Australia's social media ban has failed

BBlueBerry2001 about 2 hours ago 10 commentsRead Article on reuters.com

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teruakohatu•about 1 hour ago

It has been banned for a few months. Hardly a failure.

It will be a failure if 10 year olds continue to join social media at the rate they have done so in the past.

It’s not likely to get 15 year olds who have been addicted for 5 years off it, anymore than smoking bans have any impact on teens who have been smoking or vaping for years.

FrankyHollywood•35 minutes ago

There is some effect however. Many kids including mine used to have there first phone around their 10th birthday. Now I see parents around me waiting longer due to the ban.

Sure if you are 15 you can get a phone yourself, but for younger kids the ban has a positive effect.

r0ckarong•about 1 hour ago

The whole idea of excluding teenagers from social interactions because you can't police how shit people are is absurd.

vintagedave•40 minutes ago

Isn't that a mischaracterisation of the goal and the actual implementation? Avoiding social networks is restricting away from unhealthy spaces, not preventing social interactions per se.

9dev•27 minutes ago

I've got news for you - this is how we've protected teenagers since forever in the real world! What do you think age restrictions on movies, casinos, or porn are for? Why do you think children have to be home before a certain time in the evening? Why do we not let them roam anywhere alone until they are old enough?

UqWBcuFx6NV4r•35 minutes ago

That is such a dishonest representation of the ban that I think that even the majority of people that’re against it would admit that it’s BS.

nullbio•about 1 hour ago

The fact that they'll ban kids from accessing every social media except Reddit tells you everything you need to know about the real motives behind this "ban".

noduerme•about 1 hour ago

I'm not on social media. But reddit seems slightly more intelligent than tiktok, instagram, X. What's the real motive then, according to you?

hydrox24•34 minutes ago

I am not the parent, but there is a view that this was, alongside the earlier News Media Bargaining Code in 2021, the under-16s ban legislation was at least partially motivated by an interest in benefitting the legacy or mainstream media in Australia.

The Prime Minister's announcement of the policy included, unusually, a callout to one of the major news organisations (Newscorp) for their campaign (called Let Them Be Kids) in favour of such a ban[0]:

> I do want to pay tribute to the campaign that's been run by media organisations on this. I do want to single out NewsCorp for the campaign that they've run, Let Them Be Kids. It's an example of a media organisation being engaged in something that's of concern to the community.

[0]: https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-46363

noduerme•25 minutes ago

Huh. I mean, that's interesting (that legacy media lobbied for the ban). So but Murdoch doesn't own Reddit, what's the upshot there? More links to Sky/Fox?

Cider9986•37 minutes ago

Reddit is also a dedicated porn website.

noduerme•34 minutes ago

hah. As far as my girlfriend knows, it's dedicated only to cats and people behaving badly at Walmart.

And here I just called it more intelligent, lol. I should qualify that. I've seen her instagram feed too, and somehow it's even more absurd...

UqWBcuFx6NV4r•34 minutes ago

if it’s “also” a porn website then it’s not “dedicated”.

martinkem•about 1 hour ago

Of course it is going to fail especially if the social media networks are incentivized to make sure that it fails. The penalties should have been set at a per user basis.

bogomil•about 1 hour ago

I wish I can promote this to the whole internet. this is not the way to control the internet :)

grebc•about 1 hour ago

Anecdotally, all the parents I know and have discussed this with are desperate for this to work.

How it should work I'm unsure in the big scheme of it, but we limit access to various things until age 18 here in Australia, and I think this is one long term battle that I believe the tech sector will lose.

Skyy93•44 minutes ago

Rather than applying more bans, perhaps we should consider ways of living that allow parents to spend time talking to their children. Understanding what their days are like and the problems they face. For me much of this discussion and the excessive demand it takes from parents sounds more like a problem of the society as whole. That we are not having enough time to raise children since both parents are forced to work, best if they do it over 40 hours a week.

ShinyLeftPad•4 minutes ago

I know! How about new technology that "automates" stuff, letting them pay us lower wages to work more hours (if we're lucky to keep a job)? Maybe it should even be trained on our work

stavros•about 1 hour ago

I got bullied at school, but I'm not sure the solution would be to not let anyone in school talk to me :/

ben_w•11 minutes ago

Reducing bulling isn't the primary goal with this kind of thing, more a secondary benefit.

Did you know that heroin (at the time, that was a registered trademark) was originally sold as a "non-addictive morphine substitute" to be used as cough suppressant?

People weren't at all sure how to even regulate substances in the early years of the 20th century, which is why when the US got Prohibition it was via a constitutional amendment rather than a mere law, even though they already knew about drugs laws and the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act predated Prohibition by about 5 years.

Right now, we're not sure how to even regulate social media.

croes•20 minutes ago

Are you confusing some apps with the internet?

ares623•about 2 hours ago

Ban the hardware, not the software.

mrob•35 minutes ago

100% agreed. Restricting possession of physical items is less tyrannical than restricting communication. Social media is only harmful when it's ubiquitous and inescapable. When you have to make a conscious effort to "go on the computer", and when there are significant opportunity costs to doing so, you naturally put it into its proper perspective.

Skyy93•about 1 hour ago

So, are you suggesting that the legal use of smartphones should be banned for anyone under the age of 18? What kind of society do you want to live in?

tgv•40 minutes ago

A smart phone is a human right, according to you? Of course you can ban them. The addicts will have to wean off, but after that, there's no disadvantage.

Skyy93•35 minutes ago

I think it is a human right that I decide for myself what is good for me and what is bad for me. I have for example Instagram and Facebook, but only to look what kind of Magic the Gathering Events are at the weekend, do I look at reels and doom scroll? No. So I would not say I am addicted despite having a smartphone.

Technology is in most of the cases not bad, and their use can enrich lives.

Cider9986•36 minutes ago

Considering it's how many people engage in speech, yes.

hahahaa•38 minutes ago

The one we lived in 1995?

Skyy93•33 minutes ago

And why not the one 1895? Some people seem to prefer this as well, but you perhaps would not like it.

If you prefer living without a smartphone its completly up to you and I would always stand for your right to not have one, but on the other side I am also standing for the right to have one if someone desires one.

gib444•about 1 hour ago

Agree but the parents want the hardware for the kids' safety, and it has to be a smartphone specifically so the parents can GPS track them and to do facetime calls to prove they're OK...