Oh, I loaded up the page previously before your edit. Regarding the edit, not only will it prevent kids accessing community, but it may also drive them into darker, more unregulated parts of the Web. Similar to how porn bans (whether outright bans or stricter age-gating) only really affect Pornhub—probably the most well-regulated and “safe” porn site out there. Block that, and you’ll get people going to sketchy Russian sites where they might encounter much, much more terrible stuff.
Comment on Honest Government Ad | Social Media Ban
MyMindIsLikeAnOcean@piefed.world 4 weeks ago
Welp…I work with kids and I previously supported the ban….but I’ve done a 180.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 4 weeks ago
MyMindIsLikeAnOcean@piefed.world 4 weeks ago
Nods. The ban is only going to protect kids that have parents who want them protected/have the technical expertise to do it.
Meanwhile all the fee range kids out there…which, let’s be honest, is most of them…are just going to find a bunch seedy apps and workarounds…and guess who else is going to be lurking in these spaces.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 4 weeks ago
ETA I’m really bad at hot taking, editing, and not saying I edited
It’s weird. Usually edited comments display a little asterisk telling you they’re edited. I wonder if somehow the interaction between Piefed and Lemmy means that doesn’t happen.
Almacca@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
An old forum I used to frequent had the feature that let you edit a comment up until the point someone replied to it, at which point it was locked. That worked pretty well.
MyMindIsLikeAnOcean@piefed.world 4 weeks ago
Now I know!
Mountaineer@aussie.zone 4 weeks ago
All good, I feel like we’re in total agreement here.
Taleya@aussie.zone 4 weeks ago
yeah I get the noble cause and all that shit…but a government body should never mandate what is or isn’t a “dangerous influence” on its population. Ever
MyMindIsLikeAnOcean@piefed.world 4 weeks ago
Urm. Not sure what you mean. Isn’t that’s the only thing it should do?
Zagorath@aussie.zone 4 weeks ago
Yeah don’t get me wrong, I 100% support the stated intent of the ban. It’s just a terrible method to go about it. Facebook is known to have commissioned internal studies about the psychological effects of changes to their algorithm, and then when those studies show the change causes harm, but also produce a little more profit, they go with the profit every time. Why don’t we make that illegal?
If we have to do age-gating, why not require it to be done in a privacy-preserving way, such as parental controls, zero-knowledge proofs, or blind signatures? Parental controls would, in fact, be by far the easiest for everyone involved, and the only information that would actually need to flow is from the parent to their kids’ devices, and then the devices reporting “yes, this is a child” or “no, this is not a child”.
The answer is: because the government didn’t care. It didn’t want to actually fix the problem. It didn’t want to listen to experts’ opinions or consider the broader public’s concerns. It wanted to win some quick easy PR. That’s why submissions into the legislation were open for just one day, and why Parliament didn’t even take the time to consider the small number of submissions that were able to be made in that limited window. A government that is acting seriously in response to a chronic threat (I can make some exception for quick responses into sudden, unexpected, acute crises) does not behave in this way. Ever. Good legislation takes time, and this sort of hurried response only indicates that it knew it was doing the wrong thing, and wanted to minimise the amount of time it was exposed to criticism.
TheHolm@aussie.zone 4 weeks ago
Because aim of this low is not to protect kids, but to erase last drops of privacy in the internet. Just another brick in the wall. Kids are just collateral.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 4 weeks ago
Honestly I don’t think so. It would have been so easy for the politicians to not include a rule that specifically bars sites from using government ID as their only age verification method. And to not include a stipulation that any information gathered for age verification must not be used for any other purposes. But they did include those.
Hanlon’s Razor seems the best thing to apply here. There’s a lot of evidence of incompetence. Not a lot of good evidence of nefarious purpose.
lightsblinken@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
totally agree. we do need a more gooder way to verify appropriate-ness, but its always going to br more difficult when none of the organisations that make money have good reasons to not do it/do it thoughtfully.
melbaboutown@aussie.zone 4 weeks ago
👆 All of this.
Parental controls can still be used to isolate if the parents are extremely religious or abusive but this is a much more reasonable and effective way to go about it.
Will some kids get around it? Yes, some kids will get around whatever. They will also get around this impending legislation.
Almacca@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
This is what baffles me. I may be out of touch, but I haven’t seen a single response in support of the thing. Seems more like a big PR fail to me.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
Not seen any of the polling, the comments under politicians’ Facebook posts about it, or heard interviews on the ABC? It most definitely is a very popular policy. Unfortunately, that’s mostly because of a lack of understanding of the nuance. They just see “social media = bad for kids, therefore this bill that says it’s going to stop that must be good”.
Almacca@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
I guess I am out of touch then.