Australia's plan to ban children from social media proves popular and problematic

What they need to do is design a social app for the children, in introduce it to them through classes designed to show how to be online socially, and how to behave, with teachers and parents able to monitor this app to ensure it is used correctly and to be able to flag hostile or bad behavior when it first surfaces.

Teach children to be able to hold discussions and introduce new topics and to at all times be civil and on point. By the time they are young adults they will have both an understanding of what is acceptable, and what is offensive, and most will continue to act accordingly from then on. There will unfortunately always be an element that abuses they system, or cant help themselves. But beginning to use these apps under supervision, like learning to drive a car, can help enormously.

Do this the smart way and it can be win win for the young and for society in general.

in introduce it to them

and introduce it to them

element that abuses they system

element that abuses the system

Oh for a 5 minute edit option on this site!! That would be so nice.

The only way that this works is for everyone who goes on line to verify their age, so a de facto national digital ID, completely voluntary of course, but you won't be able to go online and use sns without one. This will bring an end to online anonymity but, don't fret your pretty little head, Big Brother will be watching over us all and keep us safe from online harms.

Age estimation technology has proved inaccurate, so digital identification appears to be the most likely option for assuring a user is at least 16.

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, an office that describes itself as the world’s first government agency dedicated to keeping people safer online, has suggested in planning documents adopting the role of authenticator. The government would hold the identity data and the platforms would discover through the commissioner whether a potential account holder was 16.

What appears to be a good idea on the surface - and protecting kids from harmful content certainly has merit - looks to be a way to condition the young to voluntarily giving up their sense of privacy and instilling this chilling principle into future generations as well. With Australia fast becoming a cashless society, everything they say online and everything they buy can be tracked and like China'a social credit system, could be used against them.

Having WEF member Julia Inman-Grant as the eSafety Commissioner in that role is about as bad as it gets.

Only the large platforms like Facebook will actually cooperate with this, and young people will inevitably coalesce around "cooler" unregulated networks. Unless they go full Chinese firewall, ban VPNs, and set up a new agency with the power to ISP ban thousands of uncooperative sites, I give this little to no chance of succeeding. But I don't blame parents for wanting it.

It will have a big impact not just with the young but also with everyone else

Everyone will need to be identified and verified before being able to use social media.

Cam people still be anonymous online or everyone now will be totally identifiable

Education is the key here. The genie is out of the lamp now, and a ban would be difficult and clumsy to implement.

I agree with Peter14s idea as probably the best way to handle something like this.

I hope and Pray that Australia approves this ban ASAP and other should follow suit.

The EU was considering similar ban and I hope they re consider.

""But a vocal assortment of experts in the fields of technology and child welfare have responded with alarm.""

The so called experts is what got us to where we are these days, agents of the tech industry are hard at work trying to defeat this ban.

Should be everywhere. So many perverts online and frankly kids are losing proper social skills. They don’t need phones on their hands ever.

I love the idea, I mean, of course we want to protect our children - that’s not up for debate. But practically speaking it's impossible to implement without inviting massive government overreach and setting dangerous precedents for the rest of us ("oh, you're over 16? Prove it by uploading your identification documents)"

Now with that out of the way, time to break out the tin foil hat.

At present, it’s social media restrictions; what’s next? Tracking devices for ‘safety’? Mandatory monitoring of every communication? This reeks of Orwellian control. They say it’s for the greater good, but when governments start dictating what private citizens - can or cannot do, they inch closer to controlling every aspect of our lives. Wake up, people. Today it’s your kids’ phones; tomorrow it’s your freedom.

It's not just your kids' devices, yours too. You have to prove you're over 16 ( or 16 and above? ) to use social media

Good on Australia, and I pray the rest of the world will follow.

It's a law formulated by old people in a state of moral panic, not coping with change as well as the younger people are.

Banning it because sexual predators use it is like banning the automobile because people after three people die in RTAs.

For tech companies, it's 26 million people. The extra costs and risks are not worth it. Pull out of Australia. It would set a precedent that every other nation would follow, breaking the economic model of social media and Web 2.0 and silencing stuff like #MeToo. A universal stasi-style online ID that would allow governments to track every comment on every service.

Weirdly, Australia needs it more than most, as it is a country with a lot of (very) isolated communities and some seriously bad weather. The ID grab, via GAFA and the state, will see a lot of adults stop using it.

On the plus side, very little new tech has been developed in Australia, wo we won't miss young Australians growing up without the experience of using these services. Also kids will grow up knowing that their government is their oppressor. A bit like banning rock and roll. I'm sure they will find less well mediated alternatives.

What are they going to do about tourists? I guess you expect to hand over a lot of ID info when visiting China or North Korea. I suppose you will have to do that if you go to Australia and want to use social media.

Finally, a Western country that is worse than Brexit Britain. At least until our lot do something similar.

GBR48Today  02:47 am JST

It's a law formulated by old people in a state of moral panic, not coping with change as well as the younger people are.

they’re not younger people, they’re children. minors.

why not let 12-year olds drink, drive cars, get married, join the military and vote, too?

before the internet, did parents let their 10-year old children rent adult videos, then sit around the living room to watch it with them?

social media will make you stupid. we already have one generation of young adults who have never read a book and can’t find australia on a map. we don’t need another generation of dunces.

johnny somali may not be a great role model.

tiktok is happily destroying the minds of western children. china is happy to make your children stupid. in china, tiktok is used to educate children about geography, math and science. it’s not full of stupid tiktok challenges.

and it’s off line at night. most westerners don’t know that because they know very little about anything now. they’re too busy addicted to utter nonsense, like johnny somali.