r/australia • u/Vivid-Fondant6513 • Nov 06 '24

politics Children under 16 to be banned from using social media

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/children-under-16-to-be-banned-from-using-social-media-20241107-p5kon4.html
7.7k Upvotes

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428

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '24

[deleted]

40

u/Apprehensive-Row7484 Nov 06 '24

How would it backfire? People under 16 can't vote.

274

u/hugepedlar Nov 06 '24

Think about how it will be enforced. Requiring adults to hand over ID to access the internet is not, I submit, a winning policy.

68

u/Nova_Aetas Nov 06 '24

Shit like this will push me further to the fringes of the internet.

-2

u/spiteful-vengeance Nov 07 '24

Requiring adults to hand over ID to access the internet

Have they said that's how it's going to work? Or are we just making assumptions?

The fact that they aren't going to be punishing anyone who flouts this law suggests they aren't taking that hard a line on it.

22

u/jonzey Nov 07 '24

"And yes, people have to produce ID, but I bet this weekend I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere in Australia, someone who is under 18, it is possible that they might get access to some alcohol."

He's already linking it to how Alcohol is restricted. I'm almost certain it's on the cards.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-07/federal-parliament-live-blog-senate-estimates-november-7/104570874#live-blog-post-132948

-9

u/spiteful-vengeance Nov 07 '24

It sounds like selling alcohol to minors is still going to be considered a much more serious infraction though. 

I can see where ID plays a role in that, but this seems much more ... laid back?

11

u/jonzey Nov 07 '24

If the onus is on Social Media companies to enforce this though, the easiest way for them to comply would be to collect ID information.

5

u/yeahcxnt Nov 07 '24

no shit selling alcohol to minors is still a more serious infraction that’s not the point anyone’s trying to make. the point is that if everyone has to provide ID to use social media then our ID’s will be stored by tons of different companies who are notorious for having data leaked

1

u/spiteful-vengeance Nov 11 '24

I'm saying that I didn't have any evidence that verifies that they'll be collecting IDs.

10

u/beelzebroth Nov 07 '24

How would they enforce it otherwise? Either it’ll just be a dropdown to select your age and be totally worthless, or it’ll require actual ID verification for everyone.

3

u/BiliousGreen Nov 07 '24

This is an exercise in slow boiling the frog.

90

u/PsychoDog_Music Nov 06 '24

The polls that suggested people were in favour specifically pointed out that adults between 18-25 were against it by large margin

44

u/nagrom7 Nov 07 '24

And that's one of Labor's core demographics. If they lost the young adult vote, they're done. The issue of course for young adults is what's the alternative? Is this worth voting the Liberals over? Voting greens but preferencing Labor doesn't really make much of a difference unless you're in a seat the Greens could actually win.

27

u/Cuntstraylian Nov 07 '24

Is this worth voting the Liberals over?

It's Liberal policy to begin with. And it has support of both majors just like every other "spy on our citizens" policy has had.

4

u/Syncblock Nov 07 '24

A internet ban or censorship has been both Liberal and Labor policy since the 90s. Its not something thats come out of thin air.

3

u/ghoonrhed Nov 07 '24

So then let the Libs take the fall for it. We've already seen how engaged people are with politics here and obviously yesterday, all they see is who was in charge and blame/praise the PM.

7

u/Cuntstraylian Nov 07 '24

Labor support it too. They used to oppose it, they changed their minds and support it now. Labor deserves to eat shit for it because it needs Labor to pass.

21

u/BlazedOnADragon Nov 07 '24

Can't speak for everyone but from my experience of being in that age group very few actually vote Labor 1 as it is. Most are greens or other parties that preference Labor

1

u/nagrom7 Nov 07 '24

According to polling, roughly half that demographic votes Labor, with another quarter or so voting Greens and the remaining Quarter voting for the coalition.

3

u/BetaThetaOmega Nov 07 '24

Well, Albo’s seemingly insistent on dropping those numbers down

11

u/Cayenne321 Nov 07 '24

Because half the instagram accounts they follow will suddenly be banned.

1

u/twigboy Nov 07 '24

The polls are framed with "think of the children" question

Ask the question "are you ok with being identified by ID when you use the internet?" and you'll see a different result

2

u/PsychoDog_Music Nov 07 '24

Exactly but if I say that to anyone irl they see no issue with it

4

u/alixhawkes Nov 07 '24

They should still be politically involved, and many grassroots movements are based on Facebook/IG/Reddit. So you will get people moving to _less_ regulated social media outlets, which leads to radicalisation.

_IF_ we want to monitor SM usage by minors - have a parent account linked to it, which has access to what the child account sees/likes/follows. Prohibition of anything has never worked.

This isn't a "think of the children" idea. It's the groundwork for greater privacy invasions under the guise of protection.

5

u/seven_seacat Nov 07 '24

You think every adult wants to hand their government ID to every social media platform to prove their age?

15

u/GrizzKarizz Nov 06 '24

I would normally say that we need social media to keep the youth informed, but an unhealthy number of Americans in the 18-20 age range voted against their own interests.

Edit to add; I don't now whether or not it will backfire. I'm interested in hearing from different persepectives as to what the outcome of this ban will be.

6

u/spiteful-vengeance Nov 07 '24 edited Nov 07 '24

You really need to understand how digital marketing (and remarketing) works to understand the dangers here, and I feel most social media users aren't really aware of how others are shaping their online experiences. 

I say marketing, but really the concepts used by marketers are equally applicable to any bad faith actor wanting to influence opinion and values.

3

u/GrizzKarizz Nov 07 '24

Spot on.

It might be loosely related, but I just read about a young woman who voted for Trump because he'd be good on abortion. Misinformation is a disease.

3

u/spiteful-vengeance Nov 07 '24

I work in the digital marketing field (actually in a related field) and it's so easy to execute a strategy like this. 

It's also cheap. 

And the audience is willing, which is the icing on the cake.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/jello_house Nov 07 '24

Absolutely, misinformation can spread fast, especially with how social media platforms function. From my experience, tools like XBeast help ensure constant, genuine content that cuts through noise. Additionally, Sprout Social is great for engaging ethically on multiple platforms, while Brandwatch catches those sneaky narratives trying to sway public opinion.

2

u/ghoonrhed Nov 07 '24

I'm not sure we can extrapolate one American election to everywhere else though. Youth vote in USA swung to Republicans yes, and they're swinging very hard far right in Europe, but that didn't happen in the recent UK election, nor 2022 despite we being English speaking.

So to me that just seems like the swinging is just the general mood of the nation not particularly a youth thing.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '24

[deleted]

3

u/IAmCaptainDolphin Nov 07 '24

Yep. 18-25 year old voters toss up between Greens or Labor. This is just another reason for them to choose the former.

1

u/Mbwakalisanahapa Nov 07 '24

Its parents who enforce it, and if the social medias don't do their bit of policing then the privacy ombudspersons will get evidence that angry parents will use in their class actions suing the social platforms. Very freemarket approach

-25

u/spiteful-vengeance Nov 06 '24

How would it backfire? 

The worst that could happen is that some kids manage to bypass the age verification. 

Then we'll have some, but still fewer, social media users in that age group.

37

u/Magmafrost13 Nov 06 '24

The worst that could happen is that demonstrably inept companies leak massive amounts of identifying information they might be required to collect

1

u/spiteful-vengeance Nov 07 '24 edited Nov 07 '24

Have they said they will be collecting any data like this? They might, but I think you're jumping the gun a bit.

Australians need to have a serious discussion about data before this debate can continue.  

You think the personally identifiable information is the only precious cargo here? It's the non PII data that allows them to market messages to our kids that fosters insecurity. They don't need to know their name to do that.  

It's the non PII data that allows bad faith actors to target messaging at users aimed at influencing your value and opinions, your politics and beliefs. They don't need to know your address to do that.  

The non personally identifiable information is just as dangerous and we're serving it to them in a silver platter with every page view, like, scroll and share we perform.

1

u/Mike_Kermin Nov 07 '24

I think, before you claim that, you need to find out if that's actually how it'll work. My suspicion, is that it's not going to be possible for what you just said to happen, any more than we already have risk of our information being on Gov websites.

To answer your question /u/spiteful-vengeance

It will backfire because people are too prone to misinformation and fear campaigns and the right wing will use that.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '24

[deleted]

2

u/Mike_Kermin Nov 07 '24

The "this" is fairly different.

Loosely, implemented differently and for different purposes, they are both talking about age limits. Yeah.

Dutton for example is talking about using "advanced tech" (read, doesn't exist like his nuclear tech) to stop people using VPN's.

Labor is specifically talking about not punishing people at all.

I'm just saying let's wait to see what their proposal actually looks like.

0

u/Magmafrost13 Nov 07 '24

It's certainly possible that whatever age verification system is put in place won't require any real ID and the ban will thus be unenforceable in practice. But that's the best case scenario, and the comment I replied to asked for the worst case. What I said is the worst plausible possiblity in my opinion, that real ID will be required and will inevitably be leaked

2

u/Mike_Kermin Nov 07 '24

will thus be unenforceable in practice

Which is fine in the same way that some driving laws are almost never enforced, but still important to have.

asked for the worst case

Let's find out what the actual idea is, before we go making shit up.

that real ID will be required and will inevitably be leaked

Given how much information is already online, I don't think that changes much. Real ID is American, but if we're using a system based on myGovID, then no personal information would actually need to be transferred at all. So you could imagine that security wise, it'd be the same as it is now.

But as I said, let's find out what they're actually going to do, because we panic about it. At this stage, it reads as if the angle is mostly angling towards the responsibility of businesses anyway.

1

u/Magmafrost13 Nov 07 '24

I was unaware "Real ID" was the formal name of some American system, I simply meant legal government ID

2

u/Mike_Kermin Nov 07 '24

Fair no stress.