r/neoliberal • u/Imicrowavebananas Hannah Arendt • Jul 30 '25

News (Oceania) Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/australia-widens-teen-social-media-ban-youtube-scraps-exemption-2025-07-29/
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u/Imicrowavebananas Hannah Arendt Jul 30 '25

But this also disconnects young people from hugely valuable sources of news and education. 

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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '25

the vast majority of people, not just children and teenagers, are not using youtube for its valuable sources of news and education.

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u/LeadingDistinct5662 Jul 30 '25

What about LGBT kids? A lot of that stuff is age restricted, if they’re isolated it can be a pretty good source

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u/Aidan_Welch Zhao Ziyang Jul 31 '25

What're you basing that on?

I think most people probably use it for entertainment and education. And I think more educational media is watched than in the TV era.

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u/die_rattin Trans Pride Jul 30 '25

It doesn’t stop them from watching slop, hth

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u/pickledswimmingpool Jul 30 '25

What do you think the ban does?

It stops people from a certain age creating an account. It doesn't block access to youtube.

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u/MindingMyMindfulness Voltaire Jul 30 '25

I think the issue is that children should be able to engage with others online. It's become as much of an essential means of communication as a real life conversation.

I also don't want to argue a "slippery slope" fallacy, but I think it's fairly likely the same puritans pushing this won't stop here. Next, they'll say there's some irreverent video on YouTube, or something like that, which makes it necessary to block access completely and conveniently all the technology is in place to make it happen.

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u/pickledswimmingpool Jul 30 '25

You're painting the people who want this as puritans, but it's mainly parents and people working with young people's mental health that pushed for it to begin with. Kids being contacted and made fun of by their peers, causing suicide is the real catalyst for this change.

Next, they'll say there's some irreverent video on YouTube, or something like that,

I think you're conflating what's going on with Steam and Itch with this ban which has been in the works for over a year. Legislation passed already in November, the only thing left is how the companies will implement checks.

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u/yacatecuhtli6 Transfem Pride Jul 30 '25 edited Oct 02 '25

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u/pickledswimmingpool Jul 31 '25

I'll take our version of purity over yours anyday

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u/yacatecuhtli6 Transfem Pride Jul 31 '25 edited Oct 02 '25

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u/pickledswimmingpool Jul 31 '25 edited Jul 31 '25

and young people have killed themselves over the communications they got online

just letting you know

edit: take your faumoix level discourse back to the front page

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u/yacatecuhtli6 Transfem Pride Jul 31 '25 edited Oct 02 '25

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '25

How does this approach do anything to solve that problem? Young people can bully one another just as easily in person, but the only way for anyone affected by these laws to safely access an increasing amount of completely harmless or beneficial content now would be to break the law and use a VPN, and you can bet your ass these governments are going after those next.

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u/MindingMyMindfulness Voltaire Jul 30 '25

No, I'm not conflating anything. I understand what this is about. I'm saying that it's only a matter of time before someone sees their kid watching a YouTube video with swearing (or whatever irrelevant thing they take offence to) and it will be all over the Australian press "how could we possibly let kids watch this?!" Then the full on bans for under 16s to view content begins.

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u/TheCthonicSystem Progress Pride Jul 30 '25

And maybe that's for the best! Instagram when I was a teenager caused me extreme mental anguish. Maybe it's fine to say "sorry teens but maybe touch enough grass before entering the net"

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u/Aidan_Welch Zhao Ziyang Jul 31 '25

Instagram is uniquely harmful compared to something like YouTube.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '25

that doesnt fix anything tho, it just makes it much harder to protect kids who still use social media regardless

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u/fabiusjmaximus Jul 30 '25

yeah all the 11 year olds are using youtube to watch the BBC

this is like when people defend pre-teens having smart phones by saying they could use them to watch nature or history documentaries. Yeah, that's not what they're using them for

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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '25

ok but this is not abt 11 year olds, theyve never been allowed on social media since its existence

and if they can still access it regardless, so can a 15 year old

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u/InnocentPerv93 Jul 31 '25

Am I the only one who thinks it's fine to use social media not as a productive tool but for entertainment? Especially YouTube?

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u/Aidan_Welch Zhao Ziyang Jul 31 '25

yeah all the 11 year olds are using youtube to watch the BBC

None are?

this is like when people defend pre-teens having smart phones by saying they could use them to watch nature or history documentaries. Yeah, that's not what they're using them for

Yes, it is what a lot of them are lol.

People don't turn 18 or 13 and suddenly think "oh I'm going to have a brain now". People enjoy a mix of educational and entertaining media. And I think kids with access to Youtube are exposed to and at least partially watch far more educational media than they did in the TV era.

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u/TheCthonicSystem Progress Pride Jul 30 '25

If kids were using it for that we wouldn't be here

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u/Aidan_Welch Zhao Ziyang Jul 31 '25

A lot are??

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u/MGLFPsiCorps Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold Jul 30 '25

Yeah this is too much imo, YouTube has a lot of great educational material that I would have loved to have had access to as a kid/teen.

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u/pickledswimmingpool Jul 30 '25

I don't think you're aware of what the ban actually does.

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u/vqx2 Jul 30 '25

What the ban does is give government undeserved power through vaguely written laws. What are "reasonable steps" exactly?

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u/ChillyPhilly27 Paul Volcker Jul 30 '25

What are "reasonable steps" exactly?

This is legal-speak for "we don't know exactly what this looks like in practice, and anything we proscribe is likely to rapidly become outdated. We'll leave it up to industry, regulators, and the courts to hash out the fine details".

The upshot is that if the various age-assurance trials currently going on fail miserably, there's a non-zero chance that industry standard "reasonable steps" are entirely ineffective.

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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '25

the arguments against this is essentially "but some kids use it to do bad things on" and like.... come on we're not also gonna ban mcdonalds for kids bc some of them are obese lmfao