Australia passes social media ban for children under 16

Is this a good idea ? And, will it/can it work ?

Personally, I don't think it's a bad idea at all. Social media has far too much influence on young minds and maybe getting away from all that will encourage them to develop actual social and communication skills. No one is taking their phones, they just can't be on X, TikToc, Snapchat etc...

Many here have argued that social media has a detrimental effect on people in general and young minds in particular, so what say you to an actual ban for those under 16 ?

www.reuters.com...

SYDNEY, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Australia approved on Thursday a social media ban for children aged under 16 after an emotive debate that has gripped the nation, setting a benchmark for jurisdictions around the world with one of the toughest regulations targeting Big Tech.
The law forces tech giants from Instagram and Facebook owner Meta (META.O), opens new tab to TikTok to stop minors logging in or face fines of up to A$49.5 million ($32 million). A trial of methods to enforce it will start in January with the ban to take effect in a year.

a reply to: DAVID64

Banning things is a bad idea, regardless of what it is.

If we're gonna' ban something, how about we start banning bad parents?

Kids younger than 16 don't need a phone. This notion that kids need a phone from the day they learn to walk is ridiculous!

a reply to: DAVID64

Bloody country is slow as hell.

Ban teenagers.
Yeh im sure they wont lie about their age, because theyre all good kids.

a reply to: DAVID64

From what I understand, this is going to force all Australians to provide ID to use social media.

Meaning they will not have any choice of anonymity from their increasingly authoritarian government.

While I believe that regulation of speech should never happen unless criminal activity is involved, I approve of this. It's bad enough the Internet is infected with inappropriate garbage without exposing children to its dark side.

To me, this is the same as only allowing adults to drink alcohol, arguably the most deadly chemical used by man. Only the Internet may be more dangerous.

originally posted by: Blaine91555
While I believe that regulation of speech should never happen unless criminal activity is involved, I approve of this. It's bad enough the Internet is infected with inappropriate garbage without exposing children to its dark side.

Children should not have social media sites at all. It makes them prime targets for impersonators and predators, not to mention targets them for all sort of age inappropraite material to be planted and distributed through the online format.

Kids today are uncannily tuned into electronics and digital media at a frightening pace.

I saw a little boy no older than three a few years ago shopping with his mother and he was glued to his smarthone and scrolling and operating the device like he was a reincarnated business professional from the Future....doing everything one handed.

He was well dressed and polite though, and his mother seemed like a nice woman, so....no harm done I guess.

Even with my Google analytics, I still get extremely hardcore porn showing up on my image results from time to time with just a simple innocent keyword, so we've got a ways to go when it comes to keeping young children safe from certain things floating around out there.

a reply to: Blaine91555

Those who give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither.

a reply to: watchitburn

This. Yep, sounds like a good idea in it's basic form. A bit of thought and it's absolute bs.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: DAVID64

Banning things is a bad idea, regardless of what it is.

If we're gonna' ban something, how about we start banning bad parents?

Kids younger than 16 don't need a phone. This notion that kids need a phone from the day they learn to walk is ridiculous!

I agree banning things is a bad idea but disagree 100% that kids under 16 don't need a phone.

Things are different than they were 20 years ago when everyone had a landline. Very few people now have them and that leaves 'kids' vulnerable, especially so in this age where both parents work outside of the home and/or a large amount of families are single parent with the parent working.

The thing is, young kids today have lifestyles of much older people than the kids of yesteryear did. They are much more independent yet much more alone in every way. Thirteen year old (and older) kids still babysit. They work on farms, many times by themselves. They attend sporting events, concerts, hang out with friends etc. and families also are having less children, many 'only' children.

When my children were younger, they got their phones when they were in the 10th grade, of course that was in the early 2000s. It was all fine though and what I felt was appropriate. Back then, texting was the bane of parents as over-texting could bring quite the shock when the bill arrived.

They simply need to ban site access, not phones. Kids don't need smart phones either. A simple flip phone would suffice.

I used to live in the heart of Amish country and, oddly enough, since they didn't really use electricity or electronic devices, nor allow their children to, Amish children never had ADHD. I think that says it all. It's the parents who should be overseeing their children in the correct manner, not the government.

All I know is the majority of kids and young people today are learning more from the internet than their parents, and with millions of young girls launching an OnlyFans as soon as they tuirn of age, and the amount of young women with golddigging tendancies and three kids from three different Baby Daddies on dating sites, not to mention all the teenagers absolutley losing their proverbial feces and running away from home and using all the "tips and tricks" they learned on the internet on "how to survive" ( isee a lot of dysfunctional teenagers with chronic drug abuse problems and jail time under their belts in inpatient) something is very, very wrong with the types of things these "children" are looking up on their smartphones.

Food for thought.

The last time Google glitched my search terms, I was assailed with hardcore transgender and interracial porn imagery.

More and more young people are turning to pornography to make some quick cash and fuel their drug habits.

Is this what we want to continue to influence a large percentage of our impressionable and impulsive youth brimming with hormones and struggling with exploring who they are in the modern age?

I saw a wealth of runaways in the 90's who were going through similar explorations, and a good majority of them died from heroin and drug overdoses on the streets. A lot of them were involved in petty crimes like larceny, arson, burglary, shoplifiting, credit card fraud. A good majority of them were selling drugs alongside a heavy dose of coutnerculture propaganda, they were producing porn in cheap hotel rooms with digital cameras and this was when the internet was in in's infancy and not readily available to carry around in your pocket for quick reference to manage your cash apps and make sure their sexual ads are in high demand.

Mommy and Daddy don't pay the phone bill when you leave home for bad and reckless behavior, but rest assured, there's someone out there who will be more than happy to give your son or daughter some couch space and a phone in exchange for their "loyalty".

Most runaways were around the age of 15-18 back then, kicked out of the house because their parents employed tough love or got so sick of their reckless behavior that it was a "my way of the highway" type scienario and the kids prefered to take their chances on the road than appreciate the people who raised them. I met a young boy eight years of age but the maturity of a thrity something with a eight inch scar on his face from an abusive father who ran away from home and took to prostitution to feed himself. That young mans story almost broke me. He was a smart, bright kid who grew up far too quickly.

ANyway, the same trend is starting over again and it's the same kids on the streets and sharing apartments making ends meet however they can. Many are on social welfare programs using government phones to conduct their businesses, but this time around, the drugs are more potent, addictive and deadly, the pressure to "perform for the camera" more ingrained, the know how to self promote and network via social media easier and more "under the radar", not to mention hwo kids are using social media apps like Kick to organize disruptive behavior like smash and grabs and flooding stores to in a flash mob.

These kids today are uncommonly bright when it comes to technology. They learn quick, become addicted quick, and some can effectively become completely brainwashed before their brains have even stopped forming.

Once upon a time this site was full of people talking about the dangers of the NWO and the Illuminati Sex Trade.

We yell and scream abotu pedophiles and sex trafficking and brazen prostitution and drug addicts and dealers on our city streets, yet we somehow think it's a new phenomenon and isn't being engineered by hidden forces and designs. These days it's a glowing rectangle everyone can easily conceal in their pocket.

There was a recent revelation of some anthrologists introducing smarthphones to the children of tribal societies. The elders refused to particpate in the expreiment, and rejectedthe devices offered, but the children joufully accepted the phone and within hours were immersed in viewing pornography from across the globe almost exclusively.

Porn addiction has been shown to decrease the size of the frontal lobe of the brain, which controls the higher cognitive functions.

It's bad enough the crime rates and sexaul impulse control of certain men in the Middle East has gotten so out of control that the regimes had to resort to prebiblical dress for women and children because there is a sudden wealth of young men who will rape on sight of anything within range.

Anotehr factor is the transmisson in such regions of hyperbolic religious blasphemy from militant groups, and with smart phones and impressionable minds open and receptive in an aplha state of consciousness sucking up propaganda and porn, it's no wonder the world is on fire overseas right now.

Terrorism and the agents of chaos can communicate virtually instantly, almost undetectably, and if you've noticed the weath of "refugees" from certain regions of Africa and the Middle East they're all sporting western clothing and gear, holding smart phones as they await placement and relocation, job opportunities and housing. The wonders of first world countries being broadcast all over the globe are attracting young people from all over these conflict regions, and they are fleeing regimes that would seek to depopulate the excessive birthrate of males with hypersexual and violent proclivities. The wealth of western porn creates the desire for a certain type of female (or soft male) and the weath of militant Jihandist propaganda only adds fuel to the fire.

This is not to imply that all refugees are sexual predators, deviants and militant jihadists, but you have to admit, cell phones sure make it easier, and starlink may be beneficial to help isolated people learn about the world aroudn them and further their education, but the majority it seems, are more interested in revolution, excess and pornography.

It's a time of transition worldwide, and these are not unprecedented times. Anyone with a fundamental understanding of the fundamentals of elementary human psychology understands how easy it is for propaganda campaigns focus on sex and violence to attract the youth into their clutches...and now, instead of havign to scour underground bookstores for certain tips and tricks liek the Anarchists Cookbook or banned books, everything is a simple innocent click away and the nex thing you know your kids are learning how to make meth in an apartment, reading up on guerillia warfare techniques, a dedicated alorthim that shows transgender propaganda and promises you'll feel "so much like your authenitic self" if you just spend $100,000 on surgeries for the sex organ of your choice, how becoming a porn star or "internet porn star" will get your daughters the attention and admiration so many young women and young gay men crave because they're still at an age where they associate sex with acceptance and love.

Ifthey can't get to your kids through the internet and cellphones, they slip books into school libaries teaching kids how to use their phones to solicit sexual encounters and so forth. Not every pant in the garden is healthy and should be eaten, but now the forbidden fruit is being planted everywhere, and it's the same story all over again but amplified.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I don't see this as a ban, rather more of an age restriction.(which I 10000% agree with) Just as if you were trying to go to certain adult only sites. Probably quite easy to bypass, as is getting access to certain adult sites.

I don't disagree with the idea of banning "bad parents", but in this day and age, who gets the make that call on who are the bad parents? Are we going to take the words of the kids?


Yes, at young ages, you do not need a phone. However, when I was in middle school, I participated in after school sports and we never really knew what time we would be getting done with practice most days. We had a Nokia brick that we used to call parents to let them know we were done and needed to be picked up.

It's a good idea, especially in todays times, for kids that might be out and about "on their own", to have a way of communication. And yes, I am well aware of the generations that didn't have this capability, but we are well past those times. I grew up when cell phones were just coming on to the scene, hence the Nokia brick phone we had, and it was something to get used to.

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

I don't disagree with a single thing you said, but every one of those things circles right back to parenting, or lack thereof.

Values
Self worth
Behavior
...and most of all, Accountability.

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

Wow, did you have a bad day? Can't disagree with what you've stated though.

Have you seen the recent GBNews clip?

England has or will deport some illegals, 600 or so...mostly from you know where.
These were not upright people....or even sane.
They listed some of these ..People's?....rejection to be British citizens.
I wont shock you with the details....but one fellow who was on a sinking boat, apparently watching his wife die or something...decided at that final last minute....to rape and then Murder a young teenage girl, also on the boat, in cold blood in front of his dieing wife, because .......he was sooo overcome with grief...that he had to murder an innocent girl.

Do we really want these people in our culture?

It is relevant to the topic, as any full closure of free speech and press, would not allow these "Things" to be known about.
Humans eh ???

a reply to: DAVID64

On the face of it this seems a reasonable idea.

It's just a method to put in place the mechanics for censoring the internet in Australia though.

Couple of years there will be no difference between the average Australian's access to information and the average Chinese citizen's access.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I'd be interested to knowthe breakdown of the parental demographics...because in several circles, from single moms with multiple children to wealthy lazziez faire parents, the last two generations of parents seem to have cranked out children with no regard for how they turn out as socieital citizens.

I'm Gen X and was pretty much tended to until I was five years of age, at which point I was given an alarm clock and expected to wake myself up in the morning, get myself ready for school make my own breakfast and catch the bus because both my parents were already at work by the time my alarm went off, but that was during the 80's and 90's before the information highway was pumped directly into my eyeballs at 5G speeds.

Oh sure, once I reached eight I was a little hellion when I was wandering the neighborhood and woods, but my Father had the good fortune to be a military carrer man and we could afford to live in a safe quiet suburban neighborhood and he was insistant onmaking sure we lived in a good school district with an emphasis on good fundamental education.

Whatever trouble I got into was of my own doing and own making, and it was little more than roughhousing and ripped jeans back then from outdoor play and I was a pretty obiedent kid anyway because when my Father gets angry he's a force of nature and the sound of his voice alone is enough to stike fear into the hearts of a kid like me.

Long story short, back then when the sociological experiment with the youth was in full swing, the music was much more higher minded and less sexualized, and ever since the collapse of the Twin Towers and advent of cell phones and the rise of the internet and home recording studios on a budget cranking out filth available at every convience store for five bucks and no oversight from the major recording labels, things began to take off at a slow but exponentally increasing rate.

My gneration wasn't perfect by anymeans, but their causal parenting approach for the majority of low income single parent households under the "revolutionary values" instilled by their experiences during the Grunge revolution has given rise to kids entrained on touchscreens with such speed that they can do significant damage in a virtual blink of an eye.

When we moved out here to the Nowhere last year, a young woman with a meth habit going through a fight with her husband knocked on our door an hour after we put our new door mat down. Her husband had thrown her flimsy thing and unprotected dollar store phone and broken it,and she was desperae for a bottle of water as their had been shut off for nonpayment because her husband was mad ather for using her phone to solict sex from stranger to afford her drug habit.

She asked if she could use my phone to call for a ride from family. Normally I refuse to let anyone use my phone for multiple reasons, but she was in a panic due to the water and utilities being cut off and my heart went out to her and she seemed coherent enough to take a chance on. I offered her my phone, but I was heavily on guard and watched her like a hawk.

Within two seconds of being given my cell with the keypad already opened, she had accessed my camera roll, backed out, scanned my contact list and files. I don't keep anything important on my phone because my Father worked in cybersecurities with the Air Force and cautioned me not to keep anything important like financial details on it.

Her fingers and thumbs worked at lightspeed, and within five minutes she had called five members of her friends and family and finally got a ride. Now, I'm slow on my phone because if I move too fast I make stupid mistakes and get flooded with information overload and last time I tried to move fast on the device I got overstimulated, my mania kicked into overdrive and I ended up having a schizophenic episode and wound up in inpatient.

Subliminals. Flashes of light as the device updates and reroutes, advertisements at every turn, it's like the concept of "blipverts" from Max Headroom and the brain has a mild epileptic seizure. At least for me. When I came out of treatment my Father told me to be cautious about "trying to be an influencer and to take it easy on my phone"...now I just use the device for calls and text with family and doctors appointments.

Now imagine that type of synaptic stimulation to kids glued to their interactive device and nefarious alorithms "guiding" the participant deeper and deeper into the rabbithole., the brain subconsciously registering every redirect, add and misclick.

Last time I was in inpatient there were several 20 somethings who made the stay very unpleasant, the males were hyperexcitable and criminally adept and sharing tips and tricks about their cause de celeb, and they were suffering from internet and drug withdrawl from being involuntarily committed on a court order in leiu of incarceration.

Most of the young women were quiet and sullen, ravaging their meals because their drug habits took precadent over buying healthy food, several of the young women made mention of their children at home and were worried about CPS or exhusbands taking their kids away. One young woman was branded with an all seeing eye on her chest during a blackout from her drug addiction and she was excitedly bragging about all the times she blacked out on her drug binges and woke up in jail, and how her mother was taking care of her two children. Absloute narcissist.

And these are just the kids that I know of.

I've seen cases on the internet of "underprivilaged" parents who give their eight year old a smart phone and the next thing you know the young girls are online sending self produced child porn to poterntial "clients". There is a trend of certain mothers creating "modeling websites" of their beauty pagent daughters and taking comissions from "intereted parties" for custom hotos of their young daughters eating hotdogs or posing with phallic objects which can be easily photoshopped to satify the pedophilliac fantasy.

Soem parents are openly grooming their daughters for the sex trade from an early age, and once the daughter hits puberty and the hormones and female power fantasies of "sex is powerful" kick in to overdrive, the amount of self generated porn increases tenfold. Some turn to prostitution and selling images online in order to "have a part time job" because it's "liberating" and makeup, fashion and props cost time and money.

Most men wave this aside because, well, mena re men and naked childs and all that, but single mothers are actively encouraging this behavior, either to help make ends meet in the lower socioeconmic circles or to give their kids an "start" intheir own "business model" for as long as their looks and viability hold out.

Long story short, yes, it's the parents responsibility to raise their kids to be aware of right from wrong, how to use these technologies for self enrichment and so forth, but unfortunately, a lot of today's parents simply don't have the time, training or inclination to produe a viable and well rounded world citizen. Instead, they're producing "influencers" and those kids have more sway over other kids from households where the parent or parents pretty much do little mroe than engage in cotius, give birth, change diapers, hand their toddler a device and go back to stroking their own pleasure/reward systems while their kids are distracted.

It's a vicious cycle.

a reply to: gort69

Before these young men inquestion got their hands on cell phones and the internet and world wide web, they were safely contained and ignorant about the rest of the outside world because their country of origin usually had a tight reign on what was broadcast on television and radio.

Once the phones "broadened their horizons" and showed them everything a man could ever desire in the western world, they began to rebel agaisnt thier dominant culture. A lifetime of Islamic indoctrination was no match for Human Nature, and those phones priovided them with resources to gain access to everything they needed to make the trip over the Medditerainian and into Europe. Mostly military surplus gear.

If you recall, right before the mass migration to Europe the majority of the streets of these countries were being filled with angry young men in the hundreds of thousands protesting against the draconian regime and demanding more "luxuries and liberties" liek they were exposed to in the Western Cultures and First World Nations.

Because Islam is so strict and severe, the Leaders of these affected regions were launching radical measures to control their populace and maintain the staus quo. Many of these young men are indeed fleeing for their lives, and Europe was the closest "safe zone" by water.

Problem with that is, because these young men were raised in ioppressive and totalitarian areas with little farmland and traditional labor jobs to keep them occupied (as well as the fact that finding a suitable mate and starting a family and settling down was difficult due to their chaste and eduational training and ability to provide, a ot of them didn't tske into account the space considerations or the allowances that Europe has industrialized farming and doesn't need to "expand" it's territoies as much as Islam encourages.

It's a socioeconmic and sociological logistical nightmare, because many of these young men are good people, but instead of staying in their homelands and fighting to the death against their opressors and bettering their homelands to bring them out of the Dark Ages, they panicked and fled.

The survival instinct is stronger than the sex instinct.

In the case of the rude, beligerent and criminally minded psychopaths heavily indoctrinated into the militant passages of the Koran written at a time when the Muslim Empire was being invaded by enemy forces and taken out of context by Militant Leaders pushing the ideology from every imagine avenue out of context, once these closeted young men see the beauty of Western Cities and the wealth of resources their indoctrination kicks in and their brains revert to infiltration and conquest.

And both the Isalmic regime and the European leadership seem to be taking the time honored "oh well, boys will be boys" approach, further reinforcing the neglectful parenting complex that has caused the entirety of this mess I've been ranting about for the last three posts.

The fundamental problem with Islam is that it actually encourages the rape and murder of innocents, and labors under the misapprehension that these deeds are percieved as "good" in Allah's eyes. Because their brains have not been fed the proper passages, their cultures do not provide distractions and higher education and their televisions are littered with hardline sharia law and territorial imperatives that abuse and pervert the passages of their Holy Book to be studied in times of peace, these young men are repressing healthy expressions of the human experience trying to adhere to a sever and draconian set of rules and instructions, and their brain develops a profound schizm from a lifetime of unhealthy indoctrination.

Several years ago there was a young Muslim musician by the name of Lupe Fiasco I came across while browsing music on youtube. His first album was gorgeous, insightful and beautful. As soon ashe gained world wide attention and got picked up by a mjor record label and prodcution team, he went from singing about peaceand love nd staying strong in the fac eof adversity to becoming another thug gangster psuhing drugs, sex and chasing excess. It was disturbing and the complete antithesis of the very thing that got him World Wide attention.

Connect the dots at your leisure and discretion.

originally posted by: Blaine91555
While I believe that regulation of speech should never happen unless criminal activity is involved, I approve of this. It's bad enough the Internet is infected with inappropriate garbage without exposing children to its dark side.

To me, this is the same as only allowing adults to drink alcohol, arguably the most deadly chemical used by man. Only the Internet may be more dangerous.

While I agree in spirit, allowing government to do what parents should be doing is frightening.

If parents can't mold their offspring into normalcy by the time they're five; it's a lost cause; the peer group takes over parenting as soon as they start school and begin socialization.

Kids in Australia, knowing censorship is coming, have already created workarounds.

It's a brave new world....



link.springer.com...

a reply to: DAVID64

Haven't young people been radicalized, and targeted by paedophiles via social media?

Sounds fair enough to me, why would you endanger children just to satisfy the corporate greed of some social media overlord.

I mean, people can still talk to each other without doing it through social media.