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Australia's social media ban has failed
- ares623 2mo agoBan the hardware, not the software.
- gib444 2mo agoAgree but the parents want the hardware for the kids' safety, and it has to be a smartphone specifically so the parents can GPS track them and to do facetime calls to prove they're OK...
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- Skyy93 2mo agoSo, are you suggesting that the legal use of smartphones should be banned for anyone under the age of 18? What kind of society do you want to live in?
- tgv 2mo agoA smart phone is a human right, according to you? Of course you can ban them. The addicts will have to wean off, but after that, there's no disadvantage.
- Cider9986 2mo agoConsidering it's how many people engage in speech, yes.
- ares623 2mo agoAnd look where that has taken us. Perhaps that was true for the last few decades. But now that period is over, and our ability to exercise our right and to coordinate without it has atrophied to our great detriment. <tangent>And then we look at AI and think "surely this time it will be different"</tangent>
- tgv 2mo agoWhat does that mean? The form suggests disagreement, but the content doesn't connect.
- Skyy93 2mo agoI think it is a human right that I decide for myself what is good for me and what is bad for me. I have for example Instagram and Facebook, but only to look what kind of Magic the Gathering Events are at the weekend, do I look at reels and doom scroll? No. So I would not say I am addicted despite having a smartphone. Technology is in most of the cases not bad, and their use can enrich lives.
- tgv 2mo agoThat's even worse than saying: fentanyl helps me overcome pain, so it should be felt available to everyone. You're either a hardcore contrarian or a hardcore libertarian. Or living under a rock?
- Skyy93 2mo agoBelieve it or not, there are other ways for dealing with drug abuse then just banning everything. If one thing has become clear, it is that the war on drugs has failed. Instead of banning these products, they should be sold under a regulated and taxed system, with the tax revenue used to fund support programmes for those wishing to quit. For example, in many countries that legalized Marijuana the number of addicts did not significantly rose. Further the police now have even less to do, as they do not need to control these people if they are taking this drug.
- tgv 2mo agoThe drug dealers, i.c. Meta and consorts, do and will oppose regulation strongly. Didn't they get the blooming president of the USA himself to intervene on their behalf? That will lead too far too much leniency. Furthermore, the supply chain isn't comparable to drugs: you cannot illegally import facebook, and you cannot make a ton of money out of it. And legalization, i.e. the status quo, just keeps the problems too. It's a bad metaphor. BTW, I explicitly mentioned fentanyl. It is regulated. And we all know what happens when you release it for free. Now that I think about it, you didn't reply to the argument at all. You just mention war on drugs, then shift to marijuana in a kind of gotcha style and hope no-one notices.
- hahahaa 2mo agoThe one we lived in 1995?
- Skyy93 2mo agoAnd why not the one 1895? Some people seem to prefer this as well, but you perhaps would not like it. If you prefer living without a smartphone its completly up to you and I would always stand for your right to not have one, but on the other side I am also standing for the right to have one if someone desires one.
- hahahaa 2mo agoI mean there was a time where only adults would typically have a mobile phone.
- defrost 2mo agoAre you also standing up for the right of 12 year olds to access porn and graphic violence though? That's a somewhat loaded question, I'll assume you're not (correct me if I'm wrong) and move on to the question of should 12 year olds have smartphones and if so how should they limit access to porn and graphic violence when used by 12 year olds? Please don't fob this off by requiring that all parents should have CS degrees or IT qualifications, that's not a thing.
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- ares623 2mo agoThere are degrees to it. The current problem has a "perfect storm" aspect to it, with multiple pieces working together in perfect harmony. 1. a "small" device that a person can use while moving 2. cheap/free internet access (wifi and/or mobile data) 3. high fidelity display with high refresh rate 4. a camera (I would probably group this together with 3) Disabling 2 or 3 of those would short circuit the delivery mechanism of the "opioid" while still allowing the device to fulfill its more "useful" purposes. Examples: - A small internet device without a hi-res display _and_ a camera is still useful for "knowledge at your fingertips", communication, navigation, payments, etc. - A device with a hi-res display, with a camera, with internet access, but not "small" is either a laptop or a tablet. That breaks the mechanism of one-half of social media addiction, which is the capability to instantly create and upload content right on the spot. (Although I would argue a tablet will still have that problem) - A camera that doesn't have internet access can still allow a user to record events, but uploading the content will have to be delayed to a later time. A fair trade-off in my opinion. And this is all possible with current hardware, by extending Parental Controls to disable the camera, and/or internet access, and/or handicapping the beautiful crown jewel displays.
- mrob 2mo ago100% agreed. Restricting possession of physical items is less tyrannical than restricting communication. Social media is only harmful when it's ubiquitous and inescapable. When you have to make a conscious effort to "go on the computer", and when there are significant opportunity costs to doing so, you naturally put it into its proper perspective.
- bogomil 2mo agoI wish I can promote this to the whole internet. this is not the way to control the internet :)
- grebc 2mo agoAnecdotally, all the parents I know and have discussed this with are desperate for this to work. How it should work I'm unsure in the big scheme of it, but we limit access to various things until age 18 here in Australia, and I think this is one long term battle that I believe the tech sector will lose.
- stavros 2mo agoI got bullied at school, but I'm not sure the solution would be to not let anyone in school talk to me :/
- ben_w 2mo agoReducing bulling isn't the primary goal with this kind of thing, more a secondary benefit. Did you know that heroin (at the time, that was a registered trademark) was originally sold as a "non-addictive morphine substitute" to be used as cough suppressant? People weren't at all sure how to even regulate substances in the early years of the 20th century, which is why when the US got Prohibition it was via a constitutional amendment rather than a mere law, even though they already knew about drugs laws and the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act predated Prohibition by about 5 years. Right now, we're not sure how to even regulate social media.
- grebc 2mo agoThey're not stopping anyone from physically talking to you(what's important). They're stopping you/others from sending DM's/Tags/Meme's(what isn't important).
- Skyy93 2mo agoRather than applying more bans, perhaps we should consider ways of living that allow parents to spend time talking to their children. Understanding what their days are like and the problems they face. For me much of this discussion and the excessive demand it takes from parents sounds more like a problem of the society as whole. That we are not having enough time to raise children since both parents are forced to work, best if they do it over 40 hours a week.
- nullbio 2mo agoThe fact that they'll ban kids from accessing every social media except Reddit tells you everything you need to know about the real motives behind this "ban".
- noduerme 2mo agoI'm not on social media. But reddit seems slightly more intelligent than tiktok, instagram, X. What's the real motive then, according to you?
- Cider9986 2mo agoReddit is also a dedicated porn website.
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 2mo agoif it’s “also” a porn website then it’s not “dedicated”.
- noduerme 2mo agohah. As far as my girlfriend knows, it's dedicated only to cats and people behaving badly at Walmart. And here I just called it more intelligent, lol. I should qualify that. I've seen her instagram feed too, and somehow it's even more absurd...
- nullbio 2mo agoIt also requires no form of ID, age verification, or even an email address. Furthermore, the bad porn on Reddit is far more heinous than anything on any regular porn site. Stuff that shouldn't even be legal - and may not be. So that's all the proof you need to know that this ban had nothing to do with protecting children.
- Cider9986 2mo agoReddit requires age verification for NSFW in jurisdictions with laws for it.
- martinkem 2mo agoOf course it is going to fail especially if the social media networks are incentivized to make sure that it fails. The penalties should have been set at a per user basis.
- dalemhurley 2mo agoThe smoking laws took a long time to break through, this is the same.
- r0ckarong 2mo agoThe whole idea of excluding teenagers from social interactions because you can't police how shit people are is absurd.
- vintagedave 2mo agoIsn't that a mischaracterisation of the goal and the actual implementation? Avoiding social networks is restricting away from unhealthy spaces, not preventing social interactions per se.
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 2mo agoThat is such a dishonest representation of the ban that I think that even the majority of people that’re against it would admit that it’s BS.
- 9dev 2mo agoI've got news for you - this is how we've protected teenagers since forever in the real world! What do you think age restrictions on movies, casinos, or porn are for? Why do you think children have to be home before a certain time in the evening? Why do we not let them roam anywhere alone until they are old enough?
- teruakohatu 2mo agoIt has been banned for a few months. Hardly a failure. It will be a failure if 10 year olds continue to join social media at the rate they have done so in the past. It’s not likely to get 15 year olds who have been addicted for 5 years off it, anymore than smoking bans have any impact on teens who have been smoking or vaping for years.
- FrankyHollywood 2mo agoThere is some effect however. Many kids including mine used to have there first phone around their 10th birthday. Now I see parents around me waiting longer due to the ban. Sure if you are 15 you can get a phone yourself, but for younger kids the ban has a positive effect.
- dalemhurley 2mo agoExactly. This is a pathetic excuse of “journalism”
- halJordan 2mo agoThat goes too far in the opposite direction.
- intothemild 2mo agoI've said this to every single person who pushed for this. "Imagine you're a teenager, and your parents and government tell you to not do something... What will happen?" The answer is of course that they keep doing it anyhow. But hide it. As an Aussie, and a parent. What I wanted was that the government mandate that in order for your website or app to launch in Australia, that if you want to allow kids between certain ages on the website/app. Then you need to have robust parental controls. Create family accounts where you can link parents and children, share whatever tracking/tracing you have with said parents and make it as good as you can. Mandate specific minimum controls based on what kind of type of app/website it is. Put the control in the hands of the parents, and not this stupid one size fits all approach.
- jtokoph 2mo agoWon’t kids just make a new secret account that doesn’t belong to the family? Like you said, they will do it anyway
- intothemild 2mo agoStill better than what we have now.
- ranger_danger 2mo agoNice idea but how are you going to prevent the kids from creating their own parent accounts while preserving people's privacy and without being too invasive?
- intothemild 2mo agoYou introduce it at a really young age, which is what we did for our daughter. She doesn't get access to anything that doesn't have good parental controls. So far it's working fine, I expect that to change in the future. But it's also both the carrot and the stick at the moment. As for creating parent accounts themselves. Imagine you've got a kid, you've created an account for you and the kid.. you have stats, data, usage etc. And suddenly the kids on their device all day, but you see nothing. That's how you know. Will the kid find a way around it. Probably.. I expect them too. But it's still a hell of a lot better than what we have. Because it puts more control and visibility in the hands of the parents than it does the state and people like Peter Thiel. Will there be idiot parents who just don't care. For sure. But thats already happening. You can't stop that.
- dazzatron 2mo agoThe 16 year olds are goners already so who cares about them. It will definitely work for the younger ones who haven't been mindrpd yet.
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- thesmtsolver2 2mo agoBanning social media for kids before banning junk food for kids when you have a childhood obesity/health crisis just shows which companies greased the hands that made the laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_obesity_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_obesity_in_Australia
- UberFly 2mo agoWell, they have been trying to fight childhood obesity. It's just that as usual that's difficult too. Ultimately the failures will continue unless parents are the ones implementing meaningful change at home.
- Cider9986 2mo agoI bet it succeeded in identifying more adults in order to go after people for speech. Anonymous speech should be protected.
- ShinyLeftPad 2mo agoThe law doesn't require identifying anyone
- mindok 2mo agoBeing forced to cough up ID or taking a selfie to verify age sounds like something that could be used identify you.
- ShinyLeftPad 2mo agoThat's not what the law requires
- Alien1Being 2mo agoHere in Australia, every parent I have spoken to is happy about the ban. The media is predictably unhappy since they lose eyeballs, advertising revenue and money. Previous approaches like expecting parents to educate children failed miserably. Most parents lacked at least one or more of motivation, time or knowledge.
- ShinyLeftPad 2mo ago> The media is predictably unhappy this is an article by reuters, they are not affected by the ban.
- djc404 2mo agoHaha. I clicked the link and they wouldn’t show me the article until I disabled my ad blocker.
- ShinyLeftPad 2mo agoworked for me
- dalemhurley 2mo agoExactly. This is a propaganda piece from the social media platforms
- intothemild 2mo agoExcept, the report they are quoting is from the Aus government tasked with this. https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2026-07/Early-days-early-insights-SMMA-evaluation-three-months-July-2026.pdf?v=1785669517022 https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2026-07/Early...
- anenefan 2mo agoThere's been a few surveys, some better than others ... but the reality is they don't matter that much. The ban was just another way to skin a cat - that cat in particular were the algorithms that were targeting specifically young kids which the public became alarmed about - iirc making the news on and off late 10s. Social media needs not strive to ban every under 16 child ... but they surely will now be careful not to deploy those specific algorithms the public had complained about especially in regard to some of the harms it was said to be doing. Using social media under 16 could be considered like driving without a licence ... and not too many under 16 children in Australia have a licence to drive on the roads - but in rural and remote areas, on those that are relatively safe roads, a number do, with or without their parents knowledge. Many years prior to the ban, social media could be considered to be vehicle rental companies which never saw any issue with hiring out faster and faster racing stock cars and motorbikes to kids ... and later when accidents happened, asked to perhaps be more mindful. Social media companies shrugged and said too hard. Now there is a ban [1] for under 16s, yes many children are going to still do it, but now, though it's technically against the law, some parents will evaluate their child is capable enough. The ban effectively ensures social media will need to be sure to rent out safe vehicles just in case because if there is a bad accident that an under 16 wouldn't be expected to avoid, mandatory consequences now apply. Social media companies are very well aware of this fact. They don't like it and as such running numerous campaigns - more often threatening in a roundabout between the lines manner that the only way for them to enforce a ban is to go down the road many folks fear, being all out full identification required to create / keep an account with them. [1] Those parents who've wanted to pry their kids fingers from the phone that only visits social media areas, can finally put their foot down hard telling their kids no way until they are older when it's legal, and not have to put up with any bargaining when they lock down the wifi.
- sermah 2mo agoWow. Banning things actually doesn’t work and only makes everyone more secretive. What a surprise!
- croes 2mo agoSo banning CFCs didn’t work? What about the FDA‘s bans on food ingredients? They don’t work, companies just become more secretive?
- sermah 2mo agoThese things you can check and penalize companies for violations. As I said in the sibling comment, I’m talking about people’s own will. You can’t say “Ban smoking” and expect that all smokers quit.
- croes 2mo agoYou can ban smoking but you also have to fine the tobacco companies and smoking will drastically reduce. You can’t ban something without severe consequences for the producers and just hope the consumer will follow the ban.
- sermah 2mo agoThis. I should’ve clarified that
- inigyou 2mo agoNo one is expecting all the kids to quit social media. Just that less kids will use it and they'll use it less. And more kids won't use it at all.
- intothemild 2mo agoI'll take one of these two. CFCs. The problem with your example, is that any government body can randomly test the products from a company, and test for compliance. The government can also measure the CFCs in the atmosphere and look for a decrease year over year. Right now, the Aus government isn't fining the companies, hopefully they will.
- aaron695 2mo ago[dead]
- arjie 2mo agoPerhaps one can dream that we have a social media ban that affects HN and bans 35 and below. One can imagine if a ban is successful on one site then the kids flood another. It’ll be some kind of Thundering Herd Eternal September.
- strogonoff 2mo agoWhen we give everyone a computer and want to restrict a group of people from some of its capabilities (for their own good), the consequence is a restricted computer. Not giving everyone that computer in the first place could help ensure it stays a true general purpose computer.
- IG_Semmelweiss 2mo agoHere's a revolutionary idea. Instead of mandates, why not lower the tax burden on citizens. That would give move freedom to parents to decide not to work, and actually, parent their kids. Don't force parents to both be absent from home because the burden of the bureaucracy salaries is too great without sucking blood from the middle class Houses don't need to cost 0.5M AUD with long mortgages that force 2 parents to work. They cost that because the government is spending like a drunken sailor and destroying the value of money held by everyday australians.
- dalemhurley 2mo agoWhat houses cost under $1.5m? Plenty of single income families had their children on social media. This is just a conflation of different issues to push an unrealistic narrative.
- inigyou 2mo agoAny tax reduction on the average household will just become a rent increase, and nothing will change for the household.
- dalemhurley 2mo agoThis is pathetic, it is like saying anti smoking laws failed because within a few months teens were still smoking. This is a generational change. No sane person ever expected teens already using social media would stop using social media. It is the next cohort that it is going to make a difference to. I expect better from Reuters than to be the propaganda mouthpiece of social media platforms.
- iamthemonster 2mo agoParent of a Year 7 kid here (that's the first year of high school and a very common age at which all kids have phones). The social media ban has been a wild success in preventing 11-year-olds having their social connections locked into the major social media platforms. Prior to the ban, if you weren't on insta you weren't connected. Now my kid talks to other kids on the phone or sends SMS, but also doesn't really stay in constant contact with their peers outside of school hours, they do their own thing or organise socialising themselves. It's been hugely positive for interrupting the hostile social media companies from hijacking kids' social connections for the purpose of addictive algorithms to drive ad revenue. From what I hear, once social media use is embedded in the older teenagers, they are all working around the ban very easily. The social media companies have made no real effort to enforce the ban or comply at anything more than a minimum level, and I wouldn't expect them to as they have absolutely no concept of social licence. It's beautiful to see civil society take back one little bit of freedom from psychopathic oligarchs.