Australia seeks to limit access to the internet

[eDJ_]

CBS News

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Thursday what he called a "world-leading" plan to implement a social media ban for all children under the age of 16. So many message boards I've been on require anyone registering to be 13 years old or older.

I first accessed the internet just after the mid 90's and began to notice very young kids interacting with mature adults and asking questions that were not things I was comfortable with. I thought then that access limits by age would come eventually and here we are nearly 30 years later..... I wondered why there wasn't a "Kids Internet" for those under 18 that would have security measures in place to guard against sources of trouble. Adults could use the adult internet (even if some of the adults can't act as adults)

In that time I saw cartoonist illustrating examples of common annoyances from kids whose parents may have been shocked to see what they were doing with the computer. So many Adults knowing nothing about computers/internet at the time.

Australia plans "world-leading" social media ban for children under 16

Fortunately most kids like these (below) don't go camping in RV's or seek to join
social media forums.







Have you encountered any of this in your time on the internet ?

 

[INTJohn]

Ohhh thats it. Im done with Australia. Now that I've woken up my dream vacation there has been cancelled.

My true aussie story:
50 years back when i was stationed in SE Asia, once in a great while we would get some R&R -(not Rest & Relaxation was more like Rowdy & Riotous………) on Penang Island, Indonesia; city of Georgetown.

(You know the effing Brits gotta claim & name everywhere they sail after one of their effing monarchs).
Anyway; the Brits had a garrison of Australian troops stationed there and we Murahkans happened to run into some of them off duty in a local pub.
These Aussies didn’t appreciate our Yankee confident sarcastic humor (no doubt due to their Anglican related inferiority complex) and drunk soldiers with more money than brains who are from differing militaries well one thing lead to another and we all got into it. A good old knock down just like in the movies bar fight.

It wasn’t long and the Indonesian Guard Police showed up and returned to the pub to a more friendly drinking establishment. Both groups of us standing at Attention on the street curb and the pub owner not to happy about us rearranging the furniture.

After a few minutes a paddy wagon showed up and loaded all the Aussie troops up and took them to jail. We’re standing there for quite awhile wondering when we get our ride and this American Army Captain shows up. He’s talking to the pub owner and the police and then he comes up to us and says you guys owe the owner 40$. Cough it up now and we all chipped in and that was the end of it.

The pub owner invited us all back in and we got back to enjoying life. Had a great time and we laffed our ***** off how the Aussie troops not only got their ass kikt but then got took to jail.


They can go ride a wallaby
bch bum jon the vagabon

 

[eDJ_]

I'm still wondering if the new "Ring Master & his Circus" will try this here in
" Da Nited Stats uf Merica" ?

 

[eDJ_]

It may not just be Australia. It may be coming to Merica soon. Wired com article 11/26/2024.

"Parent power" alone won’t ensure the next generation’s safety—politicians and tech firms must take steps, too.

It’s Time to Make the Internet Safer for Kids

There used to be an expression....."Beat your kids well every day....if you don't know why.....they will". It was quit popular among conservative Parents.

 

[twomountainlions]

Australia is not a free country, thats a whole another topic, but I dont see limiting underage access to the cesspools called social networks as a bad thing. Underage kids dont have the rights of an adult.
One problem with limiting access based on age, though, is that identity verification would be required from everyone, and that is a can of worms.

 

[Morgana]

From what (little) I've read, it sounds like the law is really vague and some huge "details" (like exactly which platforms to ban and what age-verifying tech to use) will be decided later, by bureaucrats not elected representatives. Critics say it will be easy to get around by using a VPN -- also that it could just send kids to even worse parts of the internet (I think it will only apply to websites where you need to set up an account to enter).
Unlike in France, which has a similar law, there's no exemption with a parent's permission. But I don't see what's to stop a parent (or a bad-boy older classmate) from setting up an account and then just giving the under-16 the username and password.
I cannot imagine being a kid today ... might as well be a different planet out there.

 

[eDJ_]

Yes, there are a lot of hacks and work-arounds kids are clever enough to figure out. Ironically in the early 2000's when I was on one forum where some girls from "Australia" (ironically) were wanting to "cyber" with boys in the States using their own work around. It was supposed to be a forum for adult women to ask adult men questions regarding all phases of life. (but you only had to be 13 to register an account) Turned out these girls were in a "All Girls High School" and they had figured out that they could use "PM" messages on a Forum to accomplish connecting with boys. (after all...they were private messages) Nothing would be seen of their post on the forum per se by anyone (serving as IT there) who would be monitoring their internet activity. It may only look like a non threatening cooking or fashion forum that they were viewing or using for research. All they had to do was reach out to the boys via PM and use that function of the forum to carry on. This forum activity was before 2010 when Cell Phones began to be provided to children by their parents. With Cell's kids could hide and use their data connection to have the internet at their liberty without being on a network where their activity could be monitored.

By 2010, more than 5% of 6-7-year-olds had cell phones, 42% of kids had a cell phone by age 10, 71% by age 12, and 91% by age 14. (results from a simple Google search)

But the timing of this looks like the the new conservative era is bent on forcing the Genie back into the bottle. Then many kids may not agree with the picture being presented to the public to justify these measures to "control" the internet. And young people's opinions of those forcing this issue will be formed by these times.

 

[Morgana]

But the timing of this looks like the the new conservative era is bent on forcing the Genie back into the bottle.

or on looking to voters like they're doing something

I hope First Dog on the Moon (https://firstdogonthemoon.com.au/) will do a cartoon about this. (Maybe they already have but the free site hasn't been updated since 10/30.)

 

[Gr8ful]

I'd like to see the personal internet and cell service go down for a week, many people would go bat sh*t crazy

 

[eDJ_]

^^^ Morgana wrote

First Dog on the Moon...........

or maybe Tom Tomorrow Morgana

 

[twomountainlions]

Yes, there are a lot of hacks and work-arounds kids are clever enough to figure out. Ironically in the early 2000's when I was on one forum where some girls from "Australia" (ironically) were wanting to "cyber" with boys in the States using their own work around. It was supposed to be a forum for adult women to ask adult men questions regarding all phases of life. (but you only had to be 13 to register an account) Turned out these girls were in a "All Girls High School" and they had figured out that they could use "PM" messages on a Forum to accomplish connecting with boys. (after all...they were private messages) Nothing would be seen of their post on the forum per se by anyone (serving as IT there) who would be monitoring their internet activity. It may only look like a non threatening cooking or fashion forum that they were viewing or using for research. All they had to do was reach out to the boys via PM and use that function of the forum to carry on. This forum activity was before 2010 when Cell Phones began to be provided to children by their parents. With Cell's kids could hide and use their data connection to have the internet at their liberty without being on a network where their activity could be monitored.

Look at what's happening in some countries now, Russia, China among them: ID is required to physically access the internet, no matter how, this includes mobile sims, of course it all started to "combat terrorism" not to control information and track political opponents. VPNs were banned there as the next step. There are technilogies that shut down most VPNs and people have to resort to new tricks, most can't keep up with that.
Once they go for access control it most likelty will be some digital ID controlling all levels of internet activities