Australia's prime minister on Thursday vowed to ban children under 16 from social media, saying the pervasive influence of platforms like Facebook and TikTok was "doing real harm to our kids".
  • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2·
    10 days ago

    Laughs in nostr and fedi. Because I’m absolutely certain that the Australian government can keep young children off of social media, especially when that social media is run by random people all over the world and does not require any sort of age verification of any type. Hell, noster doesn’t need anything besides opening an application and saving a 100 character string or so called an NSEC.

  • iii@mander.xyzEnglish
    32·
    10 days ago

    People who are pro this type of gatekeeping, how would you like to see this implemented?

    • Doug Holland@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      71·
      10 days ago

      I see the problem, but don’t see a solution in this Aussie strategy. An age-ban probably makes social media more attractive to a 5- 10- or 15-year-old, and anyway, any bright kid can get around it, and share their get-around with all their friends.

      • iii@mander.xyzEnglish
        4·
        10 days ago

        We share a similar view, I think.

        Although I have an additional fear. It is known that block listing (everyone but Y, Y being children here) is an ineffective cybersecurity strategy. What does work is allow listing (everyone must identify themselves, gatekeeper maintains a list of who is allowed in).

        Enforcing the existance of such a tool, and having the allow list be at the mercy of political figures, now and in the future, is a scary idea to me.

        • Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          5·
          10 days ago

          Oh our government/s have always been very big on progressing the surveillance state in the name of saving children, this is either another step toward that or it’s a huge waste of time that will never be enforceable.

          I’m pretty confident it’s just for surveillance.

        • Doug Holland@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
          41·
          10 days ago

          Yup, beyond scary, it’s terrifying.

          Social media presents an array of worrisome problems, with (so far as I can see) only worrisome solutions. Children’s access isn’t even the #1 issue, for me — it’s social media’s Musky ability to flood the world with lies and hate at levels never seen in human history.

          And there’s no solution that’s not worrisome, but democracy can’t survive with an intentionally misinformed electorate.