What even counts as social media? Is Hackernews social media? Is my future platform where people can talk to each other social media?
It's all pure desperation, they could instead force social media companies to only promote useful educational, pro-science, pro-fitness, documentaries, family style content and then social media would be helpful. Forming communities around learning, robotics, science? What could possibly be better for children who look for purpose in life? It would be fantastic. But of course half the grifters on social media are also already hiding in those tags and serving the most shallow, useless, fake content about e.g ancient pyramid aliens or discussions about how veganism will help your body. As you can tell by my last little insertion here, half the problem is that even all the adults can't come to a shared understanding of what is "good" or true.
I think the way the EU approached this with their "digital gatekeepers" is smart. Recognize that policing the entire internet isn't possible or even desirable. Focus on those few companies with the largest capacity for harm. Different criteria might be appropriate when focusing on potential harm for children (e.g. Roblox rather than Twitter) but besides a few changes you'll probably end up with roughly the same list.
I'm not sure I'd support an outright ban, but rather very strict monitoring and requirements around moderation, in app purchasing, gambling mechanics, and so on.
In a way it shouldn't be tied to size either, it should be tied to results. If a social company is clearly only interested in profit to the exclusion of societal benefits then they deserve to be regulated.
Australia takes a different approach and says (in their Basic Online Safety Expectations 2024) that every online account must be linked to a phone number.
This is the same country that brought you "the laws of mathematics are very commendable but they don't apply in Australia".
I foresee a two- or three-tier Internet in the future, and Australia will probably be the first "western" country to block Tor.
> Australia will probably be the first "western" country to block Tor.
The Australian way would be to "ban" tor without any particular concern for enforceability or technical feasibility. Any actual blocking would be pushed onto industry somehow, which would then proceed to half-ass it, doing the absolute minimum possible to demonstrate they are complying with regulation.
I like Australia a lot, but a lot of the time it feels like political priority is to "make it look like something is being done". No one would actually care if the blocking worked or not unless the media made a big song and dance about it.
I also wonder how much of this ban is about "punishing" X and Meta in particular - Meta for it's refusal to pay for news and X because they didn't jump to immediately remove stuff the government wanted taken down.
> What even counts as social media?
Anything the government needs more leverage over or wants to shake down for money.
I would say anything with algorithmic personalized feed is a social media, and that's I would stop kids having access to.
I think the main danger is in the engagement maximisation done through these algorithmic feeds.
Mandate that the home/landing page of social media sites is a chronological display of people/artists/whatevers you've legitimately chosen to follow rather than maximization algorithm force feeding. For all users. The have to click to get to the algorithm zone. Problem solved.
I don't think that's really solved. Facebook had lots of engagement pre-feed. Reddit has lots of engagement even without personalisation. It's still going to be problematic for lots of people.
> What could possibly be better for children who look for purpose in life?
They sort of naturally do that if you have the appropriate challenges and opportunities around them.
> ancient pyramid aliens or discussions about how veganism will help your body.
There used to be a tabloid called "News of the Weird." This stuff just exists. You'll find it anywhere people gather. We're story tellers. When we don't have a compelling story we just make stuff up. It's identical to the point above.
> even all the adults can't come to a shared understanding of what is "good" or true.
It's not possible. If the children are intended to inherit the future then this is a flawed and reductive strategy. You will not achieve what you seek through parochial means.
Really.. I think your biggest problem should be advertising. It should be nowhere near children. Ban _that_ but keep the social media.
I think the proposal is fundamentally flawed because of this reason.
Facebook, Instagram and X/Twitter are probably what's intended here, but what about Tumblr, DeviantArt or Discord? What about Reddit or a generic forum? What about VRChat or Webfishing?
If this is about protecting children from harmful depictions of body image or misogynistic content, then why not instead propose a law that states online services that allow children to join need to appropriately moderate the content that is shown to children or could face massive fines. I don't necessarily agree with that approach, but at least it would make sense with what their stated objectives are.
