Australia's prime minister on Thursday vowed to ban children under 16 from social media, saying the pervasive influence of platforms like Facebook and TikTok was "doing real harm to our kids".
I see the problem, but don’t see a solution in this Aussie strategy. An age-ban probably makes social media more attractive to a 5- 10- or 15-year-old, and anyway, any bright kid can get around it, and share their get-around with all their friends.
Although I have an additional fear.
It is known that block listing (everyone but Y, Y being children here) is an ineffective cybersecurity strategy. What does work is allow listing (everyone must identify themselves, gatekeeper maintains a list of who is allowed in).
Enforcing the existance of such a tool, and having the allow list be at the mercy of political figures, now and in the future, is a scary idea to me.
Oh our government/s have always been very big on progressing the surveillance state in the name of saving children, this is either another step toward that or it’s a huge waste of time that will never be enforceable.
Social media presents an array of worrisome problems, with (so far as I can see) only worrisome solutions. Children’s access isn’t even the #1 issue, for me — it’s social media’s Musky ability to flood the world with lies and hate at levels never seen in human history.
And there’s no solution that’s not worrisome, but democracy can’t survive with an intentionally misinformed electorate.
I see the problem, but don’t see a solution in this Aussie strategy. An age-ban probably makes social media more attractive to a 5- 10- or 15-year-old, and anyway, any bright kid can get around it, and share their get-around with all their friends.
We share a similar view, I think.
Although I have an additional fear. It is known that block listing (everyone but Y, Y being children here) is an ineffective cybersecurity strategy. What does work is allow listing (everyone must identify themselves, gatekeeper maintains a list of who is allowed in).
Enforcing the existance of such a tool, and having the allow list be at the mercy of political figures, now and in the future, is a scary idea to me.
Oh our government/s have always been very big on progressing the surveillance state in the name of saving children, this is either another step toward that or it’s a huge waste of time that will never be enforceable.
I’m pretty confident it’s just for surveillance.
Yup, beyond scary, it’s terrifying.
Social media presents an array of worrisome problems, with (so far as I can see) only worrisome solutions. Children’s access isn’t even the #1 issue, for me — it’s social media’s Musky ability to flood the world with lies and hate at levels never seen in human history.
And there’s no solution that’s not worrisome, but democracy can’t survive with an intentionally misinformed electorate.