With the ban going into effect tomorrow, I thought it might be helpful to allow people to share their experiences about the teen social media ban
Note: For the Aussie Zone lemmy requirements, see here. Please use that thread for an Aussie Zone specific discussions or questions.
Good luck, everyone!
melbaboutown@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
I’m a disabled adult that lives in an unsafe area, relying a lot on the internet for entertainment and a connection to the world.
I also don’t fancy the risk of identity theft or being doxxed. And even if I wasn’t in a position to be chronically online, these measures set a concerning precedent for online privacy and control of information that is much larger than our individual screen time.
YouTube: It will be locking me out of my YouTube account so I’ll lose all my saved playlists, can’t block harmful channels or recommendations (though the algorithms still function to serve them), could not choose to go premium to stop the alcohol and gambling ads, and I can’t watch certain favourite songs or my mates gaming channel.
I am still able to find plenty of uncensored material that’s not suitable for children while signed out though. So that’s something /s
Facebook: There are people I’d like to casually keep in touch with that are more likely to use the platform than text or email. Guess I kiss acquaintances goodbye? There are also disability support groups on there.
Twitch: Can’t watch a friend’s content or use the platform. This better not affect my Minecraft.
Reddit: This will prevent the choice of going back and talking to our Redditor buds who didn’t migrate over to Lemmy. (The Melbourne Daily Discussion Thread began on Reddit and before the exodus everyone had been internet friends for a long time.)
Also if I want to go and read only I may be prevented without an account. I also didn’t get it together in time to back up my comments in order to delete my account, so I may not get to.
TikTok: Hate the platform and avoid it as much as possible but increasingly everything is being put on it.
Everything else: I don’t use it but resent being told that I can’t unless I submit to an unreasonable invasion of privacy.
More broadly the UK version of this has shut down a number of small forums. So they’re gone. And there is still the potential for Australia or other countries to expand the targeted sites in future and do the same. Deciding on what they want to do and who can afford to fight or comply.
I hope this is an embarrassing fail. But if this precedent is set and the scope is allowed to creep there is the possibility that there won’t be independent alternatives to the large tech companies and they will be empowered to behave worse.
Also did I mention the control of information flow and potential for censorship?
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
Tbh once they started cracking down on adblockers I switched to uBlock Origin and haven’t had any problems since. Which is funny, because I previously used Adblock Plus specifically because I liked their “acceptable ads standard”, where they would let through ads that are designed unobtrusively. UBO doesn’t support this. So now instead of less terrible ads getting through, YouTube’s actions have caused me to get rid of all ads, entirely. Way to shoot yourselves in the foot there, guys.
I have never had a TikTok account. Occasionally people send links, and those work just fine in the web browser on a computer. On mobile they try to force you to download the app though.
I believe data dumps of Reddit are available from third parties which would help you with this, if you want.
vas@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
FYI, they work even better with
yt-dlp ‘YOUR_URL’It’s not a silver bullet as yt-dlp also relies on people’s hard work, so generally I’m absolutely not on the platform either. Downloading from TikTok only happens once in half a year maybe.
melbaboutown@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
I just lazily switched to Brave because phone and it stopped the ads.
I mostly wanted to back up a copy of my comments for myself and then wipe them off Reddit, but the process of installing the GitHub tool to grab my posts didn’t quite work and I was very tired.
krooklochurm@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Great insight into how my country instituting this would not effect me at all.
All those services are fucking garbage. Maybe there’s better things to do online than eat shit?
melbaboutown@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago