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Comment on The secret deal behind the teenage social media ban

Just that they went and decided on this nebulous age verification instead of actual privacy protection we’re sorely lacking in this country (online)

As much as I do support the basic premise of a social media ban for children, this was always my big concern about the way the debate unfolded in Australia. Everyone was so preoccupied with these hysterical child safety arguments around sex predators and violent imagery. The much larger and more important issues around privacy and childhood development (i.e. influence of addictive technology on developing brains and broader impacts on society of these problems becoming normalised and resolved within our culture) were often just background noise.

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Zagorath@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

The much larger and more important issues around privacy and childhood development (i.e. influence of addictive technology on developing brains and broader impacts on society of these problems becoming normalised and resolved within our culture)

But childhood development is the reason given for the Social Media Minimum Age bill. The introductory speech explained that the underlying problem is:

for too many young Australians, social media can be harmful. Almost two-thirds of 14- to 17-year-old Australians have viewed extremely harmful content online, including drug abuse, suicide or self-harm, as well as violent material. A quarter have been exposed to content promoting unsafe eating habits.

The problem isn’t the goals of the bill. It’s that it was passed without regard for how it will impact the privacy of both the children and of adults. And without regard for how its burden will be met by smaller non-algorithmic social media like the fediverse. And it’s that they rushed the whole thing through in just 9 days without time to properly receive public feedback (including from experts), consider the public feedback, and adjust the bill to respond to feedback. That it was so incredibly vague nobody had any idea what it would look like in practice. And this despite the fact that they had already decided to have a minimum of one year before it takes effect anyway.

It should have been done by giving a Minister the power to designate certain platforms, rather than applying to all platforms automatically unless the Minister exempts it under 63C(6)(b). And it ideally should have been done by requiring platforms to support parents, by requiring operating systems have an API that apps and websites can call on that would reveal the age, and that they be able to lock that age behind a parental control password. That would have meant no personal information ever changes hands. Alternatively, the government should have created a robust system for using blinded digital signatures where they provide you a one-time token that you can provide to a website to verify your age, without that token being traceable back to your real ID—even by the government.

Facial recognition or government-issued ID, which seem to be the two options we’re likely to have, should both have never even been on the table. Both are terrible invasions of privacy, and the former doesn’t even (and cannot even) work.

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- Ilandar@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  That quote you pulled is exactly what I’m talking about. Lots of pearl clutching about low-hanging fruit like violent imagery and drugs, no mention of the longer-term impacts of being exposed to services that are literally designed to be addictive or the way our privacy has been eroded by companies like Meta and Google monopolising our lives. No one wants to go beyond the most absolutely basic, surface level examination. Of course these people fucked the solution when they never fully understood the problem in the first place.
  
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