Social media ban for children to be introduced in next 12 months

[MoukMouk]

17 minutes ago, LifesGood said:

I'm firmly in the camp of 'social media is a net detriment to the world'.

Any steps that can be taken to regulate it are a good thing IMHO.

So do you think that EB is a form of social media? Because I do. Would you be happy to either leave or hand over all your personal ID to be able to be here?

[Yogaalaates]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-10/social-media-ban-children-what-we-know/104331384

[Crombek]

16 minutes ago, Yogaalaates said:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-10/social-media-ban-children-what-we-know/104331384

Aka an age limit would be ace, but we know tech companies won't comply, kids won't comply, there's no way to force them to comply and we are worried kids will just hide their use. 

[Moomintroll]

I'm in favour even though I don't think it will work very well.

I'm hoping it may lead to future situations where there are safer options provided for kids instead.  That government,  consumers and companies may all get on board finding safer options. 

I have several kids in my life who experience very poor parenting which includes being able to access absolutely anything on the internet without supervision of any kind. It's ruining these kids. Not so much ordinary social media but YouTube and various unregulated platforms.  I hate it with a passion. It's not nice when a 9 y.o. tells you the sex or horror videos keep them awake at night. 

[Kiwi Bicycle]

Also remember everyone, it's for under 14 year olds. So they are not talking about restricting teenagers, but tweens and 13 year olds.

[onetrick]

1 hour ago, LemonMyrtle said:

What will they define social media as, I wonder?

my kids have school iPads/tablet devices. And they message their friends using Apple messages mostly (via each others email addresses). No social media is used because the majority of parents won’t let them, and in Korea Facebook isn’t a big thing (they use Naver and Kakao and other things) But they’re so active with their messages that it’s like social media anyway. And bullying could easily happen, so I have to check it regularly.

And they use Teams at school, get a big enough teams group and that’s like social media too. 

but you can’t block messaging, that’s also what we use to message each other when we are out and about. You can’t block teams cause that’s for education. 

And what about in-game messaging? Like in Roblox and Minecraft etc?

blocking Facebook and instagram for my kids won’t make a bit of difference, they don’t use it. 

I was thinking of you and your descriptions of Korean phone access when I heard Jacinta Allen this morning.

She was saying that it is assumed all sites are ok... until they aren't. So they won't start by locking things and then releasing them, it will be the opposite. 

Teams is a little different, as schools (assume using a school email to access) can access the chats/ data on it. So any bullying can be dealt with swiftly. So I'd be more confident with kids using that than other things.

Discord/ steam and other gaming type things are good points. 

I don't quite understand why we haven't done this with p*rn as well, and 18yo as the minimum. We know that's an issue as well. I was already wondering and had the same conversation with DH, then saw your example.

[Julie3Girls]

They haven’t actually specified an age yet, sounds like they want it on the higher side. Anywhere up to 16.

I think enforcing the 13 age limit would be a good start.

My concern is that kids will simply find other internet options, less monitored.

Are Facebook and messenger seperate enough these days to ban Facebook but still have messenger? All our family chat groups are on messenger. 

[Kiwi Bicycle]

6 minutes ago, Julie3Girls said:

They haven’t actually specified an age yet, sounds like they want it on the higher side. Anywhere up to 16.

I think enforcing the 13 age limit would be a good start.

My concern is that kids will simply find other internet options, less monitored.

Are Facebook and messenger seperate enough these days to ban Facebook but still have messenger? All our family chat groups are on messenger. 

The Victorian and SA government are going for under 14s.

There's FB Messager Kids that is just messages with parental lockdowns that doesn't require Facebook.

[pelagic]

3 hours ago, Yogaalaates said:

The SA government says the companies will be fined, I think they mentioned 7 figure amounts.

Right. So all of SA gets cut off from social media. That's what I'd do if I was Facebook etc. It's easier than trying to police parents. And it would fix the problem pretty convincingly. SA is less than a drop in the ocean. Australia is maybe a couple of drops. 

Edited September 10 by pelagic

[pelagic]

1 hour ago, MoukMouk said:

So do you think that EB is a form of social media? Because I do. Would you be happy to either leave or hand over all your personal ID to be able to be here?

I would leave before I would hand over personal id. 

[Julie3Girls]

How can you fine the social media companies when kids just lie about their age? How are they meant to know? 

Sites selling alcohol currently have a question when you go into the site, are you over 18.  If you lie, and buy the alcohol, is the bottle shops fault? Or the person who lied?  I assume it is on the buyer, if you lie, and knowingly break the law, that is on you.

[pelagic]

Imagine how quickly everyone would say they don't want a ban if it transpired that the parents would be fined $1K for every violation their under age kid commits. 

[Two-bit]

3 minutes ago, Julie3Girls said:

How can you fine the social media companies when kids just lie about their age? How are they meant to know? 

Sites selling alcohol currently have a question when you go into the site, are you over 18.  If you lie, and buy the alcohol, is the bottle shops fault? Or the person who lied?  I assume it is on the buyer, if you lie, and knowingly break the law, that is on you.

Certainly with cigarettes the onus is on the retailer to establish age. If people show a fraudulent document, its a bit more nuanced. The rules say this

"You must not sell tobacco products or smoking implements to any customer who cannot produce photographic identification when requested, or if the identification does not include their date of birth, or if the identification appears to have been tampered with or looks fake or looks like it has been forged." 

[LifesGood]

1 hour ago, MoukMouk said:

So do you think that EB is a form of social media? Because I do. Would you be happy to either leave or hand over all your personal ID to be able to be here?

Yes and yes.

Plenty of kids have been harmed because of social media so I'm prepared to do any or all of the above.

[Julie3Girls]

Ok, so looked a bit closer, and at least for one store, you need to show ID when the alcohol is delivered, so I guess that covers it.

But social media restrictions aren’t going to have any in person aspect. There isn’t any point of contact to show a photo ID. There isn’t going to be a simple option of using a drivers licence number to prove your age.

I’m really curious as to how they are going to have a child of 13/14/15 prove their age online.

[purplekitty]

Controlling what they see at home is only part of the answer.

They have friends ,and not friends, out of our control that will have access that we don't allow.

And some of the things on the internet are horrific and some teenagers like to shock.

[VictorineTheCatLover]

5 hours ago, LemonMyrtle said:

Yeah, in this situation (not sure about the Aussie social media thing) once you turn 18 you definitely need your own phone plan in your own name or you won’t be able to do much, even your banking needs a phone in your name. Otherwise you have to go to a branch for everything.  I wanted to log into DH’s bank account to check his balance and pay some bills, I couldn’t do it, it’s linked to his phone and his phone only. 

Nope. Mine, DH and DD's phone are all under my name plus home internet to get the bulk discount. She can log into her own internet banking just fine on her phone that is not in her name. DH logs into our internet banking on his phone using my login details with no issues. 

DS only ported his number to Telstra because their coverage was better where he lives. He only had to pay out the remainder of his phone cost as the plan was month to month.

[Blueskies12]

Social media companies know so much more about us than we realise. They would be able to work out who is below the age. 
 

I am all for it. I’d love to reduce the reliance we have on technology overall

Edited September 10 by Blueskies12

[charli73]

I think it’s a great step in the right direction. I have a 12/13yo and one isn’t interested on the phone, the other doesn’t have a phone but is very interested in keeping with the trends so it’s her I worry about. 
 

[Sincerely]

3 hours ago, Jolly_F said:

Well that great for you but I have a kid who would be dead if she hadn’t found her safe place due to social media. So forgive me for not picking a side based on the very little info provided on the matter! 

I’m also glad that my youngest is 16 and this wasn’t implemented earlier. Both my daughters were in Yr 10 for all & most of the time they were 14, respectively, and would have been distressed if all their classmates had access to social media and they hadn’t. They are both very sensible and did / will not drink alcohol until they were / are legally allowed to, but a social media ban based purely on chronological age would have been terribly socially isolating.

DS learnt such a lot of science & maths from various YouTube videos since we got him an iPad at age 4. If such a restriction included all of Youtube, then it would be a great setback for minds like his which are years ahead of their peers and even their teachers. 

[WaitForMe]

2 hours ago, Julie3Girls said:

Ok, so looked a bit closer, and at least for one store, you need to show ID when the alcohol is delivered, so I guess that covers it.

But social media restrictions aren’t going to have any in person aspect. There isn’t any point of contact to show a photo ID. There isn’t going to be a simple option of using a drivers licence number to prove your age.

I’m really curious as to how they are going to have a child of 13/14/15 prove their age online.

I wonder if the government is planning to implement a digital id that can be used for this. Age could be proven once via birth certificate, passport, maybe medicare and some other things, and then once proven the digital id can be used moving forward.

 

[Crombek]

This is what people mean when they say an age ban won't put the genie back in the bottle. Your kids don't even need to be using social media. All they need is an image somewhere, anywhere, of their face on the internet. 

[Over and out]

7 hours ago, LemonMyrtle said:

Yeah, in this situation (not sure about the Aussie social media thing) once you turn 18 you definitely need your own phone plan in your own name or you won’t be able to do much, even your banking needs a phone in your name. Otherwise you have to go to a branch for everything.  I wanted to log into DH’s bank account to check his balance and pay some bills, I couldn’t do it, it’s linked to his phone and his phone only. 

I assume this is in Korea, not Australia?

[Over and out]

7 hours ago, LemonMyrtle said:

I’ve mentioned the insane amounts of ID verification you need here in Korea to do the most mundane things. Well, accessing adult websites is one of them. This is how they police it.

if I google “p**n search for EB”, I get a bunch of benign results and a prompt for me to verify my age if I was adult-only results. See first image.

then you click the link and you have to enter your personal details and your phone number. Your details are actually checked by your phone provider, because you need ID to get your phone contract, so it’s just how they have done it. Google says they don’t keep your records, just pass them on for verification then it’s deleted.

The same phone-provider-authentication is used for lots of things, shopping online, creating a new account with your electricity provider, almost anything online.

if you don’t have a mobile phone plan in your name, you are stuffed. But that’s ok, cause this is Korea, everyone has a phone and it’s attached to them constantly. And this is one of the reasons why, so you can verify yourself to do things.

There is not much anonymity here. People are just used to that. 

That's really interesting, we have had so many discussions over our dinner table about how Australia is crap at so many things. The bank scamming that happens here is because our banking system is pathetic.

 

The lack of verification for email etc.

 

I am intrigued how the above happens for non phone access.  I access most of my social media not from my phone, but at home?

[onetrick]

There is absolutely good from social media, but the negative overwhelmingly takes over for young kids. 

@Sincerely- I understand your concern with a chronological ban, but i think that how it has to be? You could argue the same about other rites of passage that occur when students in year 12 turn 18, while others turn 17. It's not great, but there has to be a line. With phones banned in (public) schools in a couple of states, PLUS this law, hopefully it helps support the kids and parents.

This needs to be thought out, and the politicians know that. I was impressed with Jacinta Allen on the radio this morning, and how she explained the steps that need to happen next. But if I had 10/11yos and under (my kids don't care yet, thankfully), I'd be preparing them to not have SM until they are 14 or 15- whatever age is decided upon. Because once they have it, taking it away will be worse.