I’m well old enough to satisfy these checks and I also do this. If I’m feeling productive, I’ll pick a random date.

We should make a bet how long it will take before the ID databases get leaked.

Identification would need to be handled by a 3rd party to even remotely work. Then they pass on the “yes they’re over 16” tick to the social media platform, with no actual identity details.

Edit: and likewise, Identity company have no details about the social media account name or anything. Just a token transfer of sorts.

Tech company’s probably already have enough info to know a person age without requiring an id. They could even use ai for something actually useful

Okay, that is fucking awesome. LOL.

That is both hilarious and a brilliant solution.

“being angry about inaction on climate change” hahaha

I wonder if Facebook and other apps will add/push education elements in order to become exempt.

I doubt it, and if they do, they’ll classify a whole bunch of nonsense as educational content in order to do so, e.g. religious content as science.

Huh, I thought all kids immediately say they were born in 1969

The law does not require users to upload government IDs as part of the verification process.

No, it merely requires the sites to provide an alternative, such as face scanning using a mobile phone unlock. Using a computer ? Then you’ll have hand over your ID.

The law also explicitly gives sites the right to onsell private information if its outlined in the terms of agrrement.

People should lie about as much as possible to most companies they interact with online anyway (obviously don’t lie to your bank, or doctor, or whatever). Do always, without fail, lie randomly about your age, gender, address (if it’s not relevant) or anything else that’s not actually needed to provide the service.

It is easier to enforce access than to enforce ethical algorithm. Sadly, it is not perfect, but it is better than allowing it.

I mean, yeah. But also, this isn’t really any different from kids not being allowed to drink alcohol before a specific age, movies and video games having age minima, etc etc.

And I would surmise the same reasoning applies: On average, someone so young has neither the mental development nor the life experience to be able to judge well what they are doing with their own information and how to judge/process the information they get shown.

Of course, this should happen in conjunction with actual education, like I at least had for alcohol and stuff. But it’s an entirely normal thing if it happens as part of a multi-step process (and I am not australian enough to judge how well those things work out in australia in general).

100% agree. I think it’s a good space for libraries to enter too. Internet literacy, media literacy and critical thinking skills are sorely needed to be taught today.

As if those drug literacy courses helped anyone. We were taught about it aged 12 or something, when nobody really had a clue what drugs are. Around the age where it matters, it was all but forgotten.

thats a lot of work for the government dude, let them take the easy path

i don’t think the always thrown around “more education” is an effective answer to everything

you can educate kids up and down about the harms of smoking- if smoking is advertised as cool in popular media, there are cigarettes with colorful and fruity flavors, and it’s easy for the kids to obtain then they will inevitably smoke cigarettes. everybody has known smoking causes cancer for a half century know.

if you don’t want kids smoking, then you must act with force to restrict something. whether it’s the restriction on subliminal advertising, the ban on colorful cigarettes, or prohibition of selling to underage smokers- you need some sort of ban.

i firmly believe in the near future we will view social media as we know it similar to how we see smoking. addictive little dopamine hits that will over time change the structure of your brain. we look back at the 50s and think it was crazy how they smoked cigarettes on airplanes, drank whiskey at work, and everyone bathed in lead and asbestos. they’re going to look back at our time period and see us similarly

so if I were to say “should kids be using social media?” I wholeheartedly believe they should not be using it until their brains are developed. much like I don’t think kids should be smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, or smoking weed

but the ultimate question is- what are the potential harms of a government ban and are those potential harms worth it?

that’s where I am conflicted. a minor not being able to buy cigarettes is something that I don’t really think hurts society very much.

but a ban on a minor accessing certain online spaces… how do you accomplish that? well, you will need to track people’s identities online somehow. this is the part where I think maybe the harms of kids using social media is not worth giving the government power to monitor and regulate social media websites.

Strange that the adults don’t want those benefits for themselves also.

Then it seems there is something other to fix in society than making sure facebook knows anything about that kid.

The Zuckerbergers of the world aren’t the ones to trust with that.

I know right. I used to be a kid who bypassed school firewalls and restrictions all the time. This is going to make no difference.

I work with tech security and once a corporate blog post I wrote got from 1,000 monthly views to 100k because kids were looking up proxy tool guides and it was for Roblox lmao

This law is incredibly illiterate