this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2025
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[–] insurgentrat@hexbear.net 37 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

I feel like it's the usual punative, Buck-passing, nonsense.

The law is so broad as to be difficult to comply with as a small operator of good things, like forums, while allowing and excusing further surveillance and being easy for large operators to comply with.

It doesn't regulate the corrosive harms of addictive features, dark patterns, and algorithmic content. Nor does it force companies to consider user welfare.

It is not coupled with any initiative to actually support children socialising and most of the spaces and games children would use or play are gone, illegal, or highly inadvisable without supervision which can no longer be provided in an atomised community with dual income, two generation home, norms.

It will push kids to unregulated spaces, expand surveillance, and leave the corrosive harms of social media present.

[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 23 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Yeah compare this to what China does. If Douyin detects you're a child, it redirects you to child-friendly education algorithms mandated by the Chinese government. It's not a blanket ban, they forced the social media firms to actually change their algorithms.

[–] JustSo@hexbear.net 17 points 2 months ago

Exactly! Just look at how many leaks have come out of the big tech firms identifying their own complicity in harming vulnerable users, where they made the explicit corporate decision to bury the reports / terminate the inquiries / continue business as usual, because it would reduce shareholder value to do otherwise.

If we had anything left of the regulatory state we could change the financial pressures and incentives on these companies to make effective self regulation the most profitable route, but instead we get nu-panopticon 3.0.

[–] insurgentrat@hexbear.net 14 points 2 months ago

I would honestly be more in favour of an actual blanket ban on foreign tech companies. At least then we would all be free and could start building something new, while forums and local initiatives run by people you can actually force to like protect kids from pro ED content or whatever BS.

It's pretty clear a lot of social media is shit, but this law sucks.

I feel like the government no longer knows how to be a government. All they do is ban things or tweak tax incentives. We don't build anything, run any public initiatives, or fund any culture.

[–] CloutAtlas@hexbear.net 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I largely agree, but:

It will push kids to unregulated spaces

Facebook, X and to a certain extent R*ddit are already unregulated spaces. My friend's younger sister fell down a zionist rabbit hole because she's queer and lib queer spaces bought her into the whole "Israel is the only safe space for LGBT in the middle east" and "Muslims want to murder queer people" rhetoric that the algorithm gave her. Like if she wasn't deprogrammed fairly early on, she'd probably end up like Eve Fartlow.

I love her to death, but her showing me a video she saw on FB or whatever about whatever National Endowment for Democracy funded video about Xinjiang (as the only Chinese person she knows personally) and asking me if I've seen it was very heartbreaking.

It's the devil you know (Zuckerberg, Musk, u/spez) vs the devil you don't.

[–] insurgentrat@hexbear.net 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Facebook etc are inadequately regulated but they are still regulated and regulatable.

Some random chat program registered in Mozambique by a resident of Belarus at the behest of an investor in Syracuse is a whole different sort of beast.

[–] CloutAtlas@hexbear.net 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

CW: very racist rhetoric

This is from yesterday, popped up on my feed, a post by my friend's brother. Inadequately regulated is putting it lightly. I reported it over 24 hours ago and yet it persists. Not pictured: half a dozen posts re: climate change. Spoilers: he believes climate change is real, but it's the brown people's fault for emissions as if the global north doesn't subcontract their manufacturing to the global south.

I did say "the devil you know vs the devil you don't". The random chat program registered in Mozambique by a resident of Belarus at the behest of an investor in Syracuse may be worse, but allowing impressionable children to be bombarded by the above isn't any better.

Idk, hopefully the kids find a Hexbear instead of finding a Stormfront. I might be unusually optimistic about the whole thing, but leaving reddit, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube might not be an entirely bad situation.

May the trans kids find a better online space than reddit and discord. May the insecure kids find a better online space than instagram and youtube. They deserve a space but the poisoned well of American for-profit social media conglomerates shouldn't be it.

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

They deleted cities and parks in oz-land? you can just walk and talk, like normal person, what special place you envision? Places being dodgy or unsafe never stopped kids fucking around in them. Guess we'll have to wait and see if desire to socialize outweighs laziness to vpn-ize.

[–] insurgentrat@hexbear.net 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I dunno if you've seen the new developments in like western sydney as an example but there are:

  • no yards
  • no shade
  • no PT
  • no bike infrastructure
  • no skate parks/teen playgrounds/swimming pools
  • no arcades/corner shops/theatres

Idk what people imagine kids doing when even going to see a film costs 40 bucks a head assuming you can even get there or have parents willing to let you off the leash.

[–] Mindfury@hexbear.net 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Idk what people imagine kids doing

well, just look at the next few panics: riding e-bikes and having fun with knives apparently
all because a subhuman property developer decided parks and PT eat into profits

[–] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

riding e-bikes and having fun with knives

The kids are alright

[–] KuroXppi@hexbear.net 11 points 2 months ago

Cops have no-cause stop search and seize powers in the Melbourne CBD for six months (and it'll get kicked on after that) including asking people with masks to leave the proscribed area. It 100% will be rolled out at other locations across the state to cover other shopping and recreational areas

[–] PorkrollPosadist@hexbear.net 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Most children don't have credit cards they can use to pay for a VPN subscription.

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 8 points 2 months ago

if one doesn't care about speed, one can just use normie free proton or myriads ad-loaded ones

[–] blobjim@hexbear.net 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Mullvad lets you pay in cash in certain currencies (looks like AUD is a supported currency too) https://mullvad.net/en/pricing

[–] Tabitha@hexbear.net 1 points 2 months ago

That's a shitload of money for someone who's too young to legally work having to buy a VPN in secrecy from their parents.