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Teens will learn to bypass all this within the week. Then, whatever the new way of doing social media will be, it could easily reach consensus within the year.

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Even if it achieves only a small reduction in usage (say 10%), i would expect that should have a measurable effect on happiness if the hypothesis of [social media causes unhappiness] is true. If no increase in happiness is observed, i think we could say that social media does not cause unhappiness.

Not so sure. The government has placed a A$50M incentive per violation discovered, I heard. That sounds like a powerful incentive on the companies to outsmart the kids.

If a kid uses a pseudonymous account and fraudulently bypasses an age verification system, I have a hard time believing that the company would be fined $50M.

I would guess that this massive fine is more for situations like if a company can be shown to have wilfully allowed a violation or else has been grossly negligent. (But I have not read the law!)

violation would be: not making a reasonable effort,

violation would not be: a kid bypassing their reasonable effort.

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