this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2026
25 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

6408 readers
634 users here now

Which posts fit here?

Any news that are at least tangentially connected to the technology, social media platforms, informational technologies or tech policy.

Post guidelines

[Opinion] prefixOpinion (op-ed) articles must use [Opinion] prefix before the title.

Rules

1. English onlyTitle and associated content has to be in English.
2. Use original linkPost URL should be the original link to the article (even if paywalled) and archived copies left in the body. It allows avoiding duplicate posts when cross-posting.
3. Respectful communicationAll communication has to be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences.
4. InclusivityEveryone is welcome here regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
5. Ad hominem attacksAny kind of personal attacks are expressly forbidden. If you can't argue your position without attacking a person's character, you already lost the argument.
6. Off-topic tangentsStay on topic. Keep it relevant.
7. Instance rules may applyIf something is not covered by community rules, but are against lemmy.zip instance rules, they will be enforced.

Companion communities

!globalnews@lemmy.zip
!interestingshare@lemmy.zip

Icon attribution | Banner attribution

If someone is interested in moderating this community, message @brikox@lemmy.zip.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
BrikoX@lemmy.zip
25
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
9 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

top 9 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 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.