Australia to ban under-16s from social media – but can't say how TikTok | Hacker News Reader

Australia to ban under-16s from social media – but can't say how TikTok

theguardian.com

19 pointspaulpauper12 comments

I love a ban on social media for kids (although 16 is a bit high, I had my own apartment at 16), but it's unenforceable without draconian measures typical of Australia:

> Albanese and the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, did not rule out the potential for social media users to have their faces subject to biometric scanning, for online platforms to verify users’ ages using a government database, or for all social media users – regardless of age – being subject to age checks, only saying it would be up to tech companies to set their own processes.

The real help is that a ban on kids having accounts SHOULD mean a ban against advertising TO children with accounts.

While reading this, I was interested in the "double-blind tokenised approach" of age confirmation that guarantees privacy. I think it is described here: https://avpassociation.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Specif... It seems quite a good idea to me. It would be great if that was implemented, instead of 'dumb' requirement for everyone to upload ID to check for age.

I completely agree, it is absolutely not necessary to provide ID in order to assert some property securely and anonymously.

The cryptographer Jan Camenisch has done a lot of good work in this area [1], including IdentityMixer and Direct Anonymous Attestation.

The scheme you link above seems to provide at least pseudonymous age proof, and does not allow the verifier to track what you visit. It's not clear to me whether it prevents linkability (i.e. although a site doesnt know who you are, they could link each time the same pseudonymous visitor connects).

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Camenisch

banning won't help. kids today can easily bypass it. not to mention some apps have logged out experience. nice try but unrealistic

You’ll never be able to completely ban it, but you can probably make it hard enough to use that it will go back to a niche thing among kids the way internet forums were when I was in high school.

Fine the parents. Start light, but get to serious amounts real quick for recidivists.

Technical solutions to cultural problems are never going to fit.

How would that be enforced? Would teachers snitch their students out to the police for logging into Snapchat? Cops stopping kids and searching their phones if there's probable cause they're using social media?

And realistically, a lot of the parents catching these fines and recidivizing would be those of lesser means. Single parents, households where both parents have difficulty being home, low income parents in general. It'd basically be another poor tax.

I guess opportunistic fining and wide publicity would be more than enough.

It's only a poor tax if you make it so. The fines are proportional to net income.

cool, let's also fine them if their kids consume porn and M/AO video games

(let me guess, that's totally different because you don't find those things objectionable)

You're mostly right. The ban should be on addictive media, not "social" media only.

For european like me: M and AO are rating for video games. Mass effect is a M-rated game, so in the US, you can't buy it unless you're like 17.

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