Streaming platform Twitch added to Australia's teen social media ban
bbc.com
bbc.com
Edit: I can definitely see them banning anything related to Linux and resources related to OSes because of how processes can be handled, e.g. "kill parent", "kill child", and so on. The term "kill" already has to be censored out on many websites. Of course context matters, but people really have difficulties with this these days.
Perhaps it's predictive power is not as expansive as you think.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/uk-police-distance-themselves-...
Allowing everything from everyone doesn't automagically make "us" the good guys
I never implied this, that would be silly on many fronts.
Are you in favor of Chat Control or not? Why?
I am just not swayed by the slippery slope argument because as someone else said, it can be used for anything.
I do not care about Twitch and I consider Facebook outright harmful, but I do not think they should be banned. I have not fully read the article, but I bet it is "think of the children", a really old justification for "I want more control", a classic power grab.
Then they forbade kids to drink, and I said nothing
Then they prevented kids to watch porn, I said nothing
And when the time came for me to complain about the price of cigarettes and booze, there weren't any kids to say anything.
Or something like that
What they mean is quit predatory electronic platforms that only exist to make you addicted so they can use your life and data as a money cow. HN is a dinosaur from the age when forums were just bunch of nerds and geeks talking about computers and stuff.
2) but even as such I don’t consider HN to be a social media platform. It’s more of an RSS feed/forum + comments. Sure it’s a social media platform in the clinical definition. But there are no dark patterns AFAICT, no explicit advertisements to support funding, no corporate-powered psy-op campaigns to sway public opinion.
Some parents make sure their kids get amphetamines before puberty, or testosterone shots. Just so that they come out on top in comparison. If it's not enough, some go as far as to sabotage other families and to poison other kids.
This whole social media thing is all that on a global scale. Just a bit more subtle in the early days. But it's still poisoning teens.
It's no more than that; sleazy, overwrought, raunchy.
It reduced overall competence which means it kept even the top far below potential. But to them it's enough, and the rest only cares for fun, anyway.
We will never see what could have been. It's not even future generations' luck that it's so obvious. Nothing can be learned from this that would stop the toxicity. Just fall in line and be boringly, hyper-relatablablaby awesome.
It's a showgirl's kind of world. /wu˞…/
(still hitting that depressed tone instead of that cynic, 'noir' kind. Ffs, it's creeping all over me.)
https://anzsog.edu.au/research-insights-and-resources/resear...
It's a case of people not understanding what age verification means (you are collecting everyone's ID to do it) and/or nor caring because "they don't use that Internet".
There's going to be a lot whinging once a bunch of boomers and boomer-millennials see an age check prompt on Facebook.
As I understand it, it bans kids from creating an account. They can still doom scroll or waste their life watching reels without a login, don't they?
This may push social media back to making their content accessible without an account :)
I tried donating via one of these a while ago and got stopped by a requirement to link a Twitch account. Could you give an example of a donation page on there without that requirement?
It’ll certainly be interesting to see how this plays out - I feel like Twitch reaches such a large and diverse demographic that the response will be palpable.
I haven’t looked, but I’m assuming this ban already applies to YouTube, right?
But of course those alternatives would also be banned at some point in time.
Apparently someone from the government looks at the site and assesses how 'core' the online social interaction is to the site.
Banned: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, Reddit, Kick and Twitch
Not banned (yet): Pintrest, YouTube Kids, Google Classroom, WhatsApp, Discord, online games like Roblox, AI chat.
The term "online social interaction" keeps getting thrown around as if that's inherently a bad thing. For some teens, that's one of their biggest social outlets outside of school, and that is not necessarily bad even if sometimes bad things happen online. What is bad is when parents don't take an interest in their kids and what they're up to, but you can't legislate for that.
Given how fucked up the recent generation in thousand little ways and addictions is, and I personally believe predatory 'social media' and overall resulting physical alienation are the largest culprit, these steps are good or at least well-intended. Those corporations are predatory, aimed at weakest and most defenseless (kids), ruining their future lives one bit at a time.
Sure, it should be mostly parents managing their kids well and giving them smart phones or consoles as late as possible in their development curve, but if something is so harmful, some regulation makes sense. 0 sympathies for meta-esque corporations, its us-vs-them due to their endless greed.
A more appropriate analogy would be a shop with a clearly marked and separate "Adults Only section"
> these steps are good or at least well-intended.
I might agree that they're well-intended - but the road to hell is paved with those.
But it's not. Most of them don't even have the useless "are you +18" yes/no button. They are literally featured and recommended on the homepage.
They are a-ok with wall to wall sportsbet ads on football games. I'm sure no kids under 16 ever see those ...
We tried for years to not have our kids use these apps. We were doing okay during covid lockdowns. But after lockdowns, when we needed to be with other people, and our kids needed to be with other kids, we caved.
Unless every parent collectively decides (or are forced, hint hint) to not give their kids the devices. The kids will become social outcasts without them.
The only way I can think of would effectively require identity verification as well.
> Specifies that no Australian will be compelled to use government identification (including Digital ID) to prove their age online, and platforms must offer reasonable alternatives to users,
> Establishes robust privacy protections, placing limitations on the use of information collected by platforms for the purposes of satisfying the minimum age obligation, and requiring the destruction of information following its use
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/docume...
Why do you think it is not included?
A lot of the top dog streamers especially employ cult like social manipulation to ensure that they stay relevant and continue to earn a boat load from exploiting their fans, obviously it didn't used to be this bad and there are still streamers not doing this but it's a general trend downwards towards enabling and normalizing antisocial behavior.
make no mistake, this is about deanonymization and has nothing to do with "think of the children"
* Heads up for desktops, head down for smart phones .. avoid early neck problems.
* No one got run over at a cross walk looking at their desktop.
* Probably (debatable) less screen time over all if smartphones banned, desktops left in.
Not a debate hill I'd choose to die on though, it's all very subjective and varies family to family.
> * No one got run over at a cross walk looking at their desktop.
In all the discussions about these bans and the effects of phones and social media on kids, I've never once seen physical health brought up (at least directly) :P
Fair points, but not exactly what I think concerns people like GP :P
> it's all very subjective and varies family to family.
Whoa get out of here that's far too nuanced for this topic.