Social media "feels" like it should be uniquely bad for children but the evidence is low-quality and contradictory. For example, high social media use is associated with anxiety and depression, but which direction does that relationship run? Meanwhile there are documented benefits especially for youth who are members of marginalized groups (e.g. LGBTQ). Don't get me wrong, I think there are a lot of problems with the big social media companies. I just think they affect adults too and that we should address them directly.

But setting that aside, the practical implications of age gate laws are terrible. The options are basically to have an LLM guess your age based on your face, or uploading sensitive identity documents to multiple sites and hope they are stored and processed securely and not reused for other purposes.

But OK let's assume social media is always bad for kids and also that someone invents a perfect age gate... kids are just going to find places to hang out online that are less moderated and less regulated and less safe. How is that not worse?

Is google docs social media? It certainly has social features and I've been witness to cyber-bullying via a shared google doc.

What about Spotify? It has social features far beyond just sharing playlists

WhatsApp? Discord? MMS?

1: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GVO7sNuCNmNwqVK64PHQ...

We recognise that children drinking alcohol is not a good thing. Adults drinking alcohol is also not a good thing, but that's up to them.

But the countries with the best relationship to alcohol are the countries that also have flexible rules about children and alcohol; most of Europe allows children to drink alcohol in a restaurant with their parents from around 12-14, and order it themselves from around 16. Alcohol is widely available, and cheap. Generally these countries don't experience binge drinking or drunken behaviour, and while alcohol consumption is high, it's not so problematic.

The Anglosphere has way more problems with binge drinking and drunken behaviour, and part of the reasons for that is that we enforce strict limits around alcohol consumption. We have strong age limits on alcohol purchases, and strong limits on who can sell alcohol and when they can sell it. There's a very authoritarian attitude to alcohol restrictions. This means that when Anglo kids hit the age limit that they're allowed to buy alcohol, they hit it hard and binge on it, with all the harms that happen because of that.

Enforcing a strong authoritarian limit on social media will have the same effect, I think. Children will have no training on how to deal with social media, no exposure to social media in limited, controlled, circumstances with the support of their parents. They'll hit 16 and be given full access to the entire range of platforms, and they'll overdo it and binge on it, with all the harms that happen because of that.

We need to get better at educating our kids on how to deal with harmful stuff. Banning it until they're "adult" isn't an answer because it doesn't train them on how to have an adult relationship to this stuff.

Like the negatives of social media aren't just isolated to just kids and while shielding them from it is generally a good thing it still seems like putting duct tape over a giant crack in the foundation.

But the reality is we needed to do something to combat what this is doing to our kids, while it might not be harmful content per-see there are serious effects its having to attention spans, warped perceptions of normality that these algos do to both normal folks, older folks and young children.

What i think the aus legislation does tho is give parents ammunition to enforce good practices on their kids that might have been difficult when "everyone at school uses tiktok etc".

Much the same way drinking laws etc give parents an ability to push back on underage drinking etc. It's illegal is a far easier argument to make to a teenager vs it'll rot your brain.

This is not a black and white issue and those that treat it as such do a dis-service to a serious problem, we need to iterate on smart legislation and controls (zero trust proofs for example) that allow for safe and open internet for everyone.

Just leave parenting to the parents. And fix toxic social media (the real root cause of the issue) or ban them altogether.

On the idea that this is needed to “protect children” it is the job of parents not the state to decide what media their children consume. If you want to make that easier for parents then regulate and mandate parental controls and make sure parents always have the choice.

The problems of social media, addictive algorithms and attention theft shouldn’t be blamed on end users. It should be on the companies that design these garbage systems, and they should be held responsible. I know that’s not how it works, but I can dream. Band-aids are easier.

I don't really see why we need more government involvement here. It's just going to be ham-fisted and create unintended consequences like the kids in Australia having to use adult YouTube because they can't have a kids account anymore.

Make the change, assess the effects, adjust/repeal as needed (just like everything else). It seems like the kind of change that's well-suited to undoing later, in case of unintended consequences. It's not like we're going to be permanently stunting the growth of an entire cohort or something.

Most folks hit puberty at around 13. Imagine your parents have divorced -- your new stepfather is very religious. Your phone and laptop have spyways ("parenting software") on them. You manage to get onto a terminal at the public library. You've missed your period -- you're afraid you're pregnant, and not sure how much time you have to do something about it.

There are so many edge cases where the benefits of access to social media outweigh the harms -- but we've framed this as a discussion about selfies and sharing when it's really about free expression, and there are so many dark turns a young life can take that are made darker if they're left to their family and friends to rely on for help.

I propose, instead, banning recommendation algorithms. This would ensure that only content which genuinely interests people will be shown, not some weird brainrot just because it's popular.

Would IRC count? And considering it's not entirely difficult to set up an IRCd server (you can literally run it on a spare computer or inside a VM), would the state be branding teenagers as criminals for doing so?

In 2050 people will say "Do you remember social media?" and someone will say "Oh yeah, those online systems where everything you said was used to build a marketing profile of you? Where every picture you posted of your girlfriend / wife / sister / daughter / aunt / grandmother or child was taken by some weirdo and turned into porn? Where our kids hung out and were radicalized by fanatics and foreign powers?"

"Oh yeah, whatever happened to them?"

And we can expect 15 year olds to hit the workforce full-time around then too I reckon. Or younger. Imagine 9 year olds stowed away in Waymo taxi trunks with socket wrenches and cyberdecks.

Many sites don't need accounts to access, is the account the issue or the access?

- they dont offer an "algorithmic" feed - underage can only see content from who they follow and, most importantly

- photographs NOT allowed.

I bet 90% of social issues with "social media" disappears if these tools go back to 1990s style internet

I can't see how preventing someone from watching youtube videos would be a net positive, but if you allow youtube whiteout an account then why not reddit, why not snapchat as that's how most kids i know communicate and organize their sporting events, etc.

Am I supposed to use ewww sms again to talk with the kids, because they're not allowed on WhatsApp?

If the post is from an US centric point of view, are the kids going to not communicate at all outside school, because if they play outside someone is going to call child protection?

One could consider taxing the revenue for adds and content show to teens at an absurdly high rate and apply that as a default unless the consumer is prooven to be an adult.

"What do you mean we need to moderate our content? There's no kids on our platform, so moderation means limiting adults' free speech"

Here's a couple of arguments I had to deal with whilst expressing my support for electronics ban at schools including a blanket social media ban:

1) "Since when do we consider it OK for the government to intervene between the parents and their children and telling them whats good and whats not? They know best."

2) "Whoever does not want to use electronics at school grounds are free to do so who are we to constrain them? Also, forbidding things never works let them learn."

3) "I think you are underestimating children; if they see that what they are doing with electronics affects them in any way, they will stop using them. Lets give them some credit and let them make their mistakes."

All of which are anti phone-ban/anti-regulation/pro-liberal/freemarketeering masquerading as a product of independent thought.

Profiting via dark patterns is despicable, whether it's preying on teens or the elderly. How many elderly people are fed distorted, sensational news and believe it wholesale? At least our teens have learned to be skeptics.

Instead of punishing the innocent to gatekeep a system that is one of the most important innovations in history, maybe we should focus on the root cause: the crappified, ad-based internet that glorifies "clicks" above all else.

We might have to face the fact that "free" accounts have become too expensive. If the cost of a free internet is a business model that monetizes outrage and addiction, it's not working. I don't love the idea of paid-only access or enforced identity, but applying a single standard to everyone might be better than what we have now.

I still believe in the free internet, and I know what I want to do to build it: Make excellent content. Teach good things.

I want to prove the value of an open and positive system.

Glazing it all with ‘for the children’ makes it acutely Less sincere, given the convenience with which that phrase gets trotted out. Zero points.

The only consolation in this spectacle is that such abuses always bring unexpected consequences as harsh as the fools were misguided.

But at the same time, I wonder how much of online political speech is actually poisoned by angsty immature low-info teens.

But I do expect it's less than dishonesty. People who are parodies pushing negative stereotypes or dishonest positions of their political opponents.

What would online political speech look like if everyone genuinely represented their own views as well as they could; including admitting when they simply dont know. Might be an enlightenment event on its own.

Once we agree to that, then next time, you'll need to upload your ID to do something else and by the way you don't mind proving that you are not a psychopath and/or a sexual predator if you want to keep using WhatsApp/Telegram and other services?

You also don't mind if we scan your private messages now, do you? We just want to make sure that you are are not some sort of extremist/activist or someone who might cause trouble.

The slippery slope is real.

We look down at China, Russia and Iran for silencing the voices of the protesters and dissidents but we are slowly building the infrastructure that will enable future governments to do just that in the future.

Once everything is locked down and tied to your real ID, then it will be extremely easy to suppress view points or things that any government left or right doesnt want to see spread in the wild. What then?

And those who say, well, we should just wait and see what happens in Australia because if it doesn't work out then we can always turn it off or something, my question to you is when have you seen a government go back on something like this?

I may not be having kids for a while yet, but if I had teenagers today I would absolutely move somewhere where it is not legal for kids to have social media accounts. The underlying problem is that this isn't an individual problem, it's a social one! If a teenager's friends all have social media, he is going to be left out! It is going to severely hurt his life. Even if he never watches short-form video (the main component of social media I think is detrimental), his friends will! When I was in highschool sometimes my friends and I would get together and we would be bored, have no clue what to do. Instead of messing around doing random things, a couple of them would just open up Instagram reels and bam, afternoon wasted. If the half the group isn't trying to do something, you aren't going to do anything. Contrast this with before I was a teenager and before phones, I vividly remember me and my friends just exploring and doing random things. It's just a different experience and I think social media needs to be banned for everyone for it to be effective.

I have 2 kids and I agree under 16s shouldn’t be on social media.

But everyone then has to prove they’re 16+

Is this just stealth digital ID cards?

Or am I conspiracy theorist?

They’ve built a system where everyone—not just kids—is a bargaining chip. Influence is treated as a product and sold by deliberately creating viral trends. It’s no different from advertising, but much more aggressive. By pushing content through entire information streams and dominating attention, it achieves an impact traditional ads never could.

It’s proven to be extremely effective, so people keep paying for it and pushing the system forward, while brushing off criticism with cosmetic fixes—like banning kids from the internet and telling adults to just deal with it.

I was a kid online with BBS' in the 1980s when I was 10 years old and met many of my best friends that way. I have teens that met their close friends locally online too. This will also just lead to parents creating accounts for the kids. I'd much rather have parental controls to manage my kids account.

And if the issue is bad parents , it isn't the role of the state to be a nanny. Safeguards and laws yes, but this is too far and almost totalitarian. Political parties that adopt this stance should be laughed out of power.

Worse, these authors are not interested in debate, they just delete comments that don't agree with them. Charlatans.

FTFY.

That is the real problem, no? The combination of surveillance, analysis of the surveilled data, very active feed manipulation based on that surveillance, and indirect business models that both finance and direct the specific manipulation.

Kids should be social. They should connect.

I think we do a grave disservice to our ability to reason about online safety by letting "social" be applied to what is largely interaction with adversarial/amoral value extracting algorithms, model-in-the-middle intermediating human connections, as if the result was any kind of natural social behavior.

Did they really need to push the evil lever to 100% just for engagement? Or could they have pushed back on shareholders just a teeny bit, in the name of long term legislative freedom?

/s