A lot of comments I see on here saying it is bad parenting. We are pretty strict with the social media and screen time limits, however you would be shocked [but shouldnt be], how many people have no idea how to set this up, so let their kids go crazy. I dont think it is bad parenting, but more down to lack of knowledge [and some ignorance].
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How Apple is Helping Apps Comply With Australia's Social Media Ban for Kids
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Yea it’s out the gate with some parents sadly and I think we have no idea how prevalent it is. Our 12 year old daughter only uses messenger and texting, but many of her school year friends are apparently live-streaming, have YouTube channels, TikTok, Instagram, etc. We generally have no idea what’s going on other than reading the news until our daughter gives us updates or other parents mention something. Anxiety among this group of girls is nuts, luckily there is only one potential bully (who a nice kid but very sadly lost her dad, who was a friend of mine and great guy, to cancer a couple of years ago and she struggles to cope) but they all seem to see the flags with her and back each other up. My wife and I discovered after hosting our girls birthday party last weekend that one of the invitees was live-streaming the party (we didn’t even notice any phones!) The kids engaging in this tech are primarily from working families with multiple kids, variously from religious and secular families, and I can imagine how stretched they are at keeping tabs and monitoring appropriate behavior. I think it’s easier for us as our eldest is now a young adult and her younger sister witnessed phone addiction and years of clinical social anxiety first hand, so she isn’t really interest in smart phone tech yet despite having one of our hand me down iPhones (with house rules and parental settings that she is happy with).
Last edited:
But people did vote for it. It was in the manifesto. If people weren’t informed that’s their fault.
That’s why it’s important to protect rights with a written constitution that requires more than a simple majority to overturn.
I’m surprised how nonchalant people in Australia are, especially given the recent evidence (2020) that the government can and will overreach and trample on human rights at the slightest pretext. The only way this law can be enforced is with a digital ID. That digital ID now means that the government can trace website visits to individual users despite the use of VPNs, etc. That goes far beyond the Great Firewall of China.
Sounds exactly like the schools & parents I had growing up. Kids are ridiculously cruel to one another as part of growing up. Sometimes parents are awful as well. Where are those kids supposed to turn to? School counselors? Hah, mine pulled me aside and advised me to “man up” which was just another form of bullying.
Last edited:
Thanks for such a well articulated post. I do respect your view, balancing civil liberties and public safety can be tricky sometimes. It is a little bit of a heavy-handed approach that we’ve gone for, and not everyone I know is in favour of it, though all agree something should be done.
I haven’t actually decided one way or the other yet. Of course I see the need for it, and I can see the benefits, but I’m not yet 100% convinced this is the right implementation. It is too rigid, with too narrow a focus, so it might actually funnel kids into other dangerous spaces. I don’t know what the right approach is, I’ve not had the time to figure out a properly well informed opinion.
Anyway, by the time my daughter will be old enough for any of this to be an issue the entire landscape will have changed and there’ll be an entirely new set of problems.
Oh no, you’ve been misinformed. No rights were trampled! Public health and safety was protected, and when the bulk of the threat had passed, and the need for the measures had lessened, they were stopped. Some people say they were stopped too soon!
It might also surprise you to learn that we do indeed have a constitution, and that a double majority of the entire voting nation is required to change it. A majority of voters nationally, and the majority voters in the majority of states is needed so NSW and Victoria can’t just make changes on their own.
Last edited:
I’m surprised how confidently people can comment repeatedly on a subject without doing a lick of research first. A shining example of why kids don’t need social media, where this type of behaviour is concentrated and amplified 1000x.
Thankfully, all of my schooling was prior to the internet and mobile phones. I was bullied throughout primary and high school, but getting off the bus of an afternoon gave the bullying a daily bookend. Still, the bullying impacted my developing character and personality, and of course mental health.
With the rise of the internet and mobile phones giving bullies, predators, criminals and scammers the ability to find you 24/7, there is no longer that bookend, respite, escape, or peace. Some people may read that last sentence and instantly think, 'well, just turn it off'. Indeed they'd be right, but it's not that easy for some given the addiction deliberately built in to social media, so I see the Australian Government's social media ban as one tool available to help prevent some of that addiction and accessibility for under 16's.
Some people will jump up and down and scream foul and get pissy about rights and throw tantrums, but that's OK; kids get pissy whenever they don't get their own way. Like drug addicts and alcoholics going through withdrawals, there will be a period of transition to break free from the hooks of social media and its trolls.
Social media is largely free, and for a reason; to hook you in to continually giving up your data so they may sell it. Typically, teen's don't have much money, and throw caution to the wind in many aspects; that's one of the joys of being a kid, you think you're bulletproof. Usually, a teen's entire life has had someone provide for them and keep them safe, someone to have their best interests at heart, so it is reasonable for them to expect that social media will present no harm because their peers will have taken care of all the protections, right?
The reality, though, is that those protectors only have so much ability to keep their kids safe. Once someone opens a pathway for trolls, scammers, predators, criminals and bullies to get access to them, it is taken advantage of with gay abandon. Social media is facilitated by large companies hoping to get teen's hooked with low costs, instantaneous connectivity, likes, and followers; suddenly everyone is a cool kid.
The cruel truth is that social media is simply a machine deliberately coded to entice kids into it, harvest their data, be addictive enough to get them hooked, and print cash for the mother-ship, and for under 16's this ban will go some way to prevent that exploitation, at least for a bit longer.
Last edited:
Fines don't happen when infringements don't occur, just like speeding finesThe next rumour report will likely emerge towards the end of next year, when Australia fines these American companies.
Lots of theory crafting here in this forum on ‘freedom’ and ‘responsibility’, but back in the real world, Australia has seen what damage social media is causing to younger minds - and lives - and have acted. I applaud them.
Growing up - and school - is tough enough without the peer pressure to join in chat groups that continue after school.
And let’s not even mention the more horrific stuff that goes on.
Well done to Australia.
Growing up - and school - is tough enough without the peer pressure to join in chat groups that continue after school.
And let’s not even mention the more horrific stuff that goes on.
Well done to Australia.
Fully agree. They didn’t go far enough in my opinion but a massive chapeau to the Aussie government for at least being willing to follow the research, chuck on a pair of gloves and step into the ring. Tech corporates are so out of line in their relentless march for profits - they are now unarguably insane and unethical. What we really need is legislation setting out strict rules for algorithms, enforced by the power to shut a tech company down at short notice. On that note, I don’t have anything to hide in my internet use personally, but I still believe the humble taxpayer should not need a digital ID to access legitimate online businesses and services. Politicians calling for Digital ID’s have an devious ulterior motive in my opinion.
Yes what’s more democratic than a system where change is all but impossible.
However the Australian constitution requires more than a majority to change.
Do you remember 2020? How governments worldwide overreacted to a disease and imposed draconian measures that were neither effective nor respectful of human rights?
Age-restriction makes no sense. Some 14-year-olds are mature enough to be on social media. Some 20-year-olds are too immature (or developmentally challenged) to be on social media.
There's nothing magical about a 16th birthday that means you are suddenly ready to be on social media that day, but you were not ready for it the day before.
Parents should be able to decide when their child can go on social media.
Or something that predicts readiness a little better than a set age for every single individual.
There's nothing magical about a 16th birthday that means you are suddenly ready to be on social media that day, but you were not ready for it the day before.
Parents should be able to decide when their child can go on social media.
Or something that predicts readiness a little better than a set age for every single individual.
You forcibly quarantined healthy people for 2 weeks or more in concentration camps, all for no public health benefit. Even if there were a (dubious) public health benefit the measures were extreme and trampled on human rights. That other governments in the West violated human rights doesn’t excuse what happened in Australia.
The WHO until 2019 specifically recommended against quarantines of healthy people and concluded that the masks and quarantines did nothing during the “Spanish flu” pandemic in 1918-1919. And then what did everyone do in 2020? Impose mask and quarantine mandates that were equally as effective as they were against the Spanish flu.
That is a complete and utter mischaracterisation of events, and could not be more wrong. The only concentration camps were in the frenzied right-wing hype on the internet. When there was another wave starting to hit, we all quarantined at home until given the all clear. We checked in to places when we went out so that contact tracing could find people exposed so they and their families could also stay safe.
Some states opened quarantine facilities for people to quarantine in who couldn't do so at home. Where I live, we used a hotel.
It was a largely sane and sensible system that prevented our hospitals from being overwhelmed.
Simple observation of various efforts around the world, and their effectiveness, let us set a sensible course once it made it here.
Doing nothing and stacking up the bodies is not an effective strategy. I can't believe this is still a thing!
People that voted against it for a minor candidate would have had their vote flow to one of the major parties anyway. Given that voting is compulsory and preferential voting is mandatory, pretending like this was an intentional choice of voters is disingenuous.
You're just arguing in bad faith.
It's not perfect, but we have it pretty good here in Australia, don't we.
