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Comment by boudin | Hacker News Reader

There are multiple studies showing the negative impact of social media on teen's health. It's not about censorship but about forcing companies that don't care at all to be held accountable.

I'm not sure the approach taken by Australia will be effective (i'm not sure how it can be implemented), but i don't see the problem with doing something against harmful companies like meta, tiktok, x/twitter

One of the study https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10476631/

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If you don't want your kid using the internet then don't let them. No need to throw the whole society under the bus.

We're talking about social media here. There's nothing throwing the whole society under the bus.

I don't agree with the approach from the Australian government and I don't see that at being effective but regulating shady companies using deceptive techniques to maximise their profit is a necessary thing.

Personally I think differentiating impact on kids/teens and adult is a mistake and the approach should be around really strict control on data collection as well as strict control on the use/abuse of manipulative techniques to create addictions.

The evidence this stuff is harming mental health is weak. We also shouldn't let academics with manipulative studies undermine freedom in society.

Maybe manageable till they're 11 or 12, but after that there are just too many internet-enabled devices out there in the world for a parent to police.

So the government is going to manage that better? It is funny there is a push to lower the voting age to 16 but also this push to keep adolescents away from information about the world until that age.

The decision Australia is making is not an individual one. It’s a societal one. It’s “do we want our kids to grow up in a society free of social media”.

Australia tends to be more willing to make collectivist decisions like this, unlike America which places immense value on individual choice.

Australia didn't make this decision collectively, some politicians who read Haidt's book did.

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