How Apple is Helping Apps Comply With Australia's Social Media Ban for Kids

[Apple Fan 2008]

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.

You have to admit that a document that has created uninterrupted representative democracy since 1789 (including during a Civil War) is at least somewhat successful.
Is it perfect? No, but that’s why it’s been amended 27 times to do things like lay out a bill of rights, ban slavery, enshrine equal protection of the law, guarantee universal suffrage, limit the number of terms a president can serve, among other things.
Plus, because we have a federal system (much like Australia) a lot of major change is done in states before it's done nationwide. For example, states in the north were looking to end slavery in their territory while we were still under the Articles of Confederation. (the first constitution for the US before the current one effective since 1789)

 

[Apple Fan 2008]

The point is that pure democracy is NOT desirable.

Australia is still a representative democracy like the US.

 

[Downundermac]

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.

Genuine question, how many kids do you have and what are their ages? Social media and over use of handheld devices among younger people is disastrous in my experience as a parent of two girls.

 

[Downundermac]

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!

Well said. My dad is in his mid 70’s and very immune compromised with severe RA. He was just released from hospital following a cold he picked up attending a funeral. He worked his arse off from the age of 13 in a butchery, raised a family, paid his taxes and is a generous, old school conservative with an actual moral compass. Him and my mother still haven’t had Covid because here in NZ we actually had a grown up government and a responsible approach focused on public health and saving lives. This is reflected in our low COVID death toll. Aside from refusing a vaccine, which I’ll give them is a personal right, anti vaxxers and the mis/disinformation ‘freedom’ crowd were/are so selfish as to refuse even using a mask and hand sanitising in public during a pandemic, so their opinions should be considered an absolute disgrace. They are on par with neo nazi’s and white suprematists but of course cannot see it…

 

[danny842003]

You have to admit that a document that has created uninterrupted representative democracy since 1789 (including during a Civil War) is at least somewhat successful.
Is it perfect? No, but that’s why it’s been amended 27 times to do things like lay out a bill of rights, ban slavery, enshrine equal protection of the law, guarantee universal suffrage, limit the number of terms a president can serve, among other things.
Plus, because we have a federal system (much like Australia) a lot of major change is done in states before it's done nationwide. For example, states in the north were looking to end slavery in their territory while we were still under the Articles of Confederation. (the first constitution for the US before the current one effective since 1789)

I don’t have to admit a document drafted in 1789 is fit for purpose in 2025 no.

 

[laptech]

This is the result of social media companies not doing enough to prevent harm to children. For years many governments around the world have been telling social media companies to get their act together tp prevent kids from harm. They are constantly bombarded with harmful ad's, bullying is rife, threats of violence towards other children is rife, access to objectionable content is rife, child suicides have increased due to the harassments and bullying they receive from others on social media and when parents complain to the social media companies, they do nothing. When governments step in and tell them to get their act together, they drag their heels, taking years and years to do something rather than months.

What Australia has done is a good thing and I hope other countries do the same because social media companies do not give a damn. All that matters to them is profit and if they can achieve that via children then they will continue to do so.

Remember people, there was a senior executive at Google who turned whistleblower who told a US oversight committee that Mark Zuckerberg personally stepped in to prevent protocols being put in place to protect children and they have emails to prove it. Social media companies are not our friends, they are our enemies because they will do nothing that could affect their profits and children on social media is extremely profitable to them.

 

[Apple Fan 2008]

I don’t have to admit a document drafted in 1789 is fit for purpose in 2025 no.

Hence why it was amended 27 times with major changes

 

[danny842003]

Hence why it was amended 27 times with major changes

And the 27th only took 200 years to pass.
Brilliant.

 

[oryan_dunn]

The book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt details, with tons of data to back it up, the harms of social media for kids. Others on this thread have pointed out how it's not so easy to just say no to your kids, when everyone else's kids have it. It's a collective action problem, that to solve needs everyone to be in agreement. Most parents would agree they don't want their kids on social media, but they don't want their kids to be left out or bullied because of it.

I hope this sort of ban gains traction here in the US. There are already a number of states with phone bans in schools, and I see state bans on social media for kids in the not distant future.

Here's his site with all the data:

The Anxious Generation — from a book to a movement

We change policy, culture, and behavior through collective action — so every child grows up with more play, independence, and real-world connection, and less time online.

www.anxiousgeneration.com

 

[Rafagon]

Genuine question, how many kids do you have and what are their ages? Social media and over use of handheld devices among younger people is disastrous in my experience as a parent of two girls.

None. So all I can do is imagine being a parent.

 

[Downundermac]

None. So all I can do is imagine being a parent.

Perspective on the world changes when a human comes into your life bro. I’ve been a dad for 27 years. Most parents are now 100% over watching kids waste their childhoods staring at these small glowing rectangles. It’s an order of magnitude more pervasive than gaming ever was (I’m all good with kids gaming). I’m noticing millennial parents and those whose eldest kids were born into the smartphone era don’t have the same perspective and their kids are paying the price. My eldest was 9 when the iPhone was released so didn’t practically get anywhere near a smartphone until she was a young teen and the resulting addiction and behavioural change when she did get one was by far worse in terms of attention and anxiety. Now an adult, she had to have years of anxiety counseling, is off social media and limits smartphone use of her own accord. My youngest witnessed her sisters phone addiction and anxiety and so is way more conscious than her friend group of how ‘dumb’ smart phones and social media are for young people.