[HN Gopher] YouTube to be included in Australia's social media b...
___________________________________________________________________
YouTube to be included in Australia's social media ban for children
under 16
Author : Improvement
Score : 65 points
Date : 2025-07-30 10:46 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pm.gov.au)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pm.gov.au)
| _rm wrote:
| Why is it that every bit of news that comes out of some western
| country is now some form of shit-headedness?
|
| I thought it used to be that parents were responsible for their
| kids - that's not even a thing now?
|
| And as if this will make any difference to anything?
|
| I think one day the Chinese will be saying "at least we're not
| living in the west"
| andersa wrote:
| What makes you think they're not saying that already?
| _rm wrote:
| Fair, maybe they are
| krona wrote:
| > I think one day the Chinese will be saying "at least we're
| not living in the west"
|
| Conversations with highly educated Chinese nationals I've had
| on this topic at elite universities will often conspicuously
| include whataboutery on e.g. the number of security cameras in
| London using statistics from about 2005. Presumably they learn
| this in school.
|
| I'm not saying this is good or bad, just that it's pretty
| common already.
| _rm wrote:
| And so they should. Like Putin remarking about Assange. Yes,
| Putin may be a despot who's whacked journalists. But that
| doesn't make him wrong that persecuting Assange was despot-
| tier scummy behaviour.
| Zealotux wrote:
| We lost our individual sense of agency long ago, we need a
| nanny state to take care of us and of our children, hold us by
| the hand and regulate every single aspect of our lives.
|
| We gave the keys to our leaders, now they get to choose what
| content may be accessed or not.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Yep, it has absolutely nothing to do with the megacorps
| hiring behavioural experts to make their platforms as
| addictive as possible... it's all caused by the big mean
| GoBeRnMenTs
|
| Letting kids consume 10 hours straight of AI generated bottom
| of the barrel 3d animated slop produced in some third world
| country is not "personal freedom"
| logicchains wrote:
| >Letting kids consume 10 hours straight of AI generated
| bottom of the barrel 3d animated slop
|
| Is called bad parenting.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Most kids would be better off being educated by
| orangutans at that point
|
| The problem is that we have to live with these kids
| eventually and you can't build a nation on kids watching
| brain rot from the age of 6 months because their parents
| were too dumb to know better.
|
| Some of the people on that forum would call the switch to
| compulsory education tyrannic and an abuse of
| governmental power lmao.
| _rm wrote:
| To be fair, orangutans are super chill. If I'd been
| raised by an orangutan, I wouldn't be upset about it.
| _rm wrote:
| What is this? How about meth, is that not designed as
| addictive as possible - now parents can throw their hands
| up in defeat when little Johnny is a meth addict? "Just so
| addictive, what could I do?!"
|
| This world is demented
| lm28469 wrote:
| Have you ever noticed that meth is illegal ? And that you
| can't even buy alcohol/cigs before a certain age ? Same
| for gambling, driving a car, owning a gun, &c. If
| anything you're making my point really
| _rm wrote:
| Have you noticed how we nevertheless have meth addicts?
| And that thousands of people die, get kidnapped,
| tortured, every year, because "the state will fix
| everything" morons made it illegal? In fact that for
| instance the North Korean regime is literally propped up
| by drug sales, taking advantage of this stupidity?
|
| Height of infantilism it is, thinking that strangers will
| take care of you because they say so, instead of growing
| up into the responsibility of an adult
| lm28469 wrote:
| I still fail to see your points. Meth addicts exist
| despite the law so we should give meth to kids and
| abolish the law ?
|
| > Height of infantilism it is, thinking that strangers
| will take care of you because they say so, instead of
| growing up into the responsibility of an adult
|
| That's like the entire purpose of living in organised
| societies... you know, the law, the police, insurances,
| the greater good, controlling yourself because your
| actions have consequences on other people, &c.
| _rm wrote:
| Fine, let me spell it out
|
| Drugs have existed since the dawn of time. They are one
| among many dangers, specifically: vices, that is the
| responsibility of parents to guide their children away
| from as they develop. Along with don't touch strange
| dogs, look both ways before crossing the street, don't
| watch YouTube Shorts.
|
| The question is, who is responsible for defending against
| a danger.
|
| The state is not a magical thing. People pretend like it
| is, because they buy its self-serving stories, and
| because most people will go their whole lives without
| ever needing the police to do anything for them - and
| learning how impotent they are.
|
| The state is just a collection of average, mediocre
| actually, individuals, who like power. They are human,
| nothing special, and they make no resources of their own
| - they get them only by taking other people's resources
| by force.
|
| Who is better placed to stop a child pickling their brain
| with YouTube Shorts? Is it: (a) Their parents, located in
| the same house, who can install software to block that
| crap, turn off the WiFi after a certain time, etc. Or is
| it (b), some politicians who don't even know the kid,
| with no actual responsibility for them and their life
| outcomes, thousands of miles away, concerned only with
| their own egos, making some law (that others equally far
| away need to enforce).
|
| The problem is that the attitude that others are
| responsible for taking care of one's kids, an extension
| of not wanting to accept that responsibility oneself, is
| so profoundly immoral, vile, and damaging to them, that
| it makes all claimed (false) benefits look like spending
| a hundred dollars to buy a dollar.
|
| The state is the least well placed to defend children
| from predators (and in extreme cases, see what the Khmer
| rouge did to children), and parents are the most well
| placed - and responsible, and anything that runs contrary
| to this is in furtherance of child abuse, even if it's
| called the "No Child Abuse Act".
| encom wrote:
| >now
|
| This is completely on-brand for Australia. I'm not the
| slightest bit surprised. To be honest, I don't disagree with
| the premise: Keep social media away from kids. YouTube is brain
| rot patient zero. I just don't think it's the governments job.
| _rm wrote:
| YouTube Shorts certainly are - pretty sure that causes actual
| brain damage.
|
| YouTube proper - there is actual good-quality educational
| content in there too
| RyanHamilton wrote:
| It's hard for parents to fight against huge corporate interests
| that hire thousands of phds to grab your child's attention and
| influence them at every turn. Realistically it's almost
| impossible for parents to deny their teenager a mobile without
| ostracising them from their friends.
| _rm wrote:
| What part of parenting is easy again? That's the gig
| foepys wrote:
| Try replacing "social media" with "fast food" and think
| about how hard that would be for parents to control.
| _rm wrote:
| My dude, the parents literally have to _buy the fast
| food_. If they do not, _the fast food is literally not
| there to eat_.
|
| What is even going on
| chucksta wrote:
| "All these kids walking around with fast food in their
| pockets" ..nah just doesn't sound right, the most you
| could get in there is a nugget or two
| msgodel wrote:
| My parents denied me all kinds of things my friends were
| doing when I was a kid and looking back they were _absolutely
| right_ to do that. Don 't be afraid of that.
|
| Sure they made mistakes here and there. The names of Pokemon
| aren't actually names of demons. Looking where a lot of my
| friends ended up though I think they got things right on
| balance.
| hopelite wrote:
| Same here. It was movies and TV for my parents. I have
| thanked them for it on several occasions when it occurred
| to me as an adult how affected people are by having not
| just grown up watching various age inappropriate movies and
| were trained by TV in general, because their whole world
| view, their whole mental superstructure is extremely
| influenced by TV and movies.
|
| It has clearly spread across the world to some degree, but
| I don't think the average person even realizes just how
| much the post ~1920 American consciousness is trained on
| Hollywood, TV, movies. It has become a bit more diffuse
| lately due to decentralization of TV and movies, but the
| training on TV also seems to have gotten worse, even if in
| more covert ways because of the decentralization. You
| consume your TV drug in isolation and do not even talk
| about it anymore because everyone is watching different
| things at different times now. America has gone from the
| social drinker, the highlight of the party, to the binger
| I'm downs a bottle of vodka TV a day, alone.
|
| Our culture is effectively centered around what is on the
| real life telescreen, the one that you carry around now,
| that knows where you are at all times and can listen in on
| you. Even Orwell could only imagine a world where
| telescreens were fixed and could be evaded at times, or
| maybe he just believed that.
| msgodel wrote:
| Yeah TV is particularly nasty. I can't believe how much I
| was shielded from as a kid. They didn't have the theory
| totally right and a lot of it was based on their feelings
| but that seems to work plenty well enough.
| squigz wrote:
| I don't think one needs to deny their kids access to every-
| day modern technology in order to teach them about the
| dangers of it.
| hopelite wrote:
| When you understand this is a topic that is similar to
| drugs or functions in similar ways, you may not say that.
|
| How does this sound to you?
|
| > I don't think one needs to deny their kids access to
| alcohol in order to teach them about the dangers of it.
| squigz wrote:
| Except many parents understand and accept that their
| teenagers go and have some beers or drinks with friends;
| as long as they do it as safely as they can. And of
| course this sort of approach to it - rather than the
| heavyhandedness some parents apply - means your children
| are more likely to trust you enough to, say, call you for
| a ride home rather than drive drunk, or otherwise come to
| you if they have a problem.
|
| Anyway, it's a bit silly to compare having a cellphone
| (what GP was talking about) to regularly consuming
| alcohol. Sure, maybe social media is the equivalent, but
| then, those might be the "dangers" I talked about.
| dotancohen wrote:
| In what sense is Australia in the West?
|
| And why specifically mention Western? What Eastern or other
| non-Western countries do you feel are above such scrutiny?
| reddalo wrote:
| Given its close ties to the U.K., Australia has always been
| considered "the West". Except from a geographical standpoint.
| _rm wrote:
| Stop it! He needs to feel smarter than everyone, somehow,
| for a second. You're ruining his pathetic day.
| Intermernet wrote:
| East and West on a globe are arbitrary and have always
| defined ideology, racial history and shared ideology. I
| personally hate the terminology and I think it's becoming
| less pertinent and popular in the modern age.
| _rm wrote:
| Troll response with no point behind it, just looking for some
| opportunity to be right about something, just to feel smart,
| due to suffering from a weak ego.
| jedimastert wrote:
| > I thought it used to be that parents were responsible for
| their kids - that's not even a thing now?
|
| When was this? Before or after child labor laws? Before or
| after we started making it illegal to beat children? Before or
| after child marriage laws? Age of consent laws? Standards
| around education, health, abuse and neglect?
|
| Whether or not this is a step too far, it's hard to say that
| society and or governments stepping into protect children is a
| recent thing.
| _rm wrote:
| Classic western narcissism. Parents were sending their kids
| down the mines just for the lulz, until "society (represented
| by more moral types like me) and government stepped in".
|
| And because of course, in the minority of cases when parents
| are abusive, some politicians thousands of miles away make
| the abuse stop, or the amorphous blob called "society", not
| locals and relatives, magically we assume, when the kids own
| parents and extended family keep it all under wraps.
|
| Pay no attention to those governments blowing other people's
| kids to bits or anything of course - the trick is to take
| observation bias and turn it up to eleven, take a big drawn
| on our own farts, and feel them _we 're just so good_ feels.
| hopelite wrote:
| Many people are being naive when they assume any of these
| "protecting the children" efforts happening all around the
| western world effectively simultaneously are actually about the
| children.
|
| The question is how do you implement "Chinese style censorship
| and social credit score" without overtly doing it, you do it
| the same way that all infringements on freedoms and rights have
| always been implemented all across the West for 100+ years, you
| invert, reframe it, and implement amidst cheers, and jeers
| towards anyone who is not also being virtuous through
| conformance.
|
| Some believe the COVID prison-term lockdowns were a test to
| gauge the reaction and conformity of the actions taken. Maybe
| it was or maybe it wasn't, but it may as well have been,
| because the warriors apparatchiks and wardens of conformity
| operated nicely to deprive their own human rights as well as
| those of others.
|
| "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit
| atrocities." It may as well end with "...tolerate atrocities."
| lm28469 wrote:
| So the GoBeRnMeNt is bad but the megacorps printing money
| shovelling thousands of hours of fully automated brain rot
| content to your kids are good because .... freedom ?
|
| I still fail to see any logic in these conspiracy theories
| _rm wrote:
| My interpretation has always been that they've looked across
| the sea at the CCP and North Korean regime, and asked, in a
| whiney tone, "why do they get all the nice things?"
| echelon_musk wrote:
| > _I thought it used to be that parents were responsible for
| their kids - that 's not even a thing now?_
|
| Parents have been blaming books, music and video games for
| decades.
|
| Raising children with reading comprehension and critical
| thinking skills is hard.
|
| Equally, from a governments point of view, creating citizens
| with critical thinking skills is hard. There is probably more
| chance they will frustrate the regime if they're capable of
| understanding its corruption.
|
| Giving into desires and having children is the easy part. The
| bodies do all the work for you but after that the 2 decades of
| work really starts.
|
| I'd say it's just an example of "never waste a good crisis".
| Parents want to complain at someone that essentially the
| society is too free and their children made mistakes they
| didn't prepare them for. The government feels pressured and
| uses the opportunity available to increase control.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| What are you talking about? This kind of censorship and
| authoritarian control is peanuts compared to what China does to
| their citizens.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| This will be a good experiment. What if it turns out to be a good
| move?
| owlninja wrote:
| How would you measure "success"?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| A reversal of trends that prompted this change? If Aussies
| don't change their minds?
|
| We should quit blaming parents though. Parents are out of
| options which is why it's coming to this.
| anabab wrote:
| > A reversal of trends that prompted this change?
|
| Plenty of terrible changes can achieve the similar effect
| of trend reversal. Say, banning any form of computer
| networks or banning having children. And people introducing
| the changes seem to have enough power to discourage any
| change of minds as well.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| How would you measure failure?
| reddalo wrote:
| It's a good people-controlling experiment. Fascists will love
| it.
| cantor_S_drug wrote:
| Why can't there be publicly curated list of educational channels
| allowed for children?
|
| Just as we have a list of ad domains blocked by adblockers.
|
| Why not build on top of platforms?
| dotancohen wrote:
| Go ahead, curate and publish.
| nytesky wrote:
| This was tried with YouTube Kids which was an unmitigated
| disaster.
|
| "Curated list of educational channels":
|
| PBS App Maybe Disney+ with a profile
| cantor_S_drug wrote:
| My point is govt will mandate that list with public
| participation of that country.
| pacifika wrote:
| Title: Albanese Government protecting kids from social media
| harms
| nicoburns wrote:
| I would be more sympathetic to YouTube's plight here if they
| weren't aggressively pushing addictive features like "Shorts"
| with no option to disable them.
| izacus wrote:
| Yeah, this seems like a clear FAFO situation.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Disable your yt history, it disables pretty much everything yt
| wants to push.
|
| When I open yt I get an empty page with a search box, even
| clicking on the Shorts page it just says "Recommendations are
| off Your watch history is off, and we rely on watch history to
| tailor your Shorts feed. You can change your setting at any
| time, or try searching for Shorts instead. Learn more."
| barkerja wrote:
| But that is unfortunately a nuclear option that should not
| need to be taken to perform such a thing. Like the op, I have
| no interest in Shorts, especially considering the type of
| content that seems to proliferate that format.
|
| However, I feel like YouTube does a genuinely good job -- at
| least for me personally -- of curating my feed with videos I
| have genuine interest in; mostly being tech talks and home
| DIY.
|
| I'd hate to lose the discoverability I currently have for the
| sake of having to disable a feature like Shorts.
| lupusreal wrote:
| I use youtube without an account, only a cookie which I can
| nuke anytime. My experience with this is as you describe;
| it does a great job of giving me videos relevant to my
| interests. If it ever goes off the rails, I nuke the cookie
| and start over; reseeding the recommendations by watching a
| few videos from high-brow channels like Applied Science. It
| recommends _no_ shorts to me.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| The amount of adult content creators using YouTube as soft
| advertising has exploded too. I only subscribe to
| tech/gaming/etc. channels and my feed is filled with this
| content. They use services like linktree to add one hop to
| obfuscate their channels from the 'adult' (pornography) content
| they have on other platforms.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| YouTube is such an invaluable learning resource that I would
| have serious qualms about denying a school-age child access to
| it. You're right that I wish it was possible to turn off the
| predatory features, though.
|
| But ultimately I can't see how a blanket law banning kids makes
| sense instead of a law banning the platform from targeting
| kids.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > YouTube is such an invaluable learning resource that I
| would have serious qualms about denying a school-age child
| access to it.
|
| Give a 5 years old unlimited access to youtube and witness
| the cesspool it is. Nobody is saying youtube is 100% bad, but
| people who don't know better (kids for example) are easily
| manipulated in watching the most brain rot content you can
| imagine, for hours and hours. It's an ocean of shit within
| which you might find a few gems if you know what you want or
| if you get extremely lucky.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9EKV2nSU8w
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| You're describing the whole internet, and also most of
| society. Maybe children should be banned from everywhere.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > Maybe children should be banned from everywhere.
|
| Content wise they used to be until very recently, what
| did I have access to as a kid before internet ? Some
| books from my parents, some booked from school, whatever
| was allowed on public TV when my parents allowed me to
| watch it, maybe the odd porn mag from the older brother
| of a friend of a friend. That's very tame compared to
| what you have access to from even heavily censored search
| engines like google
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| Or the algorithm focusing on engagement over everything else,
| instead of actual good, related videos. I've said this here
| before, I'm a huge Phish fan and I listen to old concerts on
| youtube. I will literally get far right-wing videos as a
| recommendation after a Phish concert video. I have watch
| history off. I don't watch political videos on youtube, right
| or left. And Phish's fan base would lean hard left. Why am I
| seeing Candace Owens after a 94 Phish show? With actions like
| that, I understand the ban.
| intothemild wrote:
| All the government really needs to do here is ban YT shorts for
| kids under 16 or whatever age. Watch YT finally give us parents
| the ability to block YT shorts for our kids.
|
| Every time I hear some AI video my kids watching, it's a short.
| lupusreal wrote:
| I wish they'd ban it for baby boomers too. That crap glues my
| dad to the couch, meanwhile his poor dog is bouncing off the
| walls desperate for a walk.
|
| 99% of it seems to be AI voiceover slop. Probably all stolen
| videos with faked context. Ban it for everybody, nothing of
| value will be lost.
| morninglight wrote:
| How much of this nonsense is driven by organized religion?
| Funes- wrote:
| None, I'd bet. Can't you see this is just about tightening
| their grasp on our liberties, swaying our opinions, and selling
| our data? Organised religion could be going for that (minus the
| data, at least not in the current sense) in the past with a
| certain degree of success, but I don't see how they are even a
| tad bit as powerful as they once were. It doesn't seem sensible
| to associate these seemingly coordinated measures around the
| world to organised religion instead of corporations and the
| political elite. That's just a tone deaf take.
| Intermernet wrote:
| That ideology is closely related to organised religion. The
| data selling is just a bonus.
| msgodel wrote:
| This is going to break yt-dlp.
|
| YouTube won't fight it for that reason. It's regulatory capture.
| reddalo wrote:
| yt-dlp can fetch cookies from your browser, so no, it won't
| break it.
|
| If YouTube really did want to stop yt-dlp, they'd encrypt all
| the videos with Widevine.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| > _yt-dlp can fetch cookies from your browser, so no, it won
| 't break it._
|
| It probably breaks anonymous access to videos (when not
| signed in to a Google account). Unless yt-dlp provide shared
| cookies that its thousands of users can use there will still
| be account level tracking of video access.
| reddalo wrote:
| That's sure. But it's already like that for most NSFW
| videos on YouTube.
| wosined wrote:
| The quality of youtube videos when it comes to content that does
| not waste your time is so low, that I must oppose this only based
| on principle and not the merit of the platform.
| Intermernet wrote:
| The thing about YouTube is that it's so large. Even if only 1%
| of it is good, it's still more than any other platform by far.
| I've spent years curating my YouTube experience. I still regard
| yt premium as the best value subscription I have.
| ratelimitsteve wrote:
| seconding this. there's a lot of housekeeping and esp now
| with content-free AI slop arriving in waves it's difficult to
| weed out but if you stick to your subscriptions rather than
| just letting the algo dump stuff on you there's a lot of
| really good content. YouTube has helped me get fit, helped me
| learn how to cook, helped me fix my air conditioner, helped
| me replace the fuel pump in my car, and provided me with fun
| and insight into a lot of hobbies and communities I'd
| normally be unable to dive into. I'd guess that your "1%"
| estimate is several orders of magnitude higher than the real
| ratio but I still agree with your core point: there's tons of
| great stuff out there, it's just under gigatons of crap.
| kaoD wrote:
| It's bimodal. YouTube has both the worst and the best content
| on the internet.
|
| I'm not willing to give up the latter to save the masses from
| the former.
| progbits wrote:
| I don't get this view.
|
| Yes there is a lot of crap because it's both easier to produce
| than quality content, and has higher incentives to keep making
| more of it.
|
| But that's the same with eg. books. Aside from small curated
| book stores, pick up a random book. Most likely it's not worth
| to cut down the tree it was printed on.
|
| It's very easy to watch only quality content and there is an
| incredible amount of it on youtube. I've learned lots of
| electronics, CAD work, mechanical engineering, watched tons of
| lectures from amazing professors...
| lupusreal wrote:
| YouTube is a mirror. If you don't like what it's showing you,
| it's generally your own fault. Stop clicking on clickbait slop
| and it will stop showing that to you.
|
| That advice is for adults BTW. Kids don't have the requisite
| developed tastes and self control, so YouTube's algorithm will
| almost always send them into a death spiral of brain rot. Kids
| shouldn't have unsupervised access to this kind of system.
| Funes- wrote:
| We're going to see more and more crackdown on internet access, in
| the name of making it "safe", or "safe for kids", particularly.
| All they want is pushing for censorship and control, though, on
| top of collecting and selling even more data. We'd be wise to
| make an effort to migrate to censorship resistant overlay
| networks like Hyphanet (formerly Freenet) or i2p before it's too
| late.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Lots of people keep mentioning these conspiracy theories but I
| still don't buy it.
|
| The "they" you're all mentioning simply doesn't exist. Who are
| they ? All the governments of the west somehow working together
| ? They can't even cooperate more than 6 months on internal
| matters but they globally agreed on some world wide evil plan ?
| And the plan is to ban kids from youtube ? Because reasons ?
|
| Who is going to collect more data if there are less
| websites/users ? Who's selling "the" data ? Who's buying "the"
| data ? What data ? How are governments benefiting from
| censoring brain rot in a way that doesn't also benefit me
| exactly ?
|
| All the data is already collected by US megacorps and stored on
| US servers the US gov can already fully access, it doesn't get
| any worse than that
| mindcrash wrote:
| > Lots of people keep mentioning these conspiracy theories
| but I still don't buy it.
|
| EU is actively working on "age verification" through a
| digital wallet.
|
| Once that is in place it is a small step to wall off the
| entire Internet unless you verify yourself through your
| digital ID.
|
| Since Trump is as borderline fascist as von der Leyen there's
| no fucking doubt in my mind the United States will follow the
| EU as soon as there are signs of success or even earlier.
|
| Proof: https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-doc-
| technic...
|
| Especially note "The objective is to develop an EU-wide
| solution to age verification that reinforces the Digital
| Services Act (DSA) objective to _ensure safe, secure, and
| trusted_ digital space and the Louvain-la-Neuve Declaration,
| which _promotes a safer and more trustworthy_ online
| environment. "
|
| Whenever those in power talk about "security", "safety" and
| "trust" they talk about other things entirely which, for the
| larger public, have nothing to do with these topics at all.
| Funes- wrote:
| >Since Trump is as borderline fascist as von der Leyen...
|
| If you think any democrat president wouldn't do the exact
| same, I don't know what to tell you...
| mindcrash wrote:
| I know that it doesn't matter at all. Just like the Left
| or Right here in Europe.
|
| But Trump is the current US president isn't he?
| lupusreal wrote:
| I don't think Carter would have.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| I'm surprised at the lack of care for children in commentary
| around social media bans, the UK's online safety act blocking
| discord/porn/etc without proof of age, and sexually violent video
| games being removed from stores due to payment processors.
|
| If we see a child bullied in school, we don't say the parents of
| the victim are not doing enough parenting. If an adult flashes or
| cat calls a child in the street, we don't blame the child's
| parents for not doing enough parenting.
|
| Why is it when it comes to social media/pornography/sexually
| violent games (that would not have received a rating if sold in
| stores 10 years ago) everyone is up in arms that things are going
| too far. All you see is conspiracy theory nonsense at how the
| state wants to mind control us.
|
| Apple tried to fix some of this at the client end with CSAM
| scanning and automatic dick pic blurring but had to roll some of
| this back due to the uproar and accusations on spying etc.
|
| We no longer live in a high trust society and children are paying
| the price for it, as well as adults.
|
| I don't want my phone scanned or to be denied access to adult
| discord channels or have to submit an ID to visit "adult" content
| like home-brewing beer subreddits. But now that's the price I am
| having to pay because no one wants to be responsible. Especially
| the companies making money off of children.
|
| But what are we supposed to do instead when everything has been
| shot down previously? The amount of children being groomed is
| probably the highest it has ever been, but because it's done in
| their own bedrooms over the internet everyone ignores it.
| logicchains wrote:
| >The amount of children being groomed is probably the highest
| it has ever been, but because it's done in their own bedrooms
| over the internet everyone ignores it.
|
| Children are being groomed by high-profile paedophiles and
| trafficked to powerful people with no consequence, and you want
| to give those people more control over the internet?
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| You're both egregiously wrong. The vast majority of victims
| of grooming are victimized by people they know and trust,
| mostly family and authority figures.
| squigz wrote:
| > But now that's the price I am having to pay because no one
| wants to be responsible. Especially the companies making money
| off of children.
|
| > But what are we supposed to do instead when everything has
| been shot down previously?
|
| What would "being responsible" have looked like, prior to these
| pushes?
|
| > If we see a child bullied in school, we don't say the parents
| of the victim are not doing enough parenting. If an adult
| flashes or cat calls a child in the street, we don't blame the
| child's parents for not doing enough parenting.
|
| Perhaps not, but we also don't abolish schools or ban kids from
| going outside, do we?
|
| > The amount of children being groomed is probably the highest
| it has ever been, but because it's done in their own bedrooms
| over the internet everyone ignores it.
|
| What does this mean, exactly? And what sort of source do you
| have?
|
| > I'm surprised at the lack of care for children in commentary
| around social media bans
|
| I think you're misunderstanding the pushback. I think most
| people are perfectly agreed that yeah, children shouldn't be
| exposed to some things until a certain age. The problem is the
| question of how we do that without utterly destroying privacy
| for everyone else too? If the answer is "we can't", then it
| might be we have to look at ways to deal with our children
| being exposed to those things - either, you know, don't let
| your kids on the parts of the Internet you don't agree with, or
| teach them the right morals and ethics so they learn to
| recognize and avoid those areas themselves.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| > Perhaps not, but we also don't abolish schools or ban kids
| from going outside, do we?
|
| No but we heavily regulate schools and the behaviour of
| people at them. Which is more akin to what we are doing with
| these laws rather than just saying it's the parents fault
| their child is groomed or exposed to adult content without
| their consent.
|
| > What does this mean, exactly? And what sort of source do
| you have?
|
| It means more children are victims of sexual abuse than
| before, thanks to the wonders of the Internet.
|
| > The problem is the question of how we do that without
| utterly destroying privacy for everyone else too? If the
| answer is "we can't", then it might be we have to look at
| ways to deal with our children being exposed to those things
| - either, you know, don't let your kids on the parts of the
| Internet you don't agree with, or teach them the right morals
| and ethics so they learn to recognize and avoid those areas
| themselves.
|
| "It's the parents fault". My entire point here is that
| clearly parents are not equipped to police their own
| children's use of the Internet 24x7. Social media companies
| are doing a a bad job of it, because they want engagement and
| clicks not reducing usage and blocking content.
|
| Companies have tried implementing this on the client, for
| example Apple and CSAM scanning, and had to roll it back
| because of 'privacy' concerns.
|
| And now this is what we have to deal with. No one wants to do
| anything about it because of 'privacy' and yet children are
| still being exposed to harm.
|
| To be clear: I don't want these laws, I don't want my life
| scanned, I don't want to have to submit IDs, but as a society
| we have obviously dropped the ball on this and now we're
| screwed. There are implementations that retain privacy like
| buying single use codes from shops in person that can be used
| to prove you are 18+ for online services.
|
| Or having tokens that you can get attested/signed from a
| government portal that you can give back to services to prove
| you are 18+. That can also be designed to retain 100%
| privacy. (Assuming the government doesn't have access to
| these services through a back channel, and assuming these one
| use tokens are not saved by the service provider you are
| wanting to use.)
|
| Personally I think blocking all kids from social media is
| probably one solution that doesn't get adults complaining
| about privacy. Unfortunately social media companies make an
| absolute fortune from content aimed at children so they are
| obviously unhappy with this.
| squigz wrote:
| > No but we heavily regulate schools and the behaviour of
| people at them. Which is more akin to what we are doing
| with these laws rather than just saying it's the parents
| fault their child is groomed or exposed to adult content
| without their consent.
|
| This is not how I see it. These laws are more like what I
| suggested. The equivalent of that regulation in the case of
| the Internet would be simply not allowing whatever behavior
| you disagree with from social media companies and the like.
|
| > It means more children are victims of sexual abuse than
| before, thanks to the wonders of the Internet.
|
| Can you link some source on this?
|
| > My entire point here is that clearly parents are not
| equipped to police their own children's use of the Internet
| 24x7
|
| Neither can they "police" their child's life 24/7. Nor do
| have to to prevent their kids from falling into various
| holes out there. Take, for example, drugs and alcohol.
| We've, more or less, arrived at a reasonable system for
| keeping these out of the hands of children (most of the
| time) - but we also accept that, due to this system not
| being 100% fool-proof (and indeed that such a system could
| not possibly exist), sometimes kids are going to get access
| to drugs and alcohol. And yet, most parents (at least, that
| I know) would agree that that doesn't mean your kid is
| going to turn out to be an addict or whatnot.
|
| My point is, that with sane regulation - that doesn't
| inherently erode privacy for everyone all over the world,
| and gives even more control to (Western) governments and
| companies - and parents doing their jobs, we can minimize
| the harm done by social media. We can't eliminate it
| entirely, but that's the price we pay.
|
| (I question how much actual harm is done by social media,
| but that's another discussion)
| ncruces wrote:
| How about phones and computers themselves can be configured
| as belonging to children, and services/platforms being
| required to respect rules when a device tells them a child is
| accessing their services?
|
| In terms of YouTube all I want as a parent is (a) to ban
| Shorts from my kids accounts (b) be able to see a list of
| what they're watching. I want this respected on the app and
| website.
|
| Good platforms have decent parental controls. Bad platforms
| don't. YouTube is just awful in that regard. Which is a
| shame, because there's a tone of good stuff to watch on
| YouTube. But it's on them to fix their platform.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| > All you see is conspiracy theory nonsense at how the state
| wants to mind control us.
|
| The online safety act is much more than a porn ID law. Look at
| this stuff about controlling public discourse. Even if you
| trust a Labour government with this power you might not trust a
| future Reform one.
|
| "This clause enables the Secretary of State to give OFCOM
| directions in circumstances where they consider there is a
| threat to the health or safety of the public, or to national
| security.
|
| This includes directing OFCOM to prioritise action to respond
| to a specific threat when exercising its media literacy
| functions and to require specified service providers, or
| providers of regulated services generally, to publicly report
| on what steps it is taking to respond to that threat.
|
| For example, the Secretary of State could issue a direction
| during a pandemic to require OFCOM to: give priority to
| ensuring that health misinformation and disinformation is
| effectively tackled when exercising its media literacy
| function; and to require service providers to report on the
| action they are taking to address this issue." - Explanatory
| Notes relate to the Online Safety Bill as brought from the
| House of Commons on 18 January 2023; Clause 156 - Section (8),
| available
| https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/49377/documents/273...
|
| This manifested in the final bill as section 44 -
| https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/section/44
| irusensei wrote:
| Aparently the person who recently started a censorship campaign
| against games that lead to delisting not only porn titles but
| also horror and other categories from itch.io is on the board to
| decide what its defined as adult content.
|
| > Collective Shout, a small but vocal lobby group, has long
| called for a mandatory internet filter that would prevent access
| to adult content for everyone in Australia. Its director, Melinda
| Tankard Reist, was recently appointed to the stakeholder advisory
| board for the government's age assurance technology trial before
| the under-16s social media ban comes into effect in Australia in
| December.[1]
|
| I have no idea what the hell is going on and it all seems very
| coordinated but I hope the pendulum swings back so hard next time
| it takes at least half a century for Tipper Gore to resurrect
| again.
|
| 1- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/29/mastercard-
| vis...
| flumpcakes wrote:
| > Aparently the person who recently started a censorship
| campaign against games that lead to delisting not only porn
| titles but also horror and other categories from itch.io is on
| the board to decide what its defined as adult content.
|
| Itch removed all NSFW games because they themselves admitted
| they could not police their store front and had no idea how
| many games would be problematic for the payment processors.
| They did police it for "hate" games though, just not games the
| encouraged violence for sexual gratification.
|
| Three ways to not get games banned from online stores:
|
| A) Online stores add 'pro rape/incest/forced sexual violence'
| to the list of things that they will not host, they already ban
| "hate" games after all.
|
| B) The government requires all online games that are sold or
| offered from store fronts to be classified, just like games
| were when they were sold in normal retail stores - that way it
| is guaranteed all the games are legal and the payment
| processors have reduced risk and thus no reason to ask for
| store fronts to make changes. You wouldn't be able to buy all
| the games that were targeted though as I am sure a few of them
| would likely be banned.
|
| C) The law is changed so payment processors are no longer
| liable for any of the transactions they process, thus removing
| all risk for them allowing them to provide services for both
| legal and legal content/entities.
| crtasm wrote:
| >they themselves admitted they could not police their store
| front and had no idea how many games would be problematic for
| the payment processors.
|
| I don't think that's true? My takeaway was the demands from
| the payment processors are frustratingly unspecific and they
| were up against a deadline, so delisted a huge amount of
| games being overcautious and are now going through them to
| see what can be relisted.
|
| Not all NSFW games were removed/delisted.
|
| They're now looking for new payment processors:
| https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/itchio-are-seeking-out-
| new-...
| miroljub wrote:
| Let's be honest here, it was never about social media, children's
| rights, porn, drugs, crime, or similar. It was always about
| introducing government issued digital ID and enforcing it on the
| internet to tighten the control and, as a side effect, let people
| censor themselves.
|
| It is no coincidence that multiple Western countries are pushing
| for the same thing at the same time. The UK is another example,
| with EU-level discussions about the same and chat control.
|
| If I were younger, I'd think that's a coincidence and has nothing
| to do with WEF and similar totalitarian globalist organizations
| pushing their agendas. But now, as a grown-up cynic, I realize
| that it's just a plain old conspiracy in practice, not a theory
| anymore.
|
| It's a sad thing that once free societies are rapidly
| deteriorating and approaching China's level of freedoms. I'm
| afraid there's not much time left to prevent a dystopian
| Orwellian (or Zamyatinesque) future of see-through citizen
| slaves.
| reddalo wrote:
| I hate all of this. We're collectively losing freedom (in the
| name of "protecting the children") and we're doing nothing to
| stop this.
|
| People will realize it when it's too late.
| lm28469 wrote:
| The only freedom you're losing is the freedom to watch endless
| streams of brain rot served by american megacorps who hired the
| top behaviour scientists to make sure their slop is as
| addictive as possible.
|
| But then again it seems like a lot of people on HN have a very
| limited scope of what freedom is and to them it basically
| amounts to "I want to do whatever I want whenever I want"
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| So a society isn't free to tell big tech to stuff it? Sounds
| dystopian
| elfbargpt wrote:
| I find it weird that people aren't questioning the motives behind
| these changes a little more. Is it not strange this is coming at
| the same time as the UK Online Safety Act?
|
| There are reports of posts related to the middle eastern conflict
| being censored. Somehow I don't think this about violence and
| adult content.
| mystraline wrote:
| I see a lot of 'what about the children' (whataboutism). And I
| look at various laws in the Western countries, and there is a
| consensus-ish that under majority age can still be treated as an
| adult.
|
| Why does this matter? Why aren't we asking the 17, 16, 15, 14
| year olds and down about their situations instead, including
| opening up the vote to them?
|
| The big problem with all these 'butwhataboutthechildren' laws, is
| they are by definition, disenfranchised, but they are also
| subject to the whims of the voters.
|
| Now people will naturally say 'something something prefrontal
| cortex'. Even the UNCRC 2019a says that. However, we're not
| running fMRI on children and adults as a permission to vote - its
| just a simple age gate. And I would argue, that another
| commentor's parent who thinks Pokemon were demon names probably
| wouldn't pass that either.
|
| But we end up with garbage laws, and only exist to make those who
| can vote feel good, while doing damage to those who can't vote.
|
| And as an aside, if companies are doing predatory and illegal
| things, then the companies should be punished appropriately.
| ratelimitsteve wrote:
| I'm not sure that's the consensus definition of whataboutism,
| despite it containing the key phrase. Whataboutism is generally
| of the form "Let's stop talking about X because Y is more
| important", which become a simple "What about Y?" "What about
| the children?" is generally used to support restrictions and
| might be used as a counterargument against things like the
| general availabilty of youtube but it's not usually used as an
| attempt to move away from the argument in question entirely.
|
| I agree that we're wildly inconsistent about when children are
| treated as children, when they're treated as adults and when
| they become adults (16? 18? 21? when their brain development
| actually finishes somewhere between 20 and 30?). And not only
| do we end up with garbage laws but we also end up w garbage
| exceptions like in juvenile criminal law. We acknowledge that
| young offenders can't be treated the same as adult offenders
| because our legal system takes into account intent and the
| offender's ability to reason and know right from wrong, but
| then we charge children as adults when we're particularly
| grossed out by the crime or the prosecutor wants to appear
| tough.
| byyll wrote:
| Setting aside the obvious privacy issues with de-anonymizing
| everyone, it's great to limit kids' access to media for adults.
| yrcyrc wrote:
| I hate YouTube, Google, Meta and all their products with a
| passion. Well deserved.
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