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I don't agree with a total ban, but the writers of the article downplaying the harmful content on YouTube I think have forgotten the multiple times YouTube has gotten in trouble with advertisers for shit like "elsagate" where they were showing mutilation etc. of Disney characters targeted at children.
There needed to be some kind of regulation, but an outright ban is a bit much.
This feels like they're trying to drive a tack with a sledgehammer.
I visited a friend, their 4 year old was watching YouTube on a tablet
At some point I sat next to him to see what he was watching, It was a cartoon where the one character looks evil and has long claws, catches another, stabs it with its long claws, cuts its head off, holds its corpse about it and drinks litres of blood gushing out. Then gains an aura, pupils dilate and sprouts wings and flies into the sky to attack more creatures.
This wasn't some Anime, it's a kids cartoon made for very young kids.
I started watching happy tree friends etc. when I was like 13, but what the fuck this is next level.
Plans To Ban Kids From Watching YouTube
As well as:
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/28/g-s1-36142/australia-social-media-ban-children
The law will make platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram liable for fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to prevent children younger than 16 from holding accounts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Safety_Amendment
It sounds like, from my quick skim, that their criteria would also apply to the Threadiverse, as I don't see any sort of userbase size or revenue restrictions on their definition of its scope. Here's the bill text:
(1) For the purposes of this Act, age-restricted social media platform means:
(a) an electronic service that satisfies the following conditions:
(i) the sole purpose, or a significant purpose, of the service is to enable online social interaction between 2 or more end-users;
(ii) the service allows end-users to link to, or interact with, some or all of the other end-users;
(iii) the service allows end-users to post material on the service;
(iv) such other conditions (if any) as are set out in the legislative rules; or
(b) an electronic service specified in the legislative rules;but does not include a service mentioned in subsection (6).
Note 1: Online social interaction does not include (for example) online business interaction.
Note 2: An age-restricted social media platform may be, but is not necessarily, a social media service under section 13.19
Note 3: For specification by class, see subsection 13(3) of the Legislation Act 2003.
Subsection (6):
(6) An electronic service is not an age-restricted social media platform if:
(a) none of the material on the service is accessible to, or delivered to, one or more end-users in Australia; or
(b) the service is specified in the legislative rules.
I'm sure that there will be more discussion on this that will probably clarify it.
For the moment, I'm pretty confident based on past case law that the US legal system won't consider a US-based Threadiverse instance that isn't actively doing something like advertising to users specifically in Australia or selling products to Australia to be within the legal jurisdiction of Australia, as it won't be doing business in Australia, so the US legal system will not enforce Australian law against it. Australia might block a node but shouldn't be able to fine someone, so blacklisting Australian IP addresses or the like probably isn't necessary. One notable issue: I don't know off the top of my head whether instances accepting donations from Australian users could be affected.
I don't know what the EU's position on Internet jurisdiction is.
That might be a much more substantial problem for Australia-based instances, like
to name one that comes to mind
aussie.zone.
16 is definitely extreme, but having gone to war with YouTube's junk to small kids and finding out there's no preventing them falling down some junk rabbit hole, I'm pretty cool with it up to about 12.
My thoughts exactly. All online spaces unless they offer a manually curated, child friendly experience and live moderation.
They've been a Murdoch-influenced cesspool politically for years now, this is par for the course for them; just more social control by the government under the guise of protecting kids.
Gotta stop kids from learning about the wider world until they've had their worldview shaped to their regressive government's liking.
A little bit over dramatic...
Huh? This is good news for the kids. I have seen too many kids sticking to their iPads all the time.
Another country bringing age verification.
I wonder why they lock on youtube and ignore Facebook, Instagram, tiktok, etc.
pretty sure they don't, those last things are already (or will be?) banned for young people in Australia :(
If I hadn't had the Internet growing up, I would have 0 (zero) positive memories of my preteen and teenage years. People who want to take that away from future generations are truly pure evil. I have no other words.
Not that I'm for any bans on social media
i can see why from my personal experience. Even back in like 2014 I viewed YouTube as home to crackpot conspiracy theorists because of friend's I'd seen go down YouTube rabbit holes and pretty much go crazy. Facebook and YouTube. Facebook was home to stupid image macros of stupid conspiracy theories. YouTube for crazy hyper edited conspiracy nut videos. YouTube where someone wants your email or number so they can send you a video you should watch and you learn the person you met is crazy
To this day other social media platforms have cycled in and out as conspiracy theorist and school shooters favorite platform while YouTube has never cycled out since it enabled anyone to upload video
Instagram has always been the self hate/image problems/terrible life planning thinking life after your 20s is over then a person gets to 30 and realize they actually want to have happy next 30 years too and they shouldn't have spent all their money and time chasing dreams they made each day watching other people on Instagram. 6th graders with skin care routines and wanting to show off a lavish lifestyle at like 11 years old, that's Instagram. Also short form Instagram get rich quick schemes and stupid harmful challenges are just as bad of a problem on Instagram and YouTube as they are on TikTok. Before those terrible challenges was based out of Twitter+YouTube.
Twitters it's own weird trending towards underworld now rather than mainstream. Maybe it's like a far less popular Facebook where it's becoming more and more for old people but people don't view it as a basic social media to keep in basic touch with distant people like Facebook
YouTube and Instagram are the worst to me. Facebook used to be worse than Instagram and YouTube but YouTube and Instagram have gotten more important and worse while Facebook has become less important over time while probably being just as bad as before
The solution to that is media literacy, not bans. But of course one of those two is a lot easier than the other.
But unlike media literacy, bans give the government a pretext to demand ID from everyone using the internet, and thereby increase surveillance of the population. This year is evidently the year when they've all decided to do it.
What are you talking about, all of those are banned.
I'm... furiously glad?
Hurts big tech þat's become so enshittified it's unwatchable? Check!
Age blocks and limiting teen freedom, which should be þe parent's jobs? Booo.
I don't know wheþer to laugh, or cry. So I say to myself, "what's next, big sky?"