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Hugely decisive! Feels more like a policy for idyllic hypotheticals. "Suppose we could ban social media..." well, hey, they actually did it. I'm very intereste

by hallole 10mo ago

Hugely decisive! Feels more like a policy for idyllic hypotheticals. "Suppose we could ban social media..." well, hey, they actually did it. I'm very interested to see how their socializing evolves in response to such a shock. Do the social behaviors of pre-internet times re-emerge? "Third spaces" reappear overnight? We shall see!

protocolture 10mo ago
>well, hey, they actually did it. They passed legislation, its not clear at all that they succeeded.
- immibis 10mo ago
  They actually did the experiment. While we're over here thinking social media is probably bad for kids and wondering what would happen if they weren't allowed to use it., Australia actually did that. Soon we'll actually know what happens when kids aren't allowed to use social media.
rainonmoon 10mo ago
Given that “social media” is in fact not banned and all this does is impact a select (and frankly logically inconsistent) list of services, this seems very unlikely. Children are still free to be groomed and gamble on Roblox and join servers belonging to The Com on Discord. To be clear I don’t think those services should be regulated by this obscene law either but this isn’t going to bring back any kind of halcyon era for kids. It will expand the surveillance of and shame around young people’s internet use, however.
- anakaine 10mo ago
  How so? It has been implemented so that age verification is a token only, a yes/no authorisation. The age verification service doesnt get browsing details, and the site providing content doesnt get any additional user details beyond what they would likely already have, including those subject to PII legislation.
  - rainonmoon 10mo ago
    > It has been implemented so that age verification is a token only, a yes/no authorisation. This is misinformation. The legislation does not specify a single particular implementation for age-based verification and there's absolutely no single "age verification service" that platforms are legislated to use. Instead they're required to verify users' ages based on several recommended methods, including age inference. https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/2025/12/03/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-social-media-ban/ https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/2025/12/03/what-you-need-t... Further, the Communications Minister herself regarding whether she's concerned about people bypassing authentication-based age verification checks: "If you’re an adult - you probably won’t need to do anything extra to prove your age, because like I said before, these platforms have plenty of data to infer your age." https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/wells/speech/address-national-press-club-canberra https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/wells/speech/address-...
  - rpdillon 10mo ago
    This is false. Like all the age restricting laws being passed around the world, the implementation is not being specified and is being left to the individual platforms, which are using some combination of photo ID and video selfie in order to validate people's ages. Each platform is implementing it differently, and on different timelines. For example, X has failed to even respond for a while, but it's finally said they'll comply. > Companies have told Canberra they will deploy a mix of age inference - estimating a user's age from their behaviour - and age estimation based on a selfie, alongside checks that could include uploaded identification documents.
- watwut 10mo ago
  I still prefer my kids to play roblox over being on X or tiktok much. It is still more ok then most of what any other todays tech provides. No matter how much geeks on HN hate it.
  - creata 10mo ago
    And it can inspire them to learn programming with Lua(u).
- everyday7732 10mo ago
  It will also massively expand the surveillance of adults: if a platform introduces face scanning or checking government IDs for "age verification", then they don't just scan the underage users.
- subscribed 10mo ago
  Roblox blocked communication between adults and kids. I can't chat with my own children in app even though we don't live in Australia. That's for the better, as far as I see it, I can just shout :p
akst 10mo ago
The success so far is really just political, which has largely been shutting down debate and dismissing calls for some kind of cost analysis of what we risk losing in enforcing this. Whenever someone brings up this stuff, the politicians take the tone that "we won't let anyone get in the way of protecting children", and this is in response to people who in good faith think this can be done better. Media oligopolist love it because it regulates big tech, so they've been happy to platform supporters of the policy as well. Third spaces won't reappear because the planning system in most cities shuts anything down the moment someone files a compliant. They get regulated out of existence the moment police express concern young people might gather there. The planning system (which in NSW/Sydney is the worse) has only gotten worse since the 80s after the green bans. It was largely put in place to allow for community say in how cities are shape, which sounds nice but it's mostly old people with free time participating who don't value 3rd spaces, even if they might end up liking them. They just want to keep things the same and avoid parking from getting overly complicated (and this is a stone throw away from train stations and the CBD). Third places can be fixed by reforming planning which is slowly gaining momentum via YIMBY movements, but this social media ban is just not a serious contribution to changing that. If anything Social media phenomenon like Pokemon GO contributed more to these third places lighting up. Governance in Australia is very paternalistic, it's a more high functioning version of the UK in that sense. I think it might be in part due to the voting system being a winner takes all single seat electorate preferential voting system which has a median voter bias for least controversial candidates. As a kid I always felt being in Australia you missed out on a lot of things people got to do in America, that has slowly changed as media and technology has become less bound by borders but looks like that being undone.
euroderf 10mo ago
I know! Let's hang out a THE MALL! The Seventies are BACK!
WorldPeas 10mo ago
I think one must also re-evaluate how in modern times a parent can be charged (by a perfect stranger) for the crime of neglecting their child when allowing them to rove unrestricted outside (within reason). I've heard of this happening in both the US and Australia, the HOA mindset really needs to die.
- youngNed 10mo ago
  These are very very isolated outliers amplified by a media hellbent on ragebait.
  - kyrra 10mo ago
    You've never tried to free-range raise your kids then. Some friends in our neighborhood had the police called on them for riding their bikes around the block, and the cops followed the kids back to their front door and then talked with the parents.
    - youngNed 10mo ago
      I have. I also, crucially, don't live in America. This article, also crucially, does not relate to America
      - WorldPeas 10mo ago
        when did kyrra mention they lived in America?
        youngNed 10mo ago
        When they spelt neighborhood, when the kids rode around the block. When they said they live in a country where a police force follows kids on bikes The clues were all there.
- Forgeties79 10mo ago
  I think a huge part of that is context. Age, location, time of day, etc. I’d be curious to see numbers on this, usually it’s just asserted as “back in my day we played outside and got dirty all day!” but then I hear those same (usually now grand-) parents talk about all the tv shows/movies they watched as they espouse their views on modern media! My assumption is a lot of those people who proudly proclaim that lifestyle were raised in (segregated) suburbs and have rose tinted glasses. But I’m also making assumptions like them, so again I’m curious to find info on this.

by hallole 10mo ago

protocolture 10mo ago

>well, hey, they actually did it. They passed legislation, its not clear at all that they succeeded.

immibis 10mo ago
They actually did the experiment. While we're over here thinking social media is probably bad for kids and wondering what would happen if they weren't allowed to use it., Australia actually did that. Soon we'll actually know what happens when kids aren't allowed to use social media.

rainonmoon 10mo ago

Given that “social media” is in fact not banned and all this does is impact a select (and frankly logically inconsistent) list of services, this seems very unlikely. Children are still free to be groomed and gamble on Roblox and join servers belonging to The Com on Discord. To be clear I don’t think those services should be regulated by this obscene law either but this isn’t going to bring back any kind of halcyon era for kids. It will expand the surveillance of and shame around young people’s internet use, however.

anakaine 10mo ago
How so? It has been implemented so that age verification is a token only, a yes/no authorisation. The age verification service doesnt get browsing details, and the site providing content doesnt get any additional user details beyond what they would likely already have, including those subject to PII legislation.
- rainonmoon 10mo ago
  > It has been implemented so that age verification is a token only, a yes/no authorisation. This is misinformation. The legislation does not specify a single particular implementation for age-based verification and there's absolutely no single "age verification service" that platforms are legislated to use. Instead they're required to verify users' ages based on several recommended methods, including age inference. https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/2025/12/03/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-social-media-ban/ https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/2025/12/03/what-you-need-t... Further, the Communications Minister herself regarding whether she's concerned about people bypassing authentication-based age verification checks: "If you’re an adult - you probably won’t need to do anything extra to prove your age, because like I said before, these platforms have plenty of data to infer your age." https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/wells/speech/address-national-press-club-canberra https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/wells/speech/address-...
- rpdillon 10mo ago
  This is false. Like all the age restricting laws being passed around the world, the implementation is not being specified and is being left to the individual platforms, which are using some combination of photo ID and video selfie in order to validate people's ages. Each platform is implementing it differently, and on different timelines. For example, X has failed to even respond for a while, but it's finally said they'll comply. > Companies have told Canberra they will deploy a mix of age inference - estimating a user's age from their behaviour - and age estimation based on a selfie, alongside checks that could include uploaded identification documents.
watwut 10mo ago
I still prefer my kids to play roblox over being on X or tiktok much. It is still more ok then most of what any other todays tech provides. No matter how much geeks on HN hate it.
- creata 10mo ago
  And it can inspire them to learn programming with Lua(u).
everyday7732 10mo ago
It will also massively expand the surveillance of adults: if a platform introduces face scanning or checking government IDs for "age verification", then they don't just scan the underage users.
subscribed 10mo ago
Roblox blocked communication between adults and kids. I can't chat with my own children in app even though we don't live in Australia. That's for the better, as far as I see it, I can just shout :p

akst 10mo ago

The success so far is really just political, which has largely been shutting down debate and dismissing calls for some kind of cost analysis of what we risk losing in enforcing this. Whenever someone brings up this stuff, the politicians take the tone that "we won't let anyone get in the way of protecting children", and this is in response to people who in good faith think this can be done better. Media oligopolist love it because it regulates big tech, so they've been happy to platform supporters of the policy as well. Third spaces won't reappear because the planning system in most cities shuts anything down the moment someone files a compliant. They get regulated out of existence the moment police express concern young people might gather there. The planning system (which in NSW/Sydney is the worse) has only gotten worse since the 80s after the green bans. It was largely put in place to allow for community say in how cities are shape, which sounds nice but it's mostly old people with free time participating who don't value 3rd spaces, even if they might end up liking them. They just want to keep things the same and avoid parking from getting overly complicated (and this is a stone throw away from train stations and the CBD). Third places can be fixed by reforming planning which is slowly gaining momentum via YIMBY movements, but this social media ban is just not a serious contribution to changing that. If anything Social media phenomenon like Pokemon GO contributed more to these third places lighting up. Governance in Australia is very paternalistic, it's a more high functioning version of the UK in that sense. I think it might be in part due to the voting system being a winner takes all single seat electorate preferential voting system which has a median voter bias for least controversial candidates. As a kid I always felt being in Australia you missed out on a lot of things people got to do in America, that has slowly changed as media and technology has become less bound by borders but looks like that being undone.

euroderf 10mo ago

I know! Let's hang out a THE MALL! The Seventies are BACK!

WorldPeas 10mo ago

I think one must also re-evaluate how in modern times a parent can be charged (by a perfect stranger) for the crime of neglecting their child when allowing them to rove unrestricted outside (within reason). I've heard of this happening in both the US and Australia, the HOA mindset really needs to die.

youngNed 10mo ago
These are very very isolated outliers amplified by a media hellbent on ragebait.
- kyrra 10mo ago
  You've never tried to free-range raise your kids then. Some friends in our neighborhood had the police called on them for riding their bikes around the block, and the cops followed the kids back to their front door and then talked with the parents.
  - youngNed 10mo ago
    I have. I also, crucially, don't live in America. This article, also crucially, does not relate to America
    - WorldPeas 10mo ago
      when did kyrra mention they lived in America?
      - youngNed 10mo ago
        When they spelt neighborhood, when the kids rode around the block. When they said they live in a country where a police force follows kids on bikes The clues were all there.
Forgeties79 10mo ago
I think a huge part of that is context. Age, location, time of day, etc. I’d be curious to see numbers on this, usually it’s just asserted as “back in my day we played outside and got dirty all day!” but then I hear those same (usually now grand-) parents talk about all the tv shows/movies they watched as they espouse their views on modern media! My assumption is a lot of those people who proudly proclaim that lifestyle were raised in (segregated) suburbs and have rose tinted glasses. But I’m also making assumptions like them, so again I’m curious to find info on this.