Take your hand off my kids ipads

[Richard Pryor]

How many parents in general spend time on their socials while they should be cultivating a relationship with their children? The only 'social media" I have is BigFooty and trying to keep to a minimum. It's a scrouge. The more government do to regulate platforms the better for society.

Socialization in person also holds some of the same negative potential as social media, especially for radicalization. Therefore I propose the government go a step further and ban everyone under 16 from socializing while unaccompanied by an adult or teacher. Of course, to enforce we will need everyone over 16 to have papers at all times to present to the authorities while outside of their home with other people. The more the government does to regulate our interactions the better for society.

 

[zumahawk]

Socialization in person also holds some of the same negative potential as social media, especially for radicalization. Therefore I propose the government go a step further and ban everyone under 16 from socializing while unaccompanied by an adult or teacher. Of course, to enforce we will need everyone over 16 to have papers at all times to present to the authorities while outside of their home with other people. The more the government does to regulate our interactions the better for society.

Do you realise the harm that social media does to teenagers? It's not a commie thing to want to keep under 16s safe.

 

[Richard Pryor]

Gambling and drinking don't require the person submit their personal details to a new central government ID database. Doesn't place a control on people's ability to communicate. Doesn't block vulnerable kids from reaching out via a popular communication channel. All that stuff.

They're not the same.

I agree social media is not good for many kids, but this solution has so many holes and unintended consequences it can't get through.

Similar to the vape ban, it is a policy which will have massive unintended consquences while likely not addressing the issue, yet so many are just playing the emotive argument and refuse to engage with actual concerns instead hammering away on "But vaping/social media is BAD!, how can I strawman to paint this person raising concerns as promoting kids on social media/vapes".

Will be interesting to see if Labor opts for the Mark Butler technique of employing the wagging finger to distract people from flimsy reasoning.

 

[Richard Pryor]

Do you realise the harm that social media does to teenagers? It's not a commie thing to want to keep under 16s safe.

It's excacerbates the harm that bullying does to teenagers. Therefore being able to regulate all socialization and therefore all bullying would keep under 16s even safer. Why do YOU not care enough about under 16's to support my proposed policy?

 

[zumahawk]

Similar to the vape ban, it is a policy which will have massive unintended consquences while likely not addressing the issue, yet so many are just playing the emotive argument and refuse to engage with actual concerns instead hammering away on "But vaping/social media is BAD!, how can I strawman to mock this person promoting kids on social media/vapes".

Will be interesting to see if Labor opts for the Mark Butler technique of employing the wagging finger to distract people from flimsy reasoning.

I agree there are unintended consequences but that's happen with government policy since time immoral. Nothing is perfect but most agree that vaping being illegal is a positive and keeping social media regulated the same especially for the kids. Adults won't be affected.

 

[Richard Pryor]

I agree there are unintended consequences but that's happen with government policy since time immoral. Nothing is perfect but most agree that vaping being illegal is a positive and keeping social media regulated the same especially for the kids. Adults won't be affected.

Have you even read what enforcement is being proposed? How exactly is requiring verifying ID to access any website that facilitates user content and communication between end users (seriously, this is the definition the government is proposing to use to define social media) not going to affect adults? Labor has even mentioned the possibility of using biometric face scanning as a potential method of identity verification.

Also vaping being illegal is absolutely not a positive specifically in the case of preventing teens from vaping. The government cracked down on dedicated vape stores which actually took government regulations seriously surrounding ID and nicotine levels. Teens purchase disposable vapes (which were already illegal) with completely unregulated nicotine content from milk bars that don't check ID and since they were already breaking the law the new regulations didn't impact this at all and if anything drove the illegal vape industry into overdrive by pushing all of the adult vapers into the illegal market.

Since unintended consequences don't matter as long as something is being done I question why exactly you have an issue my regulate socialization bill.

 

[zumahawk]

Have you even read what enforcement is being proposed? How exactly is requiring verifying ID to access any website that facilitates user content and communication between end users (seriously, this is the definition the government is proposing to use to define social media) not going to affect adults? Labor has even mentioned the possibility of using biometric face scanning as a potential method of identity verification.

Also vaping being illegal is absolutely not a positive specifically in the case of preventing teens from vaping. The government cracked down on dedicated vape stores which actually took government regulations seriously surrounding ID and nicotine levels. Teens purchase disposable vapes (which were already illegal) with completely unregulated nicotine content from milk bars that don't check ID and since they were already breaking the law the new regulations didn't impact this at all and if anything drove the illegal vape industry into overdrive by pushing all of the adult vapers into the illegal market.

Since unintended consequences don't matter as long as something is being done I question why exactly you have an issue my regulate socialization bill.

Have a good day Richard Pryor

 

[Gough]

Growing up a gay kid in the 80s I would have killed for the sort of platform to meet and talk to other kids like me which now exists online. Everyone seems to be big on talking about the harm social media does kids while almost completely the positive outcomes like that that a digital world can provide.

 

[PiCkLeJuiCe]

Have you even read what enforcement is being proposed? How exactly is requiring verifying ID to access any website that facilitates user content and communication between end users (seriously, this is the definition the government is proposing to use to define social media) not going to affect adults? Labor has even mentioned the possibility of using biometric face scanning as a potential method of identity verification.

It'll be interesting to see how Australian law will apply to overseas hosted platforms.

 

[Gough]

Given that Australians have come away from religion in droves over the last half century kids are probably safer than they've ever been simply by not attending church.

 

[Richard Pryor]

It'll be interesting to see how Australian law will apply to oversees hosted platforms.

Albanese has mentioned fining social media companies, but that won't do anything. They'll just block Australia from accessing their sites if the government is able to actually get teeth stuck into them since we're such an insignificant market.

Will also be interesting to see how they actually end up defining social media. So far the definition they have provided would include snapchat which they're now saying will be exempt, but they've also confirmed they will be banning youtube, which I think in most people's minds is far less of a social media platform than snapchat. I don't see how they craft a social media definition which somehow includes youtube but doesn't include snapchat.

 

[Cmarsh]

Like it’s just fathers on SM

Where did I say ot was?

 

[Seeds]

Do you realise the harm that social media does to teenagers? It's not a commie thing to want to keep under 16s safe.

Do you realise the good social media does for teenagers?

Bullying is a problem. But its both a real life problem and a social media problem. Stop bullying is what the focus should be.

 

[Seeds]

Given that Australians have come away from religion in droves over the last half century kids are probably safer than they've ever been simply by not attending church.

Agree. Lets ban kids going to churches before we ban them going on social media.

 

[SSwans2011]

Similar to the vape ban, it is a policy which will have massive unintended consquences while likely not addressing the issue, yet so many are just playing the emotive argument and refuse to engage with actual concerns instead hammering away on "But vaping/social media is BAD!, how can I strawman to paint this person raising concerns as promoting kids on social media/vapes".

Will be interesting to see if Labor opts for the Mark Butler technique of employing the wagging finger to distract people from flimsy reasoning.

Rant incoming, but I hadn'nt thought to make this comparison and I'm glad someone did. Plicy surrounding vaping - particularly the ban on the importation of nicotine oil back in 2020 - is actually an excellent example of an overreaching policy that created wayyy more issues than it solved.

To that point, it was actually very rare to see disposable vapes in Australia. Instead, all the parts would be obtained separately - nicotine oil, flavouring/glycerine, batteries, the vape itself and all it's individual parts. As you mentioned, vape stores that existed then actually cared about regulation. By having all of the parts separate it made vapes a reasonably effective tool for quitting because the user could decide how potent they wanted their nicotine/juice mix to be. There wouldn't be statistics for this, but I'd wager very good money that for most vape users to that point that their mix was far less potent than you get in disposable vapes.

The obvious and smart thing to do would have been to recognise the harm minimisation potential AND recognise that nicotine oil would have been a rare instance of something I suspect most users would have been happy to be taxed on.

Instead, the importation of nicotine oil is banned with bipartisan support by the major parties, and lo and behold, those vape stores (would have been hundreds, if not thousands, of them) close down, many of them having been run by people who legitimately wanted to help others, and in their places appear illegal tobacconists that absolutely flood the market with disposable vapes AND illegal tobacco. So effectively, they managed to kill honest businesses and in place of one minor issue (arguable it even was one) they created two much bigger issues.

What really bothers me in hindsight is that until legitimate vape stores were rendered entirely obsolete this year, there were a few local ones I visited where you would see people, including youths, come in and enquire about disposable vapes, and the owners/store clerks generally didn't just tell them no, they would actually try to explain why they didn't stock them and hke harmful they were. Because they actually cared about what they were doing. The illegal tobacconists that have replaced them DGAF. Why bother asking for ID to sell a product that's illegal in the first place?

Anyway, that rant was extensively long, but it would have been nice if ALP & LNP learned something... anything... from the nicotine importation ban re: harm minimisation, but I guess doubling down this year confirmed that wasn't the case. Seems like they're intent to fall into the same trap with social media and create more problems while failing to fix another. Similar to what happened with vapes, I think alternative online communities that will only prove harder to regulate will pop-up if they go ahead with this.

 

[Chief]

Binge drinking is passé with todays youth,

I don't know about that.

 

[Chief]

It's not a commie thing to want to keep under 16s safe.

Everyone wants to keep children safe.

We just have differing views on how to go about it.

Queensland's blanket phone bans in schools have worked well.

I would not be against people needing to get a code or key that identified their age, but no other information, and needing to use this to get into the big social media systems, with features turned off for minors.