3 ms·

Exactly, if cigarettes were currently available at any age, and it was proposed to be limited to 18+, you'd get people in here decrying the law, saying it's com

Exactly, if cigarettes were currently available at any age, and it was proposed to be limited to 18+, you'd get people in here decrying the law, saying it's completely unworkable to prevent absolutely every under age person ever from consuming tobacco, and therefore we shouldn't limit it at all. It's a very technical misunderstanding of how law works, or the effects law have on society. Legality isn't technicality. Something being physically possible doesn't "break" the law, and breaking a law doesn't render that law useless.

sekai 2y ago
Apples to oranges. Piracy would be a good comparison to this law. We all know how that turned out.
- BiteCode_dev 2y ago
  Or CP. Also we have to consider that gov spying programs are developed everywhere in the world, and the fact CP has been used as an excuse to pass questionable bills again and again. What's even crazier is that we have to even argue this is a problem. And that intelligent people are arguing that this is all OK. People that read history books, saw PRISM and Snowden, heard about cops abusing their system already, etc.
- whiplash451 2y ago
  Piracy is also apples to oranges. There aren’t big tech companies running piracy services. You could put them under the rule of law if they did.
everforward 2y ago
> Something being physically possible doesn't "break" the law, and breaking a law doesn't render that law useless. No, but the ease of breaking the law does need to be weighed against the costs it imposes on everyone else. Carrying a driver's license is almost a non-cost, and is really only necessary til people hit 28 or so and cashiers largely stop checking. Needing to verify age online could place very real costs on people. Enabling surveillance is an issue. The chilling effect of knowing that database leaks are going to tie your real identity to your online one is an issue (think the Ashley Madison leaks, but for your old angsty teenager Reddit account). There are a lot of small groups who don't want their membership revealed, like LGBT people in countries with laws against it, domestic abuse victims, support groups for people with trauma, etc, etc. I don't think I've seen a system that doesn't involve those issues. I'm sure one is hypothetically possible, but that never seems to be a goal of these laws. So the question is whether restricting social media use by age is worth those drawbacks. My personal values say it's not, but I do recognize that's a value call to some degree and views will differ.
- xnorswap 2y ago
  Those are very valid but separate concerns. You can make social media illegal for under 16s without requiring online age validation. After all, a form of this already exists with the US COPPA [1] law, and the presence of that law hasn't forced age validation on everyone. If the US can make it de-facto illegal for companies to let under 13s use social media, and has been the case for over 20 years, then it shouldn't be a sudden privacy-ending problem for Australia to make it illegal for under 16s to use social media. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Pr...
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Kids get around COPPA all the time. Everyone in my kid's middle school knows that you have to simply lie about your age when you sign up for an Internet service, because most of them won't let you in if you are stupid enough to say you are under 13, and the services that let you in are nerfed to the point of uselessness. Furthermore, now I have to navigate the morality of encouraging my own kid to lie, just so she can use an online service that I approve of as a parent. Terrible law.

sekai 2y ago

Apples to oranges. Piracy would be a good comparison to this law. We all know how that turned out.

BiteCode_dev 2y ago
Or CP. Also we have to consider that gov spying programs are developed everywhere in the world, and the fact CP has been used as an excuse to pass questionable bills again and again. What's even crazier is that we have to even argue this is a problem. And that intelligent people are arguing that this is all OK. People that read history books, saw PRISM and Snowden, heard about cops abusing their system already, etc.
whiplash451 2y ago
Piracy is also apples to oranges. There aren’t big tech companies running piracy services. You could put them under the rule of law if they did.

everforward 2y ago

> Something being physically possible doesn't "break" the law, and breaking a law doesn't render that law useless. No, but the ease of breaking the law does need to be weighed against the costs it imposes on everyone else. Carrying a driver's license is almost a non-cost, and is really only necessary til people hit 28 or so and cashiers largely stop checking. Needing to verify age online could place very real costs on people. Enabling surveillance is an issue. The chilling effect of knowing that database leaks are going to tie your real identity to your online one is an issue (think the Ashley Madison leaks, but for your old angsty teenager Reddit account). There are a lot of small groups who don't want their membership revealed, like LGBT people in countries with laws against it, domestic abuse victims, support groups for people with trauma, etc, etc. I don't think I've seen a system that doesn't involve those issues. I'm sure one is hypothetically possible, but that never seems to be a goal of these laws. So the question is whether restricting social media use by age is worth those drawbacks. My personal values say it's not, but I do recognize that's a value call to some degree and views will differ.

xnorswap 2y ago
Those are very valid but separate concerns. You can make social media illegal for under 16s without requiring online age validation. After all, a form of this already exists with the US COPPA [1] law, and the presence of that law hasn't forced age validation on everyone. If the US can make it de-facto illegal for companies to let under 13s use social media, and has been the case for over 20 years, then it shouldn't be a sudden privacy-ending problem for Australia to make it illegal for under 16s to use social media. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Pr...
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Kids get around COPPA all the time. Everyone in my kid's middle school knows that you have to simply lie about your age when you sign up for an Internet service, because most of them won't let you in if you are stupid enough to say you are under 13, and the services that let you in are nerfed to the point of uselessness. Furthermore, now I have to navigate the morality of encouraging my own kid to lie, just so she can use an online service that I approve of as a parent. Terrible law.