What do you think of the social media ban for people under 16 in Australia?

Social media shouldn't exist in the first place, it's only made the world worse than it was 15-20 years ago.

Social media shouldn't exist in the first place, it's only made the world worse than it was 15-20 years ago.

@Lost_Viking

Social Media didn't exist 20 years ago.
The term "social media" is misunderstood and misused by the mainstream of today.
Social Media is stuff like Youtube, Twitch, tiktok etc whereas the correct term for most of what people use today is "social network" however forums such as what we are on right now are neither "social media" nor "social networks".

@Cybercat2000 Yes that's exactly my point, the world was better when both social media and social networks didn't exist. In the case of twitch and tiktok, neither should exist. Especially tiktok and short-form videos in general have done irreversible damage to society and there's definitely evidence that tiktok is a form of social engineering by China just like the Soviet social engineering that took place on college campuses in the west in the 1960s.

@Cybercat2000 social media became a thing in the late 90s. Didn't explode until the mid 2000.

@NS2D it doesn't matter. Young people or more of Gen z doesn't use social media that much anymore.

It's hilarious. You can be certain all of those little shits cheer for government criminalizing "hate," well now they're getting a taste of insane government overreach in their own lives, so tough titties to them. I hope this ban is adopted by every other country in the so-called west.

I'd have thought that would be welcome by someone who believes absolute free speech should never exist. Think of how many people won't be shitting their adult diapers with big daddy government protecting their fee-fees with a rigid zero-tolerance control of web speech. Maybe then you people will have finally achieved utopia, hmm?

International test scores have dropped worldwide. The timing is suggestive that smart phones and the easily accessible Internet they provide is partially to blame. International test scores account for a significant percentage of the variance in economic outcomes.

What a fun natural experiment. Let's see if Australia gets those test scores up. This has my approval.

@Freshell why do these tests scores even matter, let's be honest?

@DesuMaiden Smart countries do better in the long run.

@Freshell I thought being dumb/ignorant is a good thing, how is being smart a good thing?

@DesuMaiden why would being dumb/ignorant generally be a good thing?

On average, smarter people are happier and make a higher income than less smart people.

It's too early to tell whether this is a success or not (I read a worrying study recently about how kids are turning to AI chatbots for social interaction instead of their peers, and frankly, if cutting kids off social media leads to them turning to chatbots that just reaffirm everything rather than ever telling them no, the future is gonna be nuts), but fundamentally, I think it's a good idea.

I would say it's a silly idea if the year was 2009 and the internet was a good escape from daily life for the average child, with social media not being all that easily accessible and largely being a thing for outcasts, nerds and people starved for conversation. But the year is 2025 and social media is 1% something good, 99% poison, ads, hate, bullying, shock value, etc etc, so the later kids get exposed to it, the better. Not to mention how I'm annoyed that it's harder and harder to find adults-only spaces on the internet nowadays because apparently every chatroom needs to have both 13 and 30-year old users at the same time.

Besides, here where I live, I remember growing up, it was considered EXTREMELY weird to be on social media before you were 16-18 anyways, so the fact this became so normalized is odd to me in the first place. Does the average 10-year old need to be on Twitter? What are they tweeting about? Big drama in the sandbox today? List of top ten trucks? All very important stuff we totally need on the internet, I'm sure.

This could easily be a thread on its own but I completely agree. I don't want to hear some dumb zoomers take on the war in Gaza or what their favorite economic system is, posted in the form of some incomprehensible gibberish filled with emojis. I bet a lot of the MAL rules could be completely removed if they simply added a new rule that you need to be 20+ to access the forums, and maybe we'd actually be able to have normal discussions here. Or they could bring back the Current Events boards and make only that one 20+

I agree with not letting children onto social media in principle, but:
1) the way they are achieving (uploading an ID to 'random' websites afaik) it inconveniences and puts adults in danger while children(and adults that want to be safe) find ways to get around it
2) kills anonymity for those websites if it's foolproof
3) face scans etc are basically just more free training data for ai probably (in case they did not have enough)
4) to protect children, they collect fairly sensitive data (behavioral patterns) from potential children (google says age inference is the term), this one was already happening though, so I wouldn't really count it


the parents should parent instead of the government. Parenting is very hard, but this isn't worth it, parental controls exist for a reason

@nanisukoshi your suggestions are redundant because there is no real "anonymity" on the Internet in 2025, especially if you use Facebook. Then again, why would anyone use FB? That site is such an obvious government honeypot, yet many still fall for it.

It's too early to tell whether this is a success or not (I read a worrying study recently about how kids are turning to AI chatbots for social interaction instead of their peers, and frankly, if cutting kids off social media leads to them turning to chatbots that just reaffirm everything rather than ever telling them no, the future is gonna be nuts), but fundamentally, I think it's a good idea.

I would say it's a silly idea if the year was 2009 and the internet was a good escape from daily life for the average child, with social media not being all that easily accessible and largely being a thing for outcasts, nerds and people starved for conversation. But the year is 2025 and social media is 1% something good, 99% poison, ads, hate, bullying, shock value, etc etc, so the later kids get exposed to it, the better. Not to mention how I'm annoyed that it's harder and harder to find adults-only spaces on the internet nowadays because apparently every chatroom needs to have both 13 and 30-year old users at the same time.

Besides, here where I live, I remember growing up, it was considered EXTREMELY weird to be on social media before you were 16-18 anyways, so the fact this became so normalized is odd to me in the first place. Does the average 10-year old need to be on Twitter? What are they tweeting about? Big drama in the sandbox today? List of top ten trucks? All very important stuff we totally need on the internet, I'm sure.

This could easily be a thread on its own but I completely agree. I don't want to hear some dumb zoomers take on the war in Gaza or what their favorite economic system is, posted in the form of some incomprehensible gibberish filled with emojis. I bet a lot of the MAL rules could be completely removed if they simply added a new rule that you need to be 20+ to access the forums, and maybe we'd actually be able to have normal discussions here. Or they could bring back the Current Events boards and make only that one 20+