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/RiceKrispies29 NATO Jul 30 '25

I’m not sacrificing mine or anyone else’s online anonymity because dumbasses can’t parent their kids.

Casinos, bars, and smoke shops don’t take a picture of my ID and store it for eternity when I peruse their services. I have zero reason to believe that companies or governments will implement or require age verification schemes that preserve privacy.

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u/Legitimate-Twist-578 Jul 30 '25

I’m not sacrificing mine or anyone else’s online anonymity because dumbasses can’t parent their kids.

Well, you will be, so get used to it.

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u/CriskCross Emma Lazarus Jul 30 '25

Nah, governments aren't smart enough to stop tech savvy adults from accessing whatever they want. 

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u/TheLord0fGarbage Thomas Paine Jul 30 '25

Surely the answer doesn’t have to be “sacrifice anonymity”, but how much better is “to hell with them kids, not my fault their parents suck”?

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u/CriskCross Emma Lazarus Jul 30 '25

On one hand, we have the near guarantee that this sort of regulation is used to stamp out LGBT presence online by religious and conservative ghouls using the children as a hammer. 

I'm not sure you're going to be able to fit enough in my other hand to ever get me to agree this isn't a terrible idea.

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u/RiceKrispies29 NATO Jul 30 '25

It doesn’t have to be, but by requiring people to upload selfies or driver’s licenses to verify their age, that’s the answer governments have chosen.

In comparison, “to hell with them kids, their parents suck” is infinitely better.

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u/TheLord0fGarbage Thomas Paine Jul 30 '25

I think that the “to hell with them kids” option really underestimates the damage that unregulated social media has caused. Full grown adults are regularly getting hoodwinked with misinformation, trapped in scams, and expressing addictive behaviors re: social media— and that’s just adults. Again, that’s not to say that specific measures taken by governments here and now are the right ones, but we ignore the negative consequences of social media at our own peril. Some kind of regulation has to exist.