactly is required of them," she said.

Big Tech Slams Australia's Youth Social Media Ban

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  • Fox ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @10:06AM (#64979267) Journal
    ... slams hen house security measures. News at 11!
    • by MeNeXT ( 200840 )

      What security feature?

      Your comment should read; Hens put up tissue paper fence to keep out foxes and close their eyes as chicks walk through and play with foxes, wolves and bears.

  • by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @10:07AM (#64979273)

    They're angry at the reduced opportunity to condition children to accept zero privacy as normal. They're upset at the lost data mining and advertising opportunities.

    They absolutely do not give one shit about the mental health of a kid exposed to finely tuned click bait.

    If you're pissing off social media giants, you're doing something very, very right.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      They're angry at the reduced opportunity to condition children to accept zero privacy as normal.

      Except this law does the opposite: it removes privacy from children (and, in the zeal to verify the age of everybody who connects to the internet, also removes privacy from everybody else).

      • by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @10:35AM (#64979327) Journal

        The only other solutions are:

        1. Regulate these platforms, placing limits on content - in other words censorship
        2. Do nothing, and just accept the harmful effects

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by vinnak ( 10164495 )

          > 2. Do nothing, and just accept the harmful effects

          A perpetually undervalued option!

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Zocalo ( 252965 )
          3. Require parents (or legal guardians) to actually take responsibility for being a parent. maybe by making them at least partly responsible for their offspring's misdeeds while they are still legally a minor (subject to due process, naturally).

          Kids are well aware of Real World Shit at an earlier age than many people, and especially parents, like to think, and that includes a LOT of topics that might not be a parent's first choice to talk about, but it's still a much better option than them finding out t
        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by DMDx86 ( 17373 )

          3. Let parents actually you know, parent their children. The entirety of Australia's underage are not collectively wards of the state, at least I hope that's not what people think.

        • Or:

          3. Remember what genX and every generation before had drilled into us: "Stick and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.", and pull the sticks out of their asses wrt/ people reading wrongthink online, teach the kids that there are always assholes out there and you can't let their assholery dominate your own psyche, and to develop the thick skin and self-reliance that seem to have fallen out of fashion after the 1990s.

          And before you make the obvious retort about the nastiness of some peop

        • I dont really see a problem with censoring what kids can see. We already place restriction on other media , ie forbidding showing porn to kids and forbidding certain adult rated conventional movies for kids under 16. It doesn't require we restrict what adults see, just throw some filters on what we show kids.

          Regardless, this blunt instrument is going to have bad side effects. A friend of mine has a kid with pretty severe autism .
          The kid was borderline nonverbal, until his parents found a minecraft server f

    • No one is forcing you to upload your private life to social media. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc. can be used in perfect anonymity aside from the background scripts that can appear on any other webpage. The only reason people put private stuff there is due to their own narcissicm.
      But you know what erodes my privacy? Having to provide a cellphone number or a government issued id for verification to those very same companies.

      • by SerpentMage ( 13390 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @10:43AM (#64979345)

        Not really. They all demand certain hooks that will give up your identity. For if they allowed truly anonymous behaviour I could visit twitter without an account. Try visiting and seeing content on Facebook or Twitter without an account. Reddit will allow it for the most part, but Instagram nags you. The others just say log in to see this content.

        • A business that uses Facebook as it's sole internet presence does not get my business. Quit being a cheapass and get a real web hosting provider! "lOg oN tO sEe tHiS cOntEnT" - get bent.
      • If you think you can use social media anonymously, then god dam you're the dumbest person in the history of flagrantly willful dumbasses.

        • by DMDx86 ( 17373 )

          Millions of people do it everyday. Maybe you can gaslight Aussies into accepting a "papers please" Great Firewall but you won't do it to the rest of us.

        • What's "great" is that you are prevented from finding out (through incognito) that your posts are getting ghosted/shadowbanned when you need to log on to even see any content, and account creation needs your real world information.

          "Haha, let's just stick this stoop inside a soundproof bubble. He'll never know!")

      • by higuita ( 129722 )

        other than some government sites, i have no site that require me to give them any government issued IDs
        those that require phone, i either give a fake number or i usually simply don't use them (i have some exceptions, but few)
        and no, i don't use social networks sites

      • No one is forcing you to upload your private life to social media

        Wrong. Oh, so wrong.

        Facebook has been using other people's willfully submitted data to build shadow profiles of people who refuse to hand it over for years. Other social media companies do this too. It's not just limited to social media companies either. There's entire markets for buying people's info and plenty of info brokers, all looking to get at what you try to keep hidden from them bit by bit, and AIs who's sole job is to try and extrapolate more. You don't get a choice. You can refuse, but they'll

    • by SerpentMage ( 13390 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @10:39AM (#64979341)

      DUDE you nailed it! If social media really cared they would have done this already. But they realize it will lead to less clicks, less addictions.

      How less addictions? Because kids will have to find other means to amuse themselves. You know like maybe going outside? Doing sports? Having a hobby? There have been quite a few studies that have indicated social media at such a young age is not good for the development of the mind. Once you are older it is less problematic.

    • The social media cartel is a bunch of self serving cunts for sure. But I think this ban made social media even "cooler".

      The old forbidden fruit syndrome.

  • by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @10:27AM (#64979309) Homepage

    What this means is that pseudoanonymity is dead. In order to be on social media, you will have to prove your identity, which will then be tied to your account. This will be valuable, saleable information for the social media sites. The big tech companies are secretly thanking the Aussies for this gift. Frankly, I'd have a close look at the bank accounts of the politicians who pushed this...

    Also, the information will inevitably leak or be stolen - meaning that effectively every social media user will be doxxed.

  • News at 11 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @10:34AM (#64979319) Journal

    Cigarette companies slam bans on selling cigarettes to minors...

  • Pushing people into unregulated spaces will backfire.
  • by fru1tcake ( 1152595 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @10:40AM (#64979343)
    Regardless of what you think about the practicalities of enforcing such or law, or the ethics of limiting children's access to things, these companies do not deserve any sympathy, nor even any say on this matter. They have had years in which to make their products safer but done the bare minimum, instead investing in making them more and more addictive, because profits.
    • by MeNeXT ( 200840 )

      I'm glad that we managed to shutdown thepiratebay with such effective laws. /s

      Pretending to fix something does not solve the problem. I believe this is theatre. There is more money to be made from identifying users than protecting children. If we pretend that something is being done to appease the masses then we can get laws passed indirectly. I'm pretty sure that some time in the future we will find that this was initiated by social media the same way as recycling plastic was by the oil industry.

    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      I'm evidently missing the joke. What part was funny?

  • by J. L. Tympanum ( 39265 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @10:54AM (#64979365)

    "Major technology companies criticized Australia's new law ..."

    Because of course they did.

  • by PseudoThink ( 576121 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @11:12AM (#64979397)

    Maybe if "major technology companies" didn't consistently and obviously act in bad faith, anyone else would give a shit.

    Them: Social media isn't harmful [apa.org].

    Also Them: Using every addictive design tactic they can get away with to improve engagement [harvard.edu].

    • No, it is parents that act in bad faith. They force themselves upon children to, kind of, get meaning and purpose in life. At the same time they don't give a flying fuck if the child wants to grow up with them or in the social context the parents force the child to grow up in.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 29, 2024 @11:15AM (#64979403)
    I remember being told at Sunday school by a priest that: "... there is nothing like a child's faith". I didn't completely understand what he meant since I was rather young at the time but it stuck with me because even at that age it sounded iffy to me. A few years later it hit me that what the guy meant is that any kind of indoctrination is most successful if you start it during early childhood. The same applies to all other things, whether it is a conspiracy theorists, a political movement with an agenda or an advertising company. Big Tech are peddlers of all three of these, and a whole lot of other types of electronic sewage sloshing around on the internet so I can only imagine that Big Tech are about as pissed off by the loss of their ability to indoctrinate children being limited as the the church in my country was when they were no longer allowed to use public schools to indoctrinate other people's children without the consent of their parents.
  • by Lobotomy656 ( 7554372 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @11:36AM (#64979441)
    Why should we care what a big tech corpo thinks. Multiple studies shown that Social Media is cancer, makes people unhappy and for youths it's even worse. Companies would still be selling asbestos lining and leaded fuel if we let them.They don't have and never will have community interest at the list of their priorities. That's why as much as I'd like to have a small government it's just not realistic when greed is the name of the game.
  • It's a good thing my social contacts involve restaurants and pubs, no need for identification there, and good food has always been good for my mental health.
    Kids should try engaging in ways that don't involve electronics, preferably by following good examples from adults.

    • It's a good thing my social contacts involve restaurants and pubs, no need for identification there.

      Well, you are there in person. They can see whether you're underage by looking at you.

      Here in the US a bar will ask for ID if you look young.

    • "Kids should try engaging in ways that don't involve electronics, preferably by following *good examples from adults.*"

      Incidentally, I want a unicorn and I hope Santa Claus finally brings me all of those presents I had on my wish lists of Christmases past that he failed to deliver.

      (Assuming you are talking about the US)

  • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @11:57AM (#64979473)

    TikTok warned the ban could drive young users to riskier online spaces

    ..says the asshat of asshats creating the worst of online spaces for kids.

    I’d suggest the owners of Tik Tok look in the mirror, but that’s reserved for creatures that have a reflection.

  • The latest in a long list of things that are corrupting our youth (rap music, video games, rock music, pinball games, horror movies, comic books, sock hops) yet somehow they survive and become functioning adults and no one worries about those things any more.

    • Throughout history, parents just wanted kids who would just shut up and do what they are told. "Just be a dull, safe little robot, Junior."
  • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @12:07PM (#64979511)

    puts me in favour of this law.

  • Big tech (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @12:23PM (#64979553) Homepage

    I've been noticing lately that when "Big Tech slams $THING", I find myself approving of $THING. Funny how that is.

  • Little Chuckums wants to be cool, so he sneaks up a social media account for himself because all of the cool kids are doing it. Only the uncool Mama's boys/teacher's pets are obeying the ban.
  • It's getting a little sickening. Lil bit.
  • by RossCWilliams ( 5513152 ) on Friday November 29, 2024 @02:09PM (#64979849)

    There seem to be an awful lot of effort put into preventing people from listening to music or reading material or using software without a proper "license". Of course, not entirely successfully and you can make the argument that intellectual property is an oxymoron. But none of the companies providng these things for a fee seem to find people's need to identify themselves as a barrier to collecting their fee.

    If you accept that kids use of social media is damaging then we can figure out a way to reduce their access to it. That will necessarily entail people who use social media to "prove" they are adults. Much as someone trying to buy alcohol needs an ID. Or someone who logs into a streaming service needs to provide an ID.

    There are lots of options for accomplishing that. But opponents are using that reality to try to oppose the regulation and get it repealed. They are looking for problems with solutions because they don't want the problem solved.

  • Some seem to be suggesting that this is a crutch for bad parenting, that parents should be responsible for their childrenâ(TM)s use and access to harmful content, full stop. I would suggest this kind of public ban supports Parents in that responsibility. Parents have to constantly walk a thin line between enforcing or encouraging healthy environments for their children, and allowing their children to conform to social norms so they feel included. If every child has a smart phone by age 10, the choice i
  • Who would have thought that these companies would object to any curtailment of their parasitic behaviour?

    Yet another case where two of the greatest quotes apply:

    Basil's comment on Sybil ("Can't we get you on Mastermind, Sybil? Next contestant - Sybil Fawlty from Torquay. Special subject - the bleedin' obvious.")

    and Mandy ** "Well he would say that, wouldn't he?"

    ** this is actually a slight misquote - but often used.

  • house, then whatever is to become of freedom
  • Big tobacco slams lung cancer research.
    Film at 11.

  • As a parent of teens I fully endorse this. Social media is designed for adults to find and connect with people they may not know in real life. For kids we should want the exact opposite. Their posts should only be able to go to a private and known group of users; their friends. Messaging platforms like Meet and WhatsApp, though not perfect, fit the bill far better but good luck convincing your child to use those when all of their friends are already on Snapchat. This is a bold move by a govt, and instead of

I'd rather just believe that it's done by little elves running around.

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