11 ms·

Well, yes but the other problem is this is putting authoritarians in charge of more stuff. I had a comment comparing this to allowing people to eat too much foo

by roenxi 11mo ago

Well, yes but the other problem is this is putting authoritarians in charge of more stuff. I had a comment comparing this to allowing people to eat too much food and that is literally where the logical outcome of this sort of thinking goes - it happens in practice, that isn't some sort of theoretical risk. The more the government decides what people can and can't want to do the worse the potential gets when they make mistakes. And this is further normalising the government making decisions about speech where they have every incentive and tendency to shut down people who tell inconvenient and important truths. The risks are not worth the rewards of half-heatedly trying to stop kids communicating with other kids. They're still going to bully each other and what have you. They're still going to develop unrealistic expectations. They're probably even still going to use social media in practice.

bigfudge 11mo ago
The attempt is to remove the market do exploiting the attention of children for profit. This doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth it. What’s more, the idea that this puts children at the mercy of authoritarians is laughable. The US tech industry has shown us beyond doubt that they are perfectly ok with genuine authoritarians in charge, provided the dollars keep rolling. Fuck them, and good on ya Australia.
- fnikacevic 11mo ago
  So are we banning all advertising to children? Or only banning them from communicating and posting with each other? If it's about monetizing child attention not about speech control why isn't every single toy ad, food ad, movie ad, also banned?
  - hshdhdhj4444 11mo ago
    Because all those aren’t close to being as harmful as social media is. We do ban the things that consume children the way social media does. Alcohol, addictive drugs, etc.
    - fnikacevic 11mo ago
      The data on social media harms is mixed at best. We know for a fact fast food, cosmetic ads for girls, are strictly more harmful. This is nothing more than speech control under the guise of "won't someone please think of the children"
      - tigroferoce 11mo ago
        > The data on social media harms is mixed at best. We know for a fact fast food, cosmetic ads for girls, are strictly more harmful. True, but let me remind you that we didn't have conclusive data on smoke harm until the 50s, but this doesn't mean that smoking was not harmful before, nor that we were lacking any clue before coming to a conclusive study. At the moment we don't have any conclusive study about e-cigarettes, but I'm sure you would never give kids e-cigarettes just because we don't have 30/40 years worth of data. > This is nothing more than speech control under the guise of "won't someone please think of the children" This is a bit more complex than this. Kids and adolescents online are targeted with all sort of techniques to leverage their attention in order to make money. I understand the speech control worry, and I agree up to a certain point, but I don't see how ignoring the problem makes it any better. What are the alternatives we have? I'm genuinely asking, not advocating for TINA. I have two kids and I see the effects of social media on them and on their friends. Keep in mind that this cannot be offloaded to families, for multiple reasons: - many family just don't have enough data or knowledge to make informed decisions - until the network effect is in place, banning your kid from social media while all of their friend are online can be impractical and cruel - parent decisions can affect kids health and overall society outcome; allowing a wrong decision by the parents (because the society doesn't want to handle the problem) would be unfair for the kids and no wise for the society. As in many aspects of life the best solution is neither white nor black, but a shade of grey, and is far from being perfect. Looking for a perfect solution is a waste of time, resources and unfair for those that are affected in the meanwhile. I understand the concerns, and probably Australia approach is not the best, but it's also the first. We probably will need a period of adjustments to reach a sound solution.
  - optionalsquid 11mo ago
    > So are we banning all advertising to children? Or only banning them from communicating and posting with each other? Kids are not banned from communicating and posting with each other; the ban exempts a number of direct messing apps, as well as community apps like Discord: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/dec/10/social-media-ban-australia-explained-banned-apps-list-guide https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/dec/10/social-media-b... If I had to over-simplify it, then the ban appears to mostly target doom-scrolling apps. I say mostly, since I'm not sure why Twitch and Kick are included
    - awillowingmind 11mo ago
      Twitch & Kick are likely included because they can breed parasocial relationships between streamer & viewer.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - stephen_g 11mo ago
    Haha, no, here in Australia we can't even ban gambling/betting app ads on TV during sports when lots of kids are watching!
- samename 11mo ago
  What about future governments in Australia? This is ripe for abuse and scope creep. It also ties a uniform ID to an account, simplifying tracking and surveillance by corporations and governments. Plus, this is asking everyone in the country to give up their biometrics (face scanning is one implementation) or link your government issued ID to your social media account (look at the UK to see how this turned out - people are being arrested for simple tweets against the government). Sacrificing the freedom to be anonymous online to "protect the kids"
  - 9dev 11mo ago
    > It also ties a uniform ID to an account, simplifying tracking and surveillance by corporations and governments. That is by no means the only solution. A lot of work is happening in the area of cryptographically verified assertions; for example, a government API could provide the simple assertion "at least 16 years of age" without the social media platform ever seeing your ID, and the government never able to tie you to the service requiring the assertion.
    - lukan 11mo ago
      Does that work already? If so, how? If the API asks for a users minimum age at a certain time, how can the government not know which data set it has to check?
      - SiempreViernes 11mo ago
        The anonymity is that the government doesn't know who is asking for the verification, not that the the government doesn't know whose majority it should attest.
      - danpat 11mo ago
        It can be achieved with a zero-knowledge proof - there are many schemes, but in essence, they all allow you to prove something (e.g. your birthdate, validated by a government agency), without revealing who you are. You can prove to a third party "the government authenticated that I was born on 1970-01-01" without exposing who "I" is. Some worthwhile reading on the topic if you're interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof#Zero-Knowledge_Proof_protocols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof#Zero-Know... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_signature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_signature It should even possible to construct a protocol where you can prove that you're over 18 without revealing your birthdate. Zero-Knowledge Range Proofs: https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/430 https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/430 "Zero-knowledge range proofs (ZKRPs) allow a prover to convince a verifier that a secret value lies in a given interval."
- pryce 11mo ago
  It is not that simple: Authoritarians that want to "protect" their gender-questioning or orientation-questioning children from having online access to trans and gay spaces online are not only enthusiastically backing Australia's social media ban, they are involved in the very creation of this legislation, and are delighted in its negative affects on LGBTQ teens. There is considerable overlap between those who subscribe to the "trans people are a contagion" moral panic of writer Abigail Schrier, and the "ban social media" advocates in AU who were instrumental in creating this legislation.
  - nuggets 11mo ago
    There's not really any plausible explanation as to why referrals to pediatric gender clinics became so skewed towards girls who want to be boys, other than social contagion. The sticking point is that it's politically controversial to point this out because of progressive beliefs about gender identity as an unquestionable facet of someone's being.
    - yosame 11mo ago
      I'm pretty sure this take is incorrect on multiple accounts. Trans demographics tend to skew towards trans women by about a third, not trans men - at least in all the research I've come across. And regardless, increased acceptance and awareness of different gender identities can very plausibily explain increased numbers, not "social contagion". Calling it a contagion is pretty indicative of your underlying beliefs here.
      - nuggets 11mo ago
        Regarding the change in sex ratio for childhood referrals, this is well documented. See for example this paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324768316_Sex_Ratio_in_Children_and_Adolescents_Referred_to_the_Gender_Identity_Development_Service_in_the_UK_2009-2016 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324768316_Sex_Ratio... "Social contagion" is social science terminology. It's meant as an analogy not a pejorative.
- twelvechairs 11mo ago
  If you read the rhetoric it is not about removing commercial exploitation of children. It is about removing child bullying, grooming and algorithms that lead to things like misogynist content and eating disorders. I generally agree with parent commenter - some of this will be helped by the ban but theres a serious risk a small number will go through fringe social media even less policed or normalised than the big American ones and have much higher risk on some of these issues than before.
delbronski 11mo ago
Come on dude, you are on HN. You probably know that social media is no longer about free speech. It’s a targeted advertising machine that is extremely effective on kids and teenagers. It preys on them so, so efficiently. It’s a technical work of art. A young mind is extremely susceptible to the algorithms on those platforms. Much more than adults are, and adults are already really susceptible. This is what this ban is trying to shield kids from. Not from them talking to each other. The Social media platforms of today are very clearly harmful to our youth. Just like alcohol and cigarettes are to a developing brain. Why can we ban those and not this?
- FpUser 11mo ago
  >"You probably know that social media is no longer about free speech, It’s a targeted advertising machine" Youtube for one is an advertising machine. On the other hand it is one of the few places where one can find some amazing educational and entertainment content. Prohibiting it I think is a crime. Besides, lately Politicians stick their noses everywhere. It is just way too much.
  - osn9363739 11mo ago
    It's not banned for under 16s, they just can't sign up.
    - DocTomoe 11mo ago
      Which means they also do no longer benefit from family-grouped Youtube Premium, which means MORE ADS ... which is exactly what we tried to prevent, right?
      - osn9363739 11mo ago
        The main target of these bans algorithmic content curation and the addictive nature of such algorithms and the possible harmful content that could be presented. So no?
hedayet 11mo ago
Still, even the most libertarian among us generally won't oppose restricting youth access to tobacco, or restricting recreational access to hard drugs.
- armenarmen 11mo ago
  As one of the libertarian people here, my concern is that this “what about the children” will force IDs to post. Because how else could it be done? That said smoking and Instagram are probably best avoided by kids
  - owisd 11mo ago
    It’s already a solved problem- load a digital ID into a wallet app, the operating system can then perform a zero knowledge proof for each website that the user is over 16. The government issuing the ID doesn’t know which websites it’s being used for and the website only gets a binary yes/no for the age and no other personal info: https://blog.google/products/google-pay/google-wallet-age-identity-verifications/ https://blog.google/products/google-pay/google-wallet-age-id...
    - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
      Well, phones and computers have had parental controls for well over a decade.
    - wizzwizz4 11mo ago
      That doesn't solve the problem: it just defers it. Who's allowed to have a digital ID?
      - nottorp 11mo ago
        Microsoft users :) Or do you expect the government to understand there are other operating systems out there?
      - akoboldfrying 11mo ago
avereveard 11mo ago
and the other other problem is that this does nothing to disincentivize toxic advertisement and predatory behaviors they will just follow where the target are.
phs318u 11mo ago
The "stuff" is already in the hands of authoritarians. When huge swathes of the world's "social estate" lies in the hands of a very small number of individuals with overwhelming incentives to tweak the "stuff" for their own benefit (exerting their authority over the estate if you will), then you're already in that territory. At least with elected authoritarians you have some theoretical influence. Good luck getting a Facebook/X policy changed.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
kubb 11mo ago
Authoritarians use social networks to undermine democratic principles so not exposing kids to that takes power away from them. Or did I misunderstand something?
- api 11mo ago
  My take for a while has been that authoritarian ideas (both hard right and hard left) dominate on social media because of the short form short attention span format. Authoritarianism tends to run on simple slogans, grievances, and identity politics. That stuff is very well suited to 140 characters, memes, and short videos. Liberal ideas require more explaining and historical context, and they don’t play well when everyone has been triggered and trolled into limbic system mode by rage bait. Liberal politics speaks to the neocortex. Authoritarianism speaks to the brain stem.
  - nxor 11mo ago
    Liberals can also be authoritarian. See reddit, where ideas that don't conform are typically downvoted out. Here too.
    - api 11mo ago
      I’m using the word liberal to mean things like liberty, individual rights, democracy, and the rule of law. That’s why I also mentioned hard left authoritarianism. Also there’s a world of difference between people registering dislike on an online forum and the use of state power. It seems like a lot of people these days draw no distinction between removal from a private space or even people just showing disapproval and actual state force.
      - docmars 11mo ago
        This doesn't surprise me much; social networks have worked in tandem with governments, allowing them to call the shots to remove any content that opposed their political agendas, narratives, and opinions, to the extent that facts were flat-out censored to paint certain political opponents in a bad light, or worse, create potential legal issues. It created a world where: when disapproval inside an echo-chamber fails to a critical mass of people telling the truth, just pretend the content doesn't exist and then gaslight people using official media outlets, including Congress and the White House. So it gave people the impression there's no difference between the two. Not only were disapproval and state force in agreement, they colluded.
rapind 11mo ago
These are government regulations regarding kids. Nothing new here, we’ve been regulating what you can market to kids for decades. I’m not buying a slippery slope argument. As a parent myself, it definitely helps when you can collectively avoid having your kids on these platforms. I can’t express how much easier it is to restrict it and not seem like a kook when authorities are also on board.
- jaimex2 11mo ago
  The government isn't helping you, they just pushed every child in Australia to un-moderated and decentralised social networks. Complete free for alls. 4chan, Mastedon, BlueSky, PeerTube, Pixelfed They have millions of users. They're about to get more. No, you can't block these. No, you can't order these to do anything.
  - nostrebored 11mo ago
    This idea that regulation fails to destroy industries is farcical. Most examples of “failed regulation” like American prohibition were runaway successes as public policy. Whether it is good or desirable is a different question. The idea that someone is going to make an engaging experience on a “decentralized” network is honestly a bit silly to me. The market potential of this business is low. Decentralized networks with much larger incentives have failed to capture critical mass. There will be side effects, but social media has been so ridiculously corrosive to the welfare of teenagers that I can’t imagine a ban would be worse.
    - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
      >Most examples of “failed regulation” like American prohibition were runaway successes as public policy. You pick one of the worst examples? Prohibition drove a black market for spirits . the 21st amendment repealed it because the government missed out on hundreds of thousands in taxes. The reason to make the law and repeal it were both awful. The lessons learned were all wrong. It's just awful all around (and I speak as someone that doesn't really drink much).
mason_mpls 11mo ago
We regulate kids in all sorts of ways, this isn’t different. Kids don’t need social media to communicate.
johnwheeler 11mo ago
Some of us don’t mind government regulation as much as your parents told you not to like it. I just say this because it’s usually those types of parents that instill this kind of stuff and their children not to trust the government but some of us actually do. We are pretty happy with the way things are. It’s not naïve either. It’s seriously a problem when people talk like the government is meant to be not trusted.
- nostrebored 11mo ago
  I typically think regulation is ineffective and poorly structured. Banning social media for teenagers is such an obvious social good that I can’t see a downside. The kids are not alright.
  - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
    You don’t see a downside from having the government tie your ID to your online presence?
    - nostrebored 11mo ago
      No, not really. Any sufficiently motivated state actor already can. I would be unsurprised to be able to dox you as a mildly interested individual. It is usually not very hard. People usually reference things that they are ashamed about as a reason to justify this fear of ID based services. I don’t find this compelling whatsoever. Every platform I’m on that is even mildly associated with identity is more enjoyable and interesting. The idea that the marketplace of ideas is slowed by identity is not something I’ve seen in practice. In authoritarian regimes we already see ways to circumvent internet anonymity. So no, I don’t see the downside. Open to being persuaded here though, about 5 years ago I would have agreed with you.
      - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
        You realize right now today the US is forcing people to have public social media profiles to enter the country and they just started firing people for saying mean things about an irrelevant racist podcaster? Why make it easy for them.
jrochkind1 11mo ago
The government has laws saying people under 16 can't drive cars, do you think that's part of the slippery slope that has led to all of those happening-in-practice bad things?
- madeofpalk 11mo ago
  Yes but every time you drive on the road you don't need to prove you're over 16.
  - eimrine 11mo ago
    It would be true if the windows are totally black or humans under 16 are looking totally adult.
    - vaylian 11mo ago
      No. It would be true if the car didn't turn on the engine unless you showed your face and ID to some on-board computer of the car.
- 9rx 11mo ago
  > The government has laws saying people under 16 can't drive cars We did, though. The chances of getting caught were slim to nil. Will kids (and adults for that matter) have the same easy opportunity to evade enforcement here?
  - komali2 11mo ago
    I thought the point of laws was not that enforcement is perfect but rather that the consequence of getting caught created a counter-incentive to doing the thing?
    - 9rx 11mo ago
      The point of laws is to document what everyone in a community has come to agree on, assuming a democracy. Or, in a dictatorship, what the dear leader has decided upon. Any punishments encoded into those laws may serve as a counter-incentive, I suppose. But baked into that is the idea that enforcement isn't perfect so you can still disappear into the night when you have that urge to do whatever it is that is technically illegal. This allows acceptance of laws that might be considered too draconian if enforcement was perfect. However, it seems in the case of these digital-centric laws that enforcement will become too close to being perfect as, without the need to hire watchful people, there is strong incentive to make it ever-present. Or maybe not, but that is why the question was asked.
manindahat 11mo ago
That is an argument and worth monitoring, but IMO it's not a strong enough argument to stop this. This sort of ban is the same as existing laws banning the sale and consumption of alcohol or driving until kids are of age they will (on average) have sufficient maturity to handle the responsibility. Something we accept. Kids are not banned from digital communication. My daughter can still send text messages and make phone calls. Kids are not banned from the consuming content on those platforms. They simply can't have an account to create their own content as it was too often abused. For example, my 12yo daughter was asked by a friend to message bomb and abuse a 12yo her friend had a crush on. That's mild compared to some of the stories I've heard from platforms like Facebook, and between about 10 - 16 many kids are just nasty. I believe that the line in the sand over which platforms this applies to is the ones that leverage account history to supercharge the already addictive behaviours caused by UI designs optimised to manipulate your attention and direct your purchasing power towards whoever is paying them. Something kids are particularly vulnerable to. The algorithm doesn't care if it is pushing you towards radical content as long as you are watching it for as many hours in a day as possible.
- fogj094j0923j4 11mo ago
  All those services are wall-gardened so without an account, you already cannot consume the contents.
  - skrebbel 11mo ago
    That’s a choice made by those services. They can change it.
    - re-thc 11mo ago
      > That’s a choice made by those services. They can change it. Why do these services have to lose? That's a choice made by this country's government. They can change it.
      - skrebbel 11mo ago
nutanc 11mo ago
The question here is, is social media addictive and is it harmful. If we have enough evidentiary proof, then yes, it should be banned just like we do for alcohol or cigarettes. We also ban porn for kids. And we don't need any ID proofs in implementing the ban. So we have a precedent. It's not perfect, but society knows it's bad, government, family, schools come together and implement the ban. No need for IDs etc and give more control to government.
cde-v 11mo ago
Authoritarians were already in charge of social media. At least these new “authoritarians” are elected and have some duty to people and society rather than just a few rich shareholders.
hyperadvanced 11mo ago
Now tell us what you think about drivers licenses
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
ares623 11mo ago
We wouldn’t have this problem if the tech companies can “self regulate” (lol). But us engineers just can’t help ourselves but find even more effective and efficient ways to harvest eyeballs and stoke hate. And yes, I mean engineers. Just a few “inventions” off the top of my head that got us here: - infinite scroll - Facebook’s shadow profiles - recommendation algorithms Don’t pretend it’s not engineers that came up with these.
- anakaine 11mo ago
  The issue is that lower profits are attached to self regulation, as is community backlash. Large tech companies rarely have a moral compass and their decisions are attached to return on investment to their financiers.
- mlrtime 11mo ago
  Prisoners delima...
globular-toast 11mo ago
> I had a comment comparing this to allowing people to eat too much food We do that for drugs already. Of course, the correct way to do it is not to try to ban a substance or control supply but simply to ban advertising for addictive stuff. I don't think that works for social media, though, due to the viral nature of it.
petesergeant 11mo ago
It’s Australia, it’s a nanny state and always has been, and much as the locals complain, they also love it, and keep voting for it. The rest of the Anglo world is much less obsessed with government control than the US is; UK is absolutely fine with cameras everywhere, for example, and has almost no protection against parliament. Law enforcement is much more seen as by the people and for the people in these countries.
- stinkbeetle 11mo ago
  > It’s Australia, it’s a nanny state and always has been Australians think of themselves as carefree but good hearted larrikins who snub their nose at authority, and would always be ready to duff a steer or two from a wealthy cattleman for some hungry orphans. The reality is this type of Australian only remains as fading memories in Henry Lawson stories, the few that ever existed. The real Australian is not only a spineless sticklers for the rules completely subservient to authority, with little sense of adventure, but is also very envious of others driven by their greedy and selfish nature. During covid "lockdowns", Australians were far more eager to tattle on other commoners for breaking the precious rules than they were concerned with questioning government's hypocritical behavior or unscientific rules and policies. It was fine in their minds that their rulers misbehaved, so long as their neighbor didn't get to take their kid to a park if they weren't allowed to as well. EDIT: I don't mean this to sound overly harsh to Australians, it's not unique to them. What is funny is just their opinion of themselves. At least the British are admittedly subservient sticklers.
kraf 11mo ago
This is not about stopping kids from communicating. The list of negative consequences of being on social media is long and real. A government regulating something is also not authoritarian. "Government bad" is not an argument by the way, and also not a given. It's just libertarian confusion.
jfjfnfjrh 11mo ago
Why not compare it to smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol? You need to be an adult to decide legally you can do that and that makes sense. Its the same thing here.
- throwawayqqq11 11mo ago
  Exactly, go tell your physician, that any kind of authority is bad. Its a two sided bias, on the one, governmemt authority is categorically bad and on the other you cant participate and change it. You could frame social media corporations in the way, but not, when you are a libertarian, i guess.
rb666 11mo ago
You know we kids did perfectly fine before there was social media? The point is, arguably we did a lot better.
kelnos 11mo ago
I don't put much stock in slippery-slope style arguments. If you're going to make an argument like that, you need to support it with other instances where the same group/government has actually fallen down that slippery slope, to great detriment, in a similar enough situation for it to be likely to happen here. Without that, it just comes off as hand-wavy anti-government fear-mongering. It's telling that you used the term "authoritarians", as if any law that's passed that can restrict what someone can do is necessarily authoritarian... which, well, as I said, it's telling. I'm more concerned with the fact that these sorts of laws don't just affect kids: they require adults to supply government-issued identification in order to use these services, which I think is crap.
ActorNightly 11mo ago
>And this is further normalising the government making decisions about speech where they have every incentive and tendency to shut down people who tell inconvenient and important truths. You really should think about how idiotic this libertarian talking point is It would be valid if you had a populace that was educated (implying that when people heard the inconvenient truths, they would be able to parse fact from fiction and not be ideologically driven), combined with a tyrannical government that would be in power and afraid of the general populace knowing that information and starting a revolt. This situation is pretty much impossible. How can an educated populace elect that government in the first place? If the population was dumb and elected a fascist government (i.e USA), they would just ignore anyone speaking inconvenient truths (i.e how MAGA is blind to all the stuff that is going on). Secondly, information dissemination is pretty much impossible to stop these days with everyone being on the internet all the time. The only people who complain about government silencing them these days are racists who wanna push some racist or "anti-woke" narrative, or the brainrotted people like anti-vaxxers. Because in their mind, they live in this false reality where they believe that everyone is brainwashed by the evil government and they are the actually "woke" ones.

by roenxi 11mo ago

bigfudge 11mo ago

The attempt is to remove the market do exploiting the attention of children for profit. This doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth it. What’s more, the idea that this puts children at the mercy of authoritarians is laughable. The US tech industry has shown us beyond doubt that they are perfectly ok with genuine authoritarians in charge, provided the dollars keep rolling. Fuck them, and good on ya Australia.

fnikacevic 11mo ago
So are we banning all advertising to children? Or only banning them from communicating and posting with each other? If it's about monetizing child attention not about speech control why isn't every single toy ad, food ad, movie ad, also banned?
- hshdhdhj4444 11mo ago
  Because all those aren’t close to being as harmful as social media is. We do ban the things that consume children the way social media does. Alcohol, addictive drugs, etc.
  - fnikacevic 11mo ago
    The data on social media harms is mixed at best. We know for a fact fast food, cosmetic ads for girls, are strictly more harmful. This is nothing more than speech control under the guise of "won't someone please think of the children"
    - tigroferoce 11mo ago
      > The data on social media harms is mixed at best. We know for a fact fast food, cosmetic ads for girls, are strictly more harmful. True, but let me remind you that we didn't have conclusive data on smoke harm until the 50s, but this doesn't mean that smoking was not harmful before, nor that we were lacking any clue before coming to a conclusive study. At the moment we don't have any conclusive study about e-cigarettes, but I'm sure you would never give kids e-cigarettes just because we don't have 30/40 years worth of data. > This is nothing more than speech control under the guise of "won't someone please think of the children" This is a bit more complex than this. Kids and adolescents online are targeted with all sort of techniques to leverage their attention in order to make money. I understand the speech control worry, and I agree up to a certain point, but I don't see how ignoring the problem makes it any better. What are the alternatives we have? I'm genuinely asking, not advocating for TINA. I have two kids and I see the effects of social media on them and on their friends. Keep in mind that this cannot be offloaded to families, for multiple reasons: - many family just don't have enough data or knowledge to make informed decisions - until the network effect is in place, banning your kid from social media while all of their friend are online can be impractical and cruel - parent decisions can affect kids health and overall society outcome; allowing a wrong decision by the parents (because the society doesn't want to handle the problem) would be unfair for the kids and no wise for the society. As in many aspects of life the best solution is neither white nor black, but a shade of grey, and is far from being perfect. Looking for a perfect solution is a waste of time, resources and unfair for those that are affected in the meanwhile. I understand the concerns, and probably Australia approach is not the best, but it's also the first. We probably will need a period of adjustments to reach a sound solution.
- optionalsquid 11mo ago
  > So are we banning all advertising to children? Or only banning them from communicating and posting with each other? Kids are not banned from communicating and posting with each other; the ban exempts a number of direct messing apps, as well as community apps like Discord: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/dec/10/social-media-ban-australia-explained-banned-apps-list-guide https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/dec/10/social-media-b... If I had to over-simplify it, then the ban appears to mostly target doom-scrolling apps. I say mostly, since I'm not sure why Twitch and Kick are included
  - awillowingmind 11mo ago
    Twitch & Kick are likely included because they can breed parasocial relationships between streamer & viewer.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- stephen_g 11mo ago
  Haha, no, here in Australia we can't even ban gambling/betting app ads on TV during sports when lots of kids are watching!
samename 11mo ago
What about future governments in Australia? This is ripe for abuse and scope creep. It also ties a uniform ID to an account, simplifying tracking and surveillance by corporations and governments. Plus, this is asking everyone in the country to give up their biometrics (face scanning is one implementation) or link your government issued ID to your social media account (look at the UK to see how this turned out - people are being arrested for simple tweets against the government). Sacrificing the freedom to be anonymous online to "protect the kids"
- 9dev 11mo ago
  > It also ties a uniform ID to an account, simplifying tracking and surveillance by corporations and governments. That is by no means the only solution. A lot of work is happening in the area of cryptographically verified assertions; for example, a government API could provide the simple assertion "at least 16 years of age" without the social media platform ever seeing your ID, and the government never able to tie you to the service requiring the assertion.
  - lukan 11mo ago
    Does that work already? If so, how? If the API asks for a users minimum age at a certain time, how can the government not know which data set it has to check?
    - SiempreViernes 11mo ago
      The anonymity is that the government doesn't know who is asking for the verification, not that the the government doesn't know whose majority it should attest.
    - danpat 11mo ago
      It can be achieved with a zero-knowledge proof - there are many schemes, but in essence, they all allow you to prove something (e.g. your birthdate, validated by a government agency), without revealing who you are. You can prove to a third party "the government authenticated that I was born on 1970-01-01" without exposing who "I" is. Some worthwhile reading on the topic if you're interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof#Zero-Knowledge_Proof_protocols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof#Zero-Know... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_signature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_signature It should even possible to construct a protocol where you can prove that you're over 18 without revealing your birthdate. Zero-Knowledge Range Proofs: https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/430 https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/430 "Zero-knowledge range proofs (ZKRPs) allow a prover to convince a verifier that a secret value lies in a given interval."
pryce 11mo ago
It is not that simple: Authoritarians that want to "protect" their gender-questioning or orientation-questioning children from having online access to trans and gay spaces online are not only enthusiastically backing Australia's social media ban, they are involved in the very creation of this legislation, and are delighted in its negative affects on LGBTQ teens. There is considerable overlap between those who subscribe to the "trans people are a contagion" moral panic of writer Abigail Schrier, and the "ban social media" advocates in AU who were instrumental in creating this legislation.
- nuggets 11mo ago
  There's not really any plausible explanation as to why referrals to pediatric gender clinics became so skewed towards girls who want to be boys, other than social contagion. The sticking point is that it's politically controversial to point this out because of progressive beliefs about gender identity as an unquestionable facet of someone's being.
  - yosame 11mo ago
    I'm pretty sure this take is incorrect on multiple accounts. Trans demographics tend to skew towards trans women by about a third, not trans men - at least in all the research I've come across. And regardless, increased acceptance and awareness of different gender identities can very plausibily explain increased numbers, not "social contagion". Calling it a contagion is pretty indicative of your underlying beliefs here.
    - nuggets 11mo ago
      Regarding the change in sex ratio for childhood referrals, this is well documented. See for example this paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324768316_Sex_Ratio_in_Children_and_Adolescents_Referred_to_the_Gender_Identity_Development_Service_in_the_UK_2009-2016 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324768316_Sex_Ratio... "Social contagion" is social science terminology. It's meant as an analogy not a pejorative.
twelvechairs 11mo ago
If you read the rhetoric it is not about removing commercial exploitation of children. It is about removing child bullying, grooming and algorithms that lead to things like misogynist content and eating disorders. I generally agree with parent commenter - some of this will be helped by the ban but theres a serious risk a small number will go through fringe social media even less policed or normalised than the big American ones and have much higher risk on some of these issues than before.

delbronski 11mo ago

Come on dude, you are on HN. You probably know that social media is no longer about free speech. It’s a targeted advertising machine that is extremely effective on kids and teenagers. It preys on them so, so efficiently. It’s a technical work of art. A young mind is extremely susceptible to the algorithms on those platforms. Much more than adults are, and adults are already really susceptible. This is what this ban is trying to shield kids from. Not from them talking to each other. The Social media platforms of today are very clearly harmful to our youth. Just like alcohol and cigarettes are to a developing brain. Why can we ban those and not this?

FpUser 11mo ago
>"You probably know that social media is no longer about free speech, It’s a targeted advertising machine" Youtube for one is an advertising machine. On the other hand it is one of the few places where one can find some amazing educational and entertainment content. Prohibiting it I think is a crime. Besides, lately Politicians stick their noses everywhere. It is just way too much.
- osn9363739 11mo ago
  It's not banned for under 16s, they just can't sign up.
  - DocTomoe 11mo ago
    Which means they also do no longer benefit from family-grouped Youtube Premium, which means MORE ADS ... which is exactly what we tried to prevent, right?
    - osn9363739 11mo ago
      The main target of these bans algorithmic content curation and the addictive nature of such algorithms and the possible harmful content that could be presented. So no?

hedayet 11mo ago

Still, even the most libertarian among us generally won't oppose restricting youth access to tobacco, or restricting recreational access to hard drugs.

armenarmen 11mo ago
As one of the libertarian people here, my concern is that this “what about the children” will force IDs to post. Because how else could it be done? That said smoking and Instagram are probably best avoided by kids
- owisd 11mo ago
  It’s already a solved problem- load a digital ID into a wallet app, the operating system can then perform a zero knowledge proof for each website that the user is over 16. The government issuing the ID doesn’t know which websites it’s being used for and the website only gets a binary yes/no for the age and no other personal info: https://blog.google/products/google-pay/google-wallet-age-identity-verifications/ https://blog.google/products/google-pay/google-wallet-age-id...
  - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
    Well, phones and computers have had parental controls for well over a decade.
  - wizzwizz4 11mo ago
    That doesn't solve the problem: it just defers it. Who's allowed to have a digital ID?
    - nottorp 11mo ago
      Microsoft users :) Or do you expect the government to understand there are other operating systems out there?
    - akoboldfrying 11mo ago

avereveard 11mo ago

and the other other problem is that this does nothing to disincentivize toxic advertisement and predatory behaviors they will just follow where the target are.

phs318u 11mo ago

The "stuff" is already in the hands of authoritarians. When huge swathes of the world's "social estate" lies in the hands of a very small number of individuals with overwhelming incentives to tweak the "stuff" for their own benefit (exerting their authority over the estate if you will), then you're already in that territory. At least with elected authoritarians you have some theoretical influence. Good luck getting a Facebook/X policy changed.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

kubb 11mo ago

Authoritarians use social networks to undermine democratic principles so not exposing kids to that takes power away from them. Or did I misunderstand something?

api 11mo ago
My take for a while has been that authoritarian ideas (both hard right and hard left) dominate on social media because of the short form short attention span format. Authoritarianism tends to run on simple slogans, grievances, and identity politics. That stuff is very well suited to 140 characters, memes, and short videos. Liberal ideas require more explaining and historical context, and they don’t play well when everyone has been triggered and trolled into limbic system mode by rage bait. Liberal politics speaks to the neocortex. Authoritarianism speaks to the brain stem.
- nxor 11mo ago
  Liberals can also be authoritarian. See reddit, where ideas that don't conform are typically downvoted out. Here too.
  - api 11mo ago
    I’m using the word liberal to mean things like liberty, individual rights, democracy, and the rule of law. That’s why I also mentioned hard left authoritarianism. Also there’s a world of difference between people registering dislike on an online forum and the use of state power. It seems like a lot of people these days draw no distinction between removal from a private space or even people just showing disapproval and actual state force.
    - docmars 11mo ago
      This doesn't surprise me much; social networks have worked in tandem with governments, allowing them to call the shots to remove any content that opposed their political agendas, narratives, and opinions, to the extent that facts were flat-out censored to paint certain political opponents in a bad light, or worse, create potential legal issues. It created a world where: when disapproval inside an echo-chamber fails to a critical mass of people telling the truth, just pretend the content doesn't exist and then gaslight people using official media outlets, including Congress and the White House. So it gave people the impression there's no difference between the two. Not only were disapproval and state force in agreement, they colluded.

rapind 11mo ago

These are government regulations regarding kids. Nothing new here, we’ve been regulating what you can market to kids for decades. I’m not buying a slippery slope argument. As a parent myself, it definitely helps when you can collectively avoid having your kids on these platforms. I can’t express how much easier it is to restrict it and not seem like a kook when authorities are also on board.

jaimex2 11mo ago
The government isn't helping you, they just pushed every child in Australia to un-moderated and decentralised social networks. Complete free for alls. 4chan, Mastedon, BlueSky, PeerTube, Pixelfed They have millions of users. They're about to get more. No, you can't block these. No, you can't order these to do anything.
- nostrebored 11mo ago
  This idea that regulation fails to destroy industries is farcical. Most examples of “failed regulation” like American prohibition were runaway successes as public policy. Whether it is good or desirable is a different question. The idea that someone is going to make an engaging experience on a “decentralized” network is honestly a bit silly to me. The market potential of this business is low. Decentralized networks with much larger incentives have failed to capture critical mass. There will be side effects, but social media has been so ridiculously corrosive to the welfare of teenagers that I can’t imagine a ban would be worse.
  - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
    >Most examples of “failed regulation” like American prohibition were runaway successes as public policy. You pick one of the worst examples? Prohibition drove a black market for spirits . the 21st amendment repealed it because the government missed out on hundreds of thousands in taxes. The reason to make the law and repeal it were both awful. The lessons learned were all wrong. It's just awful all around (and I speak as someone that doesn't really drink much).

mason_mpls 11mo ago

We regulate kids in all sorts of ways, this isn’t different. Kids don’t need social media to communicate.

johnwheeler 11mo ago

Some of us don’t mind government regulation as much as your parents told you not to like it. I just say this because it’s usually those types of parents that instill this kind of stuff and their children not to trust the government but some of us actually do. We are pretty happy with the way things are. It’s not naïve either. It’s seriously a problem when people talk like the government is meant to be not trusted.

nostrebored 11mo ago
I typically think regulation is ineffective and poorly structured. Banning social media for teenagers is such an obvious social good that I can’t see a downside. The kids are not alright.
- raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
  You don’t see a downside from having the government tie your ID to your online presence?
  - nostrebored 11mo ago
    No, not really. Any sufficiently motivated state actor already can. I would be unsurprised to be able to dox you as a mildly interested individual. It is usually not very hard. People usually reference things that they are ashamed about as a reason to justify this fear of ID based services. I don’t find this compelling whatsoever. Every platform I’m on that is even mildly associated with identity is more enjoyable and interesting. The idea that the marketplace of ideas is slowed by identity is not something I’ve seen in practice. In authoritarian regimes we already see ways to circumvent internet anonymity. So no, I don’t see the downside. Open to being persuaded here though, about 5 years ago I would have agreed with you.
    - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
      You realize right now today the US is forcing people to have public social media profiles to enter the country and they just started firing people for saying mean things about an irrelevant racist podcaster? Why make it easy for them.

jrochkind1 11mo ago

The government has laws saying people under 16 can't drive cars, do you think that's part of the slippery slope that has led to all of those happening-in-practice bad things?

madeofpalk 11mo ago
Yes but every time you drive on the road you don't need to prove you're over 16.
- eimrine 11mo ago
  It would be true if the windows are totally black or humans under 16 are looking totally adult.
  - vaylian 11mo ago
    No. It would be true if the car didn't turn on the engine unless you showed your face and ID to some on-board computer of the car.
9rx 11mo ago
> The government has laws saying people under 16 can't drive cars We did, though. The chances of getting caught were slim to nil. Will kids (and adults for that matter) have the same easy opportunity to evade enforcement here?
- komali2 11mo ago
  I thought the point of laws was not that enforcement is perfect but rather that the consequence of getting caught created a counter-incentive to doing the thing?
  - 9rx 11mo ago
    The point of laws is to document what everyone in a community has come to agree on, assuming a democracy. Or, in a dictatorship, what the dear leader has decided upon. Any punishments encoded into those laws may serve as a counter-incentive, I suppose. But baked into that is the idea that enforcement isn't perfect so you can still disappear into the night when you have that urge to do whatever it is that is technically illegal. This allows acceptance of laws that might be considered too draconian if enforcement was perfect. However, it seems in the case of these digital-centric laws that enforcement will become too close to being perfect as, without the need to hire watchful people, there is strong incentive to make it ever-present. Or maybe not, but that is why the question was asked.

manindahat 11mo ago

That is an argument and worth monitoring, but IMO it's not a strong enough argument to stop this. This sort of ban is the same as existing laws banning the sale and consumption of alcohol or driving until kids are of age they will (on average) have sufficient maturity to handle the responsibility. Something we accept. Kids are not banned from digital communication. My daughter can still send text messages and make phone calls. Kids are not banned from the consuming content on those platforms. They simply can't have an account to create their own content as it was too often abused. For example, my 12yo daughter was asked by a friend to message bomb and abuse a 12yo her friend had a crush on. That's mild compared to some of the stories I've heard from platforms like Facebook, and between about 10 - 16 many kids are just nasty. I believe that the line in the sand over which platforms this applies to is the ones that leverage account history to supercharge the already addictive behaviours caused by UI designs optimised to manipulate your attention and direct your purchasing power towards whoever is paying them. Something kids are particularly vulnerable to. The algorithm doesn't care if it is pushing you towards radical content as long as you are watching it for as many hours in a day as possible.

fogj094j0923j4 11mo ago
All those services are wall-gardened so without an account, you already cannot consume the contents.
- skrebbel 11mo ago
  That’s a choice made by those services. They can change it.
  - re-thc 11mo ago
    > That’s a choice made by those services. They can change it. Why do these services have to lose? That's a choice made by this country's government. They can change it.
    - skrebbel 11mo ago

nutanc 11mo ago

The question here is, is social media addictive and is it harmful. If we have enough evidentiary proof, then yes, it should be banned just like we do for alcohol or cigarettes. We also ban porn for kids. And we don't need any ID proofs in implementing the ban. So we have a precedent. It's not perfect, but society knows it's bad, government, family, schools come together and implement the ban. No need for IDs etc and give more control to government.

cde-v 11mo ago

Authoritarians were already in charge of social media. At least these new “authoritarians” are elected and have some duty to people and society rather than just a few rich shareholders.

hyperadvanced 11mo ago

Now tell us what you think about drivers licenses

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

ares623 11mo ago

We wouldn’t have this problem if the tech companies can “self regulate” (lol). But us engineers just can’t help ourselves but find even more effective and efficient ways to harvest eyeballs and stoke hate. And yes, I mean engineers. Just a few “inventions” off the top of my head that got us here: - infinite scroll - Facebook’s shadow profiles - recommendation algorithms Don’t pretend it’s not engineers that came up with these.

anakaine 11mo ago
The issue is that lower profits are attached to self regulation, as is community backlash. Large tech companies rarely have a moral compass and their decisions are attached to return on investment to their financiers.
mlrtime 11mo ago
Prisoners delima...

globular-toast 11mo ago

> I had a comment comparing this to allowing people to eat too much food We do that for drugs already. Of course, the correct way to do it is not to try to ban a substance or control supply but simply to ban advertising for addictive stuff. I don't think that works for social media, though, due to the viral nature of it.

petesergeant 11mo ago

It’s Australia, it’s a nanny state and always has been, and much as the locals complain, they also love it, and keep voting for it. The rest of the Anglo world is much less obsessed with government control than the US is; UK is absolutely fine with cameras everywhere, for example, and has almost no protection against parliament. Law enforcement is much more seen as by the people and for the people in these countries.

stinkbeetle 11mo ago
> It’s Australia, it’s a nanny state and always has been Australians think of themselves as carefree but good hearted larrikins who snub their nose at authority, and would always be ready to duff a steer or two from a wealthy cattleman for some hungry orphans. The reality is this type of Australian only remains as fading memories in Henry Lawson stories, the few that ever existed. The real Australian is not only a spineless sticklers for the rules completely subservient to authority, with little sense of adventure, but is also very envious of others driven by their greedy and selfish nature. During covid "lockdowns", Australians were far more eager to tattle on other commoners for breaking the precious rules than they were concerned with questioning government's hypocritical behavior or unscientific rules and policies. It was fine in their minds that their rulers misbehaved, so long as their neighbor didn't get to take their kid to a park if they weren't allowed to as well. EDIT: I don't mean this to sound overly harsh to Australians, it's not unique to them. What is funny is just their opinion of themselves. At least the British are admittedly subservient sticklers.

kraf 11mo ago

This is not about stopping kids from communicating. The list of negative consequences of being on social media is long and real. A government regulating something is also not authoritarian. "Government bad" is not an argument by the way, and also not a given. It's just libertarian confusion.

jfjfnfjrh 11mo ago

Why not compare it to smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol? You need to be an adult to decide legally you can do that and that makes sense. Its the same thing here.

throwawayqqq11 11mo ago
Exactly, go tell your physician, that any kind of authority is bad. Its a two sided bias, on the one, governmemt authority is categorically bad and on the other you cant participate and change it. You could frame social media corporations in the way, but not, when you are a libertarian, i guess.

rb666 11mo ago

You know we kids did perfectly fine before there was social media? The point is, arguably we did a lot better.

kelnos 11mo ago

I don't put much stock in slippery-slope style arguments. If you're going to make an argument like that, you need to support it with other instances where the same group/government has actually fallen down that slippery slope, to great detriment, in a similar enough situation for it to be likely to happen here. Without that, it just comes off as hand-wavy anti-government fear-mongering. It's telling that you used the term "authoritarians", as if any law that's passed that can restrict what someone can do is necessarily authoritarian... which, well, as I said, it's telling. I'm more concerned with the fact that these sorts of laws don't just affect kids: they require adults to supply government-issued identification in order to use these services, which I think is crap.

ActorNightly 11mo ago

>And this is further normalising the government making decisions about speech where they have every incentive and tendency to shut down people who tell inconvenient and important truths. You really should think about how idiotic this libertarian talking point is It would be valid if you had a populace that was educated (implying that when people heard the inconvenient truths, they would be able to parse fact from fiction and not be ideologically driven), combined with a tyrannical government that would be in power and afraid of the general populace knowing that information and starting a revolt. This situation is pretty much impossible. How can an educated populace elect that government in the first place? If the population was dumb and elected a fascist government (i.e USA), they would just ignore anyone speaking inconvenient truths (i.e how MAGA is blind to all the stuff that is going on). Secondly, information dissemination is pretty much impossible to stop these days with everyone being on the internet all the time. The only people who complain about government silencing them these days are racists who wanna push some racist or "anti-woke" narrative, or the brainrotted people like anti-vaxxers. Because in their mind, they live in this false reality where they believe that everyone is brainwashed by the evil government and they are the actually "woke" ones.