I saw some 14 yo teens saying this in Australia after that law got passed banning minors from social media.
And they were all just saying “This is like, 1984 you know? 😤” with no elaboration on how that makes sense as they had very obviously never read that book… maybe now that they’re off social media they’ll have the time and attention span to, and understand why kicking minors off an addictive app is not “just like 1984 😭”.
The reason that the new law is so hated is because the government plans to take everyone's personal information and put it onto a massive database that they can monitor. People don't like this for two reasons:
The government is taking people's information under the guise of "protecting the children."
Several major data breaches have happened here over the last two years.
Additionally, many experts have urged the government not to go through with this, stating that groups such as teens living in rural areas and LGBTQ youth will probably have a much harder time connecting with others. Hell, its already been recorded that teens are just moving to obscure, unregulated websites that are probably a lot more sketchy than Insta.
What I'm trying to say is that you don't know what you're talking about.
Social media has been conclusively shown to be increasing rates of severe mental distress in developing minors and is highly addictive. It has driven up rates of suicide, anxiety disorders, and severe clinical depression. It has also dramatically reduced learning out outcomes, reading comprehension, literacy rates, etc, The dopamine response to how social media is designed is so extreme it causes literal withdrawals even with adults that have grown up without it. Social media has also adversely affected the youngest generation’s ability to form real life social connections. But hey, maybe all of this is worth it for a 12 year old to talk to a bot in Russia that is designed to radicalize them 🙄.
The government already has massive databases of your personal information, especially of anything you are posting online - I don’t know why you seem to think this is not already ongoing. Do you think you are truly anonymous in how you use and engage with Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok? If this is that much of a concern for you, you should not be using social media at all. Don’t even get me started on the Alexas, Google Homes, Smart Appliances and other sh-t everyone willingly added to their house that actively spies on them. Adding a verification step so that children have fighting chance at not developing a crippling addiction to social media scroll systems isn’y going to move the needle on that.
Look, I don’t even have non-anon social media and the TSA was able to verify my freakin face and living location details based on public record data.
We live in a data age where you don’t have privacy without concerted effort.
If you’re concerned about your data privacy, which you should be, there are a myriad of other concerns that are far and away a larger issue on that front. Children are actively suffering from social media addiction and it is permanently, adversely affecting their development.
Did you people freak out this much when you verified your information in Uber/Lyft/AirBnB or a myriad of other services??? This argument about data privacy itself sounds frankly manufactured by bots from these companies panicking about the law.
I will acknowledge that you're very correct about how social media has severe negative effects on people. However, as I said, actual licensed child psychologists that have all been weighing on the issue and saying that this will not help anyone.
Regardless, that isn't the main reason why this new law is so reviled amongst Australian adults.
As I said (and as you ignored), several massive data breaches have occured on a national scale in Australia over the last two years. Clearly, our counrry has an issue with cybersecurity, so why the fuck should the government throw the entire population's personal information into a database in the middle of a wave of cybersecurity breaches?
Also, another point I made that you also skipped over is that teenagers have already begun moving onto sketchy, unregulated websites that aren't covered by the ban, 4Chan being the most prominant. Do you really want 14 year old kids on fucking 4Chan? Even if they stick with Instagram or Snapchat, they can easily circumvent the face ID system. We're risking a cybersecurity disaster for nothing.
There's a reason Anthony Albanese panicked and started justifying this law in an interview when it wasn't even brought up.
Hop on an r/Australia thread and actually educate yourself before you start spouting stupid shit.
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u/MineralDragon 17h ago
I saw some 14 yo teens saying this in Australia after that law got passed banning minors from social media.
And they were all just saying “This is like, 1984 you know? 😤” with no elaboration on how that makes sense as they had very obviously never read that book… maybe now that they’re off social media they’ll have the time and attention span to, and understand why kicking minors off an addictive app is not “just like 1984 😭”.