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Australia’s Teen Social Media Ban Is Just Training A Generation In The Art Of The Workaround (www.techdirt.com)
submitted 3 days ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to c/technology@lemmy.zip
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We’ve been covering Australia’s under-16 social media ban since before it went into effect, first noting the confusion and obvious implementation problems as pretty much everyone realized it was a total mess, and then documenting how the ban was actively harming kids with disabilities by cutting them off from critical support communities.

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[–] UnfortunateShort@lemmy.world -1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Why not remove all age restrictions then? I mean, you can get drunk or start smoking as a teen if you really want to. Yet many don't, because is iconvenient.

And I also don't buy this 'kids get cut off' shit at all. You can use Youtube without an account, no problem. You still have easy access to news and websites. You can still network with other people and join, for example, group chats or TS servers. Heck, it's like, what? 10 Platforms that are (semi-)banned? Half of the people on earth grew up without social media at all, yet some people talk about this like it's the air they breath.

That very fact just reinforces my suport for the ban a lot. If you really need social media, just go to the fediverse dammit. It is incidentally not banned and almost guaranteed to be better than the dataharvesting ragebait shitshow with gambling ads that's mainstream social media these days.

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

You fundamentaly misunderstand the issue with it. Nobody needs to collect IDs of every single adult to prevent kids from buying cigarettes or alcohol. Yet that's what is happening with social media and "adult" content as they are convenient vectors to justity invasive data collection.

I would support a complete ban for everyone as it would eliminate the data collection, but since this is not about kids but instead about that data collection in the first place that will never happen.

[–] showmeyourkizinti@startrek.website 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You do realise that the government collects your ID when they’re made? And then you need to show that ID to buy a pack of smokes right?

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 days ago
  1. Cool, I'm okay with the government knowing I exist. But they don't need to know what social media sites I access.
  2. Showing physical ID is not the same as storing digital record, which can be tracked, correlated and leaked at any time due to other people incopetence. More apt comparison would be to if you needed to provide a copy of your ID each time you went to buy cigarettes or alcohol.
  3. You only need to provide ID if you look younger than required age to buy cigarettes or alcohol not every single living person.
[–] misk@piefed.social -1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Nobody needs to collect your ID when they sell you alcohol but they need to be able to see it.

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)
  1. Showing physical ID is not the same as storing digital record, which can be tracked, correlated and leaked at any time due to other people incopetence. More apt comparison would be to if you needed to provide a copy of your ID each time you went to buy cigarettes or alcohol.
  2. You only need to provide ID if you look younger than required age to buy cigarettes or alcohol not every single living person.
[–] misk@piefed.social 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)
  1. There are ways to do things anonymously while preserving actual checks against a central database, like with zero-knowledge proof.
  2. There’s a living person doing that check, which isn’t super practical for things online. Do I go to the nearest 7-11 to confirm my Pornhub login?
[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)
  1. It's not full proof.
  1. There is a human element here too. Parents. Certain groups of people are constantly shouting that parent choices are not taken into consideration, yet they are happy with outsoursing their responsibilies on the rest of the population.
[–] misk@piefed.social 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

What ZKPs don’t do is mitigate verifier abuse or limit their requests, such as over-asking for information they don’t need or limiting the number of times they request your age over time.

API rate limits exist.

They don’t prevent websites or applications from collecting other kinds of observable personally identifiable information like your IP address or other device information while interacting with them.

Exactly like the lady at 7-11. Also why EU implemented GDPR.

These are Linux libertarian takes, I’m more interested in countries being ran effectively.