this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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Trial finds age assurance can be done, as social media ban deadline looms (www.abc.net.au)
submitted 1 day ago by Zagorath@aussie.zone to c/australia@aussie.zone
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[โ€“] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Whole thing is a moral panic. No good evidence exists of harms, but nobody needs evidence to believe what they want to.

You could like ban algorithmic endless feeds if that was bad, you could enforce content moderation standards if bad content was the issue. But no, this is just surveillance state expansion and traditional media handwringing being cheerfully assisted by the feckless "think of the children" crowd.

[โ€“] Tenderizer@aussie.zone 5 points 7 hours ago

I think the harms are real. They're not exclusive to children.

There are three categories of harm:

  • Radicalization, as the algorithm deliberately feeds you bad takes from your political opponents and good takes from your political allies, to keep you engaged.
  • Overstimulation, the YouTube Kids channel Cocomelon is way too addictive for kids. This isn't exclusive to social media, and YouTube Kids apparently has an exemption.
  • Addiction, social media eats into hours upon hours in kid's days. Time they could spend with their family/friends or processing their emotions, instead they're being numbed out on their phone.

I think we should ban algorithmic recommendations (or strictly limit them), ban the practices of Cocomelon, and ... I'm not sure what we can do about the addiction thing (humans are super prone to addiction). I'd also ban smart-phones in schools, kids should only be allowed flip-phones/brick-phones.