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Comment by afavour | Hacker News Reader

> My personal hunch is legacy media is largely driving this

The level of conspiracy theory about the “mainstream media” feels out of control at times. Legacy media’s control over the population is already gone (as you stated), with what leverage would they be forcing this?

Occam’s Razor: voters are genuinely concerned about the effect social media is having on kids. As a parent I hear about these concerns a lot. That is what is driving this, no matter how badly thought out the implementation is.

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Australia doesn't (yet) have a thriving podcast and 'new media' landscape as the US recently discovered it had. Many Australians get their news from one of two large companies (News Corp and Nine Entertainment). Those companies therefore still have massive influence over electorates and therefore over politicians.

From the 2 minute mark in this video explains some of the scheming that had been going on: https://twitter.com/ABCmediawatch/status/1860995847418474952

Watched video. The case is basically open and shut. This is why this ban came out of nowhere and why they hustled and sweated to get this of all things done in record time (for Australia).

Have to say, it is kind of genius of the legacy media and kind of chilling to see the naked face corruption like this.

One thing I don't understand: if you and other parents are so concerned about this... why let your children use those sites?

This feels equivalent to “if you don’t like smoking, just don’t smoke”.

Like I said in my original post I don’t think this stuff is specific to kids. I think social media has an equivalent to “second hand smoke” that poisons society whether or not we individually engage with it. And yes, classrooms are full of it.

You'd presumably advocate for banning it for everyone, then? If so, might I ask how you'd define 'social media'? Presumably Facebook counts. Does HN, or Discord?

No, I wouldn’t:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42266169

Oh good. I fully agree with that comment.

This describes the exact purpose of the law: to stop letting kids use those sites.

My very strict uncle was adamant that my cousins stay off Facebook when they were kids. They got on anyway. When he eventually found out, it was a bad situation. If he couldn't stop his kids from getting on, only the websites themselves can.

> My very strict uncle was adamant ... When he eventually found out, it was a bad situation.

These might be related. Of course kids will respond that way to severe strictness - it tends to happen with anything a parent acts that way about, whether it's social media, smoking, or simply hanging out with a particular group of people.

This is, still, the fault of the parent.

I'm assuming you don't have kids? It's impossible to stop them, both on a technical and social level. You'd guarantee a destroyed relationship with your kids if trying to do so without their consent.

I'd think forcing the kids to turn off the light at 11pm or eat fish or whatever is worse than dns blocking Facebook, from the kids perspective.

Peer pressure will cause many children banned from using social media to work around the ban.

> voters are genuinely concerned about the effect social media is having on kids.

But where are they hearing about these effects that get them so concerned? Is it the Australian news?

Australian news is fairly concentrated and is mostly owned by one family. A family that got a law passed forcing only Google and Facebook to pay pretty much only them.

The conspiracy isn't that far fetched.

> But where are they hearing about these effects that get them so concerned? Is it the Australian news?

Their friends who have kids?

People still talk to other people.

> But where are they hearing about these effects that get them so concerned?

From real life? I know parents of middle school and up kids and they have first hand experience of the effects of social media and I’ve heard very little that’s positive.

I’m not saying the media aren’t trying to influence people but again, Occam’s razor: I really don’t think these parents need Rupert Murdoch whispering in their ear to be concerned about social media and kids.

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