Australia plans social media ban for under-16s
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gzd62g1r3o
This may or may not have implications for the Fediverse, however looking at this quote
"These tech companies are incredibly powerful. These apps have algorithms that drive people towards certain behaviour."
While this is the case on mainstream SM, we don't have algorithms here, so there is little to push content to people unless you follow specific hashtag. There is no financial gains either.
This could have implications here though
"There will be no exemptions on the age limit for children who have consent from their parents. The government says that the onus will be on social media platforms to show they are taking reasonable steps to prevent access."
Pehaps we should NOT be stopping young people from using social media, just change the nature of social media, like we have a different model here, that is far more civilised and respectful
You don't stop kids from crossing roads, you teach kids to cross the road safely, so we should be teaching young people how to treat each other with respect, and how to behave both in public and online.
+bonifartius 𒂼𒄄
@zleap i don't think the state has any say in this but i wouldn't let my kids on any social media. not big tech, not fedi. i wouldn't let my kids use the net unsupervised. this isn't the 90s net or even 2000s net anymore, this is a different beast. maybe plain text only is ok.
we don't have algorithms but this place is chock full of true psychos and you can't unsee things.
Good point there, this about more than just social media, perhaps we can lobby governments to reflect this in these laws
Agreed but we have given people esp kids rights without enforcing the idea we have responsibility
@zleap like i wrote, i don't think the state should have (or realistically has) any say in this.
what i think would help is:
foremost, schools need to teach good individualism, critical thinking and bodily autonomy. freedom is another word for responsibility after all. teach and give incentives for taking up responsibility for oneself, fellow humans and the environment.
the rest of society also needs to be shifted into this direction again. the west is in trouble because we largely have done away with the thing that made it resilient: individual responsibility and free expression. there always were people "abusing" it. culture, economy, and society thrived when it wasn't fought against using law and cancelling, but by coming up with something better.
which usually is pretty easy - tell people how it is and don't try to play silly games with them.