Australia Bans Social Media for people below 16
- Thread starter tartarus
- Start date
Ban to apply to Instagram, X, Snapchat and others
From late 2025, Australians must be over 16 to use social media
Tech giants face fines of A$49.5m for non-compliance
Child rights groups opposed the law, parent groups supported it
From late 2025, Australians must be over 16 to use social media
Tech giants face fines of A$49.5m for non-compliance
Child rights groups opposed the law, parent groups supported it
roadrash99
Forerunner
Will work about as well as porn restriction for <18 year olds.
I think adults should be banned from social media in India. Looking at the shit forwarded in posts that go viral, I'm ashamed to even read or watch newspapers here. Newspapers are posting Reddit posts as news now. LoL. I think our country is getting dumber as time progresses.
tartarus
Contributor
Couldn't agree more tbh
Thats like a different pandoras box
Cringe videos
Reddit posts as news
Indians going abroad n doing weird shit n helping already crazy foreigners to streotype us more
Etc etc
I mean
Atleast something is better than nothing
I do get the point its tough to execute
Completely agree, Reddit has become new source of information to so-calledx journalists.
Citizen's privacy will get invaded the moment you try to implement age based restriction. You need to provide intimate details to some agency to get the age digitally verified. After that, you are not anonymous anymore. You can't criticize anyone(lest they file a case and get your details from court or worse, the service gets hacked and your details are anyway visible)
To preserve democracy, what we have now is good enough. If we want to go the authoritarian way, China model is the way to go.
TOI is especially notorious for posting random shit as "news". I read an article today, "Techie uses smart move to avoid rental scam." The scam? Scammer asked to send a deposit before seeing the actual property. The smart move? The techie not paying
(obviously, they dressed up the article a lot). SMFH.It was some random LinkedIn post they poached the "story" from.
startekselva
Beginner
India should do it too
then should we expect china like behaviour towards posts critical of the govt? Like threatening phone calls, coming to house and abducting people, jailing people without any evidence, re-education camps etc?
Who will teach those highly uneducated fools sitting on top of our heads..
Made in India product is right choice for India (an all-in one Social Media platform), giving outsiders 0 weight age.
The app for Indian situation should not be for social media shitposting, but for government information providing, micro payments, document provision, processes, weather alerts, educational information, PMO / ministerial announcements, etc. This should happen without privacy violation, of course. This will avoid govt and authority usage of twitter, fb, yt, etc. for official purposes which feels uneasy.
Let general meta, tiktok like activity continue in those private platforms for those above 16+. Under 16 should get censored infotainment they need.
True, but the most offenders are from parties themselves. Just look at the misinformation on X from political parties. Who will stop them? Plus we have IAS officers with their YT channels broadcasting and trying to justify their one man justice system. Our govt system is itself mentally corroded to do anything good with an app.
Leave under 16, even old people here blindly believe anything they see on news channels. from drinking AC water to someone's dirty feet water. Why target only kids? Target everyone.
Your statement does not make any sense. Government information is shared via Press Information Bureau posts (Central government posts). And why will government/authority not use FB/Twitter/YT? If most of the Indian people are on these. Easiest way to get message to Indian public will be where the people already are active. But if you are talking about fake ID's of people working in police department and keeping watch on general public, then maybe I understand a bit.
The more you try to censor something, more people will be drawn towards it. It is known as the Streisand effect. And if you remember your own childhood, you would hopefully remember how you were more interested in the Taboo censored stuff, than what was available for you.
This app should not be about politics, but between govt. and people.
Once such an app is in place, a code of conduct will automatically be applied. Their action should be judged legally too.
We can either aspire to progress, or sit blaming everyone else.
I mean, even slow incremental steps towards progress can give some hope.
Let people of all ages be targeted ? Kids are future generation, so they should be targeted and trained more.
Also, truth should bring in ultimate justice. Be it any age, or other identity scopes.
This app should be citizen centric, from govt. on top to citizen on bottom.
Why to depend on mercy of foreign pvt. corpn. when India have enough talent and capability, or how you expect talent and capability to grow indigenous ?
When country is talking about make in India, one nation one ____everything, why not a lean but powerful app to provide facilities directly to citizens.
See, these this helps in lot of ways.
Information being available outright, whether it's good or bad vs only good information available is a different perspective.
If one went overboard circumventing censorship, that is their call and responsibility.
Also, depends on how censorship is deployed too. There is a reason many places in west is doing this, social environment in those countries might be demanding such a move.
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There is no point in justifying our points.
In our largest democracy, if we try to make something better for someone, there shall always be another one unhappy.
Both children and aged people are mostly targets of social media misinformation. About misuse/fraud all age groups fall into same (though middle aged and tech savvy least)
What would you suggest as a solution, like Australia did.
I liked penalty clause upto 50million on these platforms, if they are unable to keep themselves away from out of reach of minors.
Leaving entire responsibility on them.
In other words, in India entry is restricted to minors from Hotels Pubs were alcohol is served, if caught hotels pay the charges/penalty (even minors too have to pay minimal)
TikTok for kids already exists (only for US)
Facebook for kids exists as well.
In our largest democracy, if we try to make something better for someone, there shall always be another one unhappy.
Both children and aged people are mostly targets of social media misinformation. About misuse/fraud all age groups fall into same (though middle aged and tech savvy least)
What would you suggest as a solution, like Australia did.
I liked penalty clause upto 50million on these platforms, if they are unable to keep themselves away from out of reach of minors.
Leaving entire responsibility on them.
In other words, in India entry is restricted to minors from Hotels Pubs were alcohol is served, if caught hotels pay the charges/penalty (even minors too have to pay minimal)
TikTok for kids already exists (only for US)
Facebook for kids exists as well.
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Banning kids is like blaming kids for not being able to understand right from wrong. How did that happen? Kids mimic their parents or elders in their family. You can target only one group and get nothing or target everyone and get something to stick on the wall. If you ban only kids, kids will ask why are elders allowed to pass fake stuff on social media and we are not allowed to even watch anything. Let elders show them how to distinguish between fake and real first. We should ban TV and films too. Most of the tv serials and movies are just plain rubbish. Some movie songs even have that vulgar "****ing the air motion" in songs which kids see and imitate. Plus the amount of swear words used in dialogues is too much.
edit: we can train children as much as possible and teach them good from bad. But what happens when they try to debate with their parents or elders in family who will push some narrative? Elders will tell them to shut up and tell them you know nothing. Or elders will just say govt is pushing a false narrative. How do we counter that side? Only by teaching the elders simultaneously too.
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Lol. that's a funny sentence by itself.
It's not about my point vs your point, it's about a facility which can and should be handled by govt for betterment of it's citizens.
If China can do this, India at least should aspire to do better.
Just because few would be unhappy does not mean others does not deserve to be happy.
Let those prefer to stay unhappy stay that way, let those are happy thrive !
You can only help those who want to be helped, we can attempt to protect those who deserve it, prevent some failures.
We cannot stop those who are determined to fail, there are tolerance limits to every system.
..etc. ...
Don't want total ban, but there should be age based media control in general social media, for eg., meta, twitter, etc. Like how there is pg13, 18+ in films, etc. There should be content verification bars from green, orange to red to mention whether the content is authentic or outright bullshit, etc.
The Indian app is not social media, but a information point from govt to citizens agnostic of politics.
Penalties for infra, but mandatory social, community training for children and parents with children under observation.
Else, authorities will exploit fines to benefit themselves, fines should be about deterrence, not an income source.
Who will train children about right and wrong, self responsibility, achievements, self gratification, etc ? Films stars or narcissist celebrities venting morality on insta ?
How do you think training should happen ?
I say primarily by parents, schools and other avenues which may include social media also.
Kids have a working mind of their own. If they listened and copies their parents alone, world would've been a different place altogether.
Kids needs supervision, that is a fact. Freedom without controls and self control is anarchy.
Australia and many other countries are doing all this for a reason, they have learned their lessons.
Just because extreme few adults did some stupidity does not mean you have to brush everyone with same paint.
Kids are not moral unless they are conditioned to be so. They need guidance and restriction.
Have mentioned about media controls and information verification earlier in my posts, the same apply for adults too.
Fully agree with this. We definitely need to control social environment, for that some kind of media control is required. Am not into total ban, but some self control and moderation is well advised.
Alcohol and cigarettes are injurious to health but still allowed to be sold in India. Because they get huge amount of taxes from these sin goods.
No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health
The risks and harms associated with drinking alcohol have been systematically evaluated over the years and are well documented.
Back to the topic. If social media is not good and banning is for good of kids, then why allow these other cancer making things to go inside people's bodies? Does that mean govt is not worried about the welfare of adults? I think these banning social media and putting restrictions are just optics generated to make people debate on other topics and not the badly performing politicians who are ruining their country.
We have school principals of prestigious schools here openly talking about supporting palestine. Even parents are wrong sometimes because they learnt from their parents to be narcissist, selfish etc. Some parents don't even look after their kids properly. They leave for work in the morning and expect their unsupervised kids to behave like good kids when they come back at night. Some kids behave well, some don't.
I believe instead of outright banning or restricting, the govt should push a narrative on these platforms that being good pays in the long run. Though in reality we all see that bad people get off easily by buying off the system. On China's Douyin social media platform, they push a narrative about doing good creative things or making food and helping others while on USA's TikTok platform, women show their asses on the screen and are twerking from left to right. Then they push people to buy fake scented oils and other stuff. Lol.