How it should work I'm unsure in the big scheme of it, but we limit access to various things until age 18 here in Australia, and I think this is one long term battle that I believe the tech sector will lose.
Did you know that heroin (at the time, that was a registered trademark) was originally sold as a "non-addictive morphine substitute" to be used as cough suppressant?
People weren't at all sure how to even regulate substances in the early years of the 20th century, which is why when the US got Prohibition it was via a constitutional amendment rather than a mere law, even though they already knew about drugs laws and the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act predated Prohibition by about 5 years.
Right now, we're not sure how to even regulate social media.
And here I just called it more intelligent, lol. I should qualify that. I've seen her instagram feed too, and somehow it's even more absurd...
The Prime Minister's announcement of the policy included, unusually, a callout to one of the major news organisations (Newscorp) for their campaign (called Let Them Be Kids) in favour of such a ban[0]:
> I do want to pay tribute to the campaign that's been run by media organisations on this. I do want to single out NewsCorp for the campaign that they've run, Let Them Be Kids. It's an example of a media organisation being engaged in something that's of concern to the community.
[0]: https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-46363
It will be a failure if 10 year olds continue to join social media at the rate they have done so in the past.
It’s not likely to get 15 year olds who have been addicted for 5 years off it, anymore than smoking bans have any impact on teens who have been smoking or vaping for years.
Sure if you are 15 you can get a phone yourself, but for younger kids the ban has a positive effect.
"Imagine you're a teenager, and your parents and government tell you to not do something... What will happen?"
The answer is of course that they keep doing it anyhow. But hide it.
As an Aussie, and a parent. What I wanted was that the government mandate that in order for your website or app to launch in Australia, that if you want to allow kids between certain ages on the website/app. Then you need to have robust parental controls. Create family accounts where you can link parents and children, share whatever tracking/tracing you have with said parents and make it as good as you can. Mandate specific minimum controls based on what kind of type of app/website it is.
Put the control in the hands of the parents, and not this stupid one size fits all approach.
So far it's working fine, I expect that to change in the future. But it's also both the carrot and the stick at the moment.
As for creating parent accounts themselves. Imagine you've got a kid, you've created an account for you and the kid.. you have stats, data, usage etc. And suddenly the kids on their device all day, but you see nothing. That's how you know.
Will the kid find a way around it. Probably.. I expect them too. But it's still a hell of a lot better than what we have. Because it puts more control and visibility in the hands of the parents than it does the state and people like Peter Thiel.
Will there be idiot parents who just don't care. For sure. But thats already happening. You can't stop that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_obesity_in_Australia
The media is predictably unhappy since they lose eyeballs, advertising revenue and money.
Previous approaches like expecting parents to educate children failed miserably.
Most parents lacked at least one or more of motivation, time or knowledge.
this is an article by reuters, they are not affected by the ban.
What about the FDA‘s bans on food ingredients?
They don’t work, companies just become more secretive?
ares623•1h ago
gib444•59m ago
Skyy93•51m ago
tgv•42m ago
Cider9986•38m ago
Skyy93•37m ago
Technology is in most of the cases not bad, and their use can enrich lives.
hahahaa•40m ago
Skyy93•35m ago
If you prefer living without a smartphone its completly up to you and I would always stand for your right to not have one, but on the other side I am also standing for the right to have one if someone desires one.
hahahaa•24m ago
Skyy93•22m ago
defrost•14m ago
That's a somewhat loaded question, I'll assume you're not (correct me if I'm wrong) and move on to the question of should 12 year olds have smartphones and if so how should they limit access to porn and graphic violence when used by 12 year olds?
Please don't fob this off by requiring that all parents should have CS degrees or IT qualifications, that's not a thing.
mrob•37m ago