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This is the opposite of democracy - a group imposing rules "for their own good" on people it doesn't represent who have no recourse. If they had any integrity t

• gonzo41 2y ago
  We do have recourse. What you'll see is more independent candidates get voted in to overturn the law. Once the government of the day starts badly implementing it the conservatives who voted with the center left party will split off and start attacking for it's repeal. It's a nothing burger law designed to look tough and do nothing.
  • larrysalibra 2y ago
    under 16 year olds cannot vote, are not represented and have no recourse. when one group votes to make rules for another group that cannot vote, it can be called many things, but "democracy" is not one of them.
    • bluefirebrand 2y ago
      When adults make decisions for children it's called "parenting" Acting like we should be seriously treating children and teens as an equal political group is a joke
      • amatecha 2y ago
        Hey, didn't you get the memo that teenagers know everything, have the simple & straightforward solutions to all of life's problems, and are never wrong?? ;)
      • pizza 2y ago
        I'm not sure what's worse: giving parental responsibility to politicians or equating craven paternalism to benevolent parenting.
      • Timwi 2y ago
        > When adults make decisions for children it's called "parenting" Is it? Last time I checked I thought that was only when parents or legal guardians do it to a small number of children in their care, not when politicians do it to all children in an entire country. But even if I accept your premise, your comment makes me wonder if you've never heard of people who are bad at parenting, or who are downright abusive to the children in their care.
        • bluefirebrand 2y ago
          Let me ask you something: Do you support removing liquor laws banning underage people from being sold alcohol? Or removing laws that ban the sale of cigarettes to children? How about gambling or buying lotto tickets for childrenm I think it's clear that as a society we have already decided that government has a role in establishing legal protections to prevent children from falling afoul of systems that are designed to be predatory This is just another layer of that Which also establishes a social norm that letting children drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, or gamble is not a good thing, so people who are bad parents know at least some baseline of what they should not be doing
      • eimrine 2y ago
        > When adults make decisions for children it's called "parenting" Children issue is just the excuse for government to get people obey. Sadly but "kids protecting" propaganda is one of two the most effective ones, works great and there are lots of alternatively gifted persons that do not get the real attitude.
      • casey2 2y ago
        Who defines what a child is? Who defines what a elderly person is? Are these questions also jokes to you? You seem pretty flippant about deciding which groups shouldn't have political power. Many countries already tried using objective criteria to decide who gets to vote, and this always results in policy that screws nonvoters at the benefit of voters. Do you think the housing crisis all around the western world is an accident? It's not. The electorate chose this because it benefits them. Is it an accident that the last 2 US presidents are pedophiles? Probably, but that would be much less likely with a younger electorate. A decision was made about how children's lives should function without their input. Right now do you believe that the class of parent voters votes as representatives of the interests of their children and their future? Or do you believe that all persons under 16 have no concept of time or political interests and couldn't even understand if a politician was making them a good deal through a political ad? Children understand brand new toys better than anyone; by high school, pretty much all of them understand that they get better teachers if you pay more. Are students not interested in getting better grades for "free"? The government is not anyone's parent, it doesn't give a lick if your kid dies tomorrow, cause kids don't vote.
      • photonthug 2y ago
        > Acting like we should be seriously treating children and teens as an equal political group is a joke Yeah this thread is wild, maybe because those speaking “on behalf” of children here are actually all children? Age restrictions for social media are as logical and necessary as they are for driving, drinking, etc. It isn’t just a concern about self-harm. The general public has a stake in this too in the long run, and it’s a safety and security issue for them as well. (If you don’t believe this is true, just think about how much power Facebook already has over elections, and how much more they will have if literally everyone alive grows up on Facebook and doesn’t think that power is worth questioning) Years from now we’ll all be surprised we didn’t arrive at this conclusion sooner.
    • threeseed 2y ago
      > are not represented Young Greens/Labor/Liberal allow members as young as 14. And these groups have significant and direct input into political policy. So simply not true to say that have no representation.
• trial3 2y ago
  this is what a seven-year-old would sound like if they were writing a persuasive essay about how they shouldn’t have a bedtime
• kumarvvr 2y ago
  How can you protect children from the absolute devastating effects of social media on children, by banning it for adults?
  • voidfunc 2y ago
    Demonizing social media is this generations version of demonizing rock and roll. It's so tiring.
    • usr1106 2y ago
      The harm of social media is closer to alcohol or tobacco. Addiction, even though with milder physical conseques. Nothing to do with demonizing.
    • poilcn 2y ago
      Is it? You can see the actual harm caused by web sites. Doomscrolling in all age groups. Going to bed very late at night. Girls having body dysmorphia cause of instagram. Young men having porn addition and having no ambition to interact with real women
      • Aerroon 2y ago
        None of these sound like they are a very big problem compared to many alternative things people do. People talk about social media as though it's lead paint. I particularly liked that one Facebook study that is usually taken out of context.
      • eimrine 2y ago
        The latter is the scariest but the least binded to a social media (except of underground ones which will never have age verification anyway).
      • throwthrow4567 2y ago
        > young men having porn addition and having no ambition to interact with real women this made me lol so much. porn addition is not the cause, but the consequence. do you have any idea how hard it is for males to find a willing mate nowadays? most females have men fighting over them, while most men must always do the fighting to get even one low-quality female in their entire life.
• Der_Einzige 2y ago
  Correct. Children deserve rights, representation, and bodily autonomy. Today they have none of this
  • threeseed 2y ago
    We need to turn down the volume here. Not being exposed to social networks for a few years is no way comparable to depriving them of bodily autonomy.
    • BrawnyBadger53 2y ago
      They are already mostly segmented off from their friends after school hours. They have killed off one of the final mediums for interaction and are preventing interaction with the rest of their generation's culture. They're also narrowing their world view to be more controlled by the state.
      • doxick 2y ago
        Hasn't that been the case for thousands of years? It's not like they can't see each other after school hours... I know i used to. And i still see my friends after my workday. I have much deeper connections with the 20 people i see in real life than the 1000 people on my linkedin profile. Do people thrive more in their mental health when they are supposedly 24/7 accessible? Is it necessary? Is it wanted?
        • lmm 2y ago
          > It's not like they can't see each other after school hours... I know i used to. Things have gotten much worse since then. These days children get reported if they're out and about unsupervised.
      • thombles 2y ago
        Actually this is a separate problem. If you look at the work of Jon Haidt who promotes the kinds of measures we're talking about here, it's only half the story. The other half is that we have become ridiculously overprotective in parenting in recent decades. Kids need independence and the ability to hang out and play with their peers away from direct adult supervision. The goal isn't to take away the internet and leave kids with nothing, it's to bring back the real-world contact and relationship-building.
• doctorpangloss 2y ago
  Yes, but then how could they find audience for political ads, if not in social media?
• turbojet1321 2y ago
  Um, that's exactly what a democracy is - a tyranny of the majority.
  • Timwi 2y ago
    You missed the point. Tyranny of the majority is one thing if the minority can at least vote and participate in the political process. Shutting the minority out entirely is quite different.
• krisoft 2y ago
  Does your reasoning also apply for laws which ban underage smoking or underage alcohol consumption? Do you feel the same way about those prohibitions too?
  • lmm 2y ago
    > Does your reasoning also apply for laws which ban underage smoking or underage alcohol consumption? Up to a point, but AIUI there is credible medical evidence for those being disproportionately harmful (in physical, objectively verifiable ways) to the young. I think setting the same standard of harm and applying it to all ages is reasonable; maybe this law is based on some claim that social media harms children in a way it doesn't harm adults, but bluntly given how much the topic is biased and politicised I just don't trust today's social science establishment enough to justify this kind of law.
• refurb 2y ago
  Save your breath, Australians don't have the same views on government or individual rights as America (or even Canada!). I lived in Singapore for a while and it's a "flawed democracy" where the government has stacked the deck against any opposition party to a degree that's breathtaking. But a poll in Singapore showed that 70% felt that "social harmony is more important than democracy". Even if Singaporeans knew how undemocratic the government was, they wouldn't care.