What Happens When You Kick Millions of Teens Off Social Media? Australia's About to Find Out (cnn.com)
- Reference: 0180244609
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/30/1746201/what-happens-when-you-kick-millions-of-teens-off-social-media-australias-about-to-find-out
- Source link: https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/29/australia/australia-social-media-ban-intl-hnk-dst
> From December 10, sites that meet the Australian government's definition of an "age-restricted social media platform" will need to show that they're doing enough to eject or block children under 16 or face fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($32 million). The list includes Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X, and YouTube...
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> Meta says it'll start deactivating accounts and blocking new Facebook, Instagram and Threads accounts [2]from December 4 . Under-16s are being encouraged to download their content. Snap says users can deactivate their accounts for up to three years, or until they turn 16...
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> There's another sting in the ban, too, coming at the end of the Australian school year before the summer break in the southern hemisphere. For eight weeks, there'll be no school, no teachers — and no scrolling. For millions of children, it could be the first school break they spend in years without the company of time-killing social media algorithms, or an easy way to contact their friends. Even for parents who support the ban, it could be a very long summer.
"There's every chance that bans will spread..." the article argues. "Other countries around the world are taking notes as Australia explores new territory that some say mirrors safety evolutions of years past — the dawning realization that maybe cars need safety belts, and that perhaps cigarettes should come with some kind of health warning." And [3]according to the Associated Press , Malaysia "has also announced plans to [4]ban social media accounts for children under 16 starting in 2026."
But [5]CNN reports few teenagers in Australia knew about its impending ban on social media, judging by a show of hands at one high school auditorium. Teenagers in the audience had two questions.
"Can you get your account back when you turn 16?"
"What if I lie about my age?"
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/29/australia/australia-social-media-ban-intl-hnk-dst
[2] https://medium.com/meta-australia-policy-blog/removing-access-to-instagram-threads-and-facebook-for-under-16s-in-australia-1ab448660c0f
[3] https://apnews.com/article/australia-children-social-media-ban-court-challenge-5c85493f58c2869505431f101af17f35
[4] https://apnews.com/article/malaysia-social-media-ban-under-16-1e9e20321c8c83c470ff7489139f10b8
[5] https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/29/australia/australia-social-media-ban-intl-hnk-dst
Not a Problem, an Opportunity (Score:3)
> it could be the first school break they spend in years without the company of time-killing social media algorithms
This was written by an adult. It will likely be the first time in their lives. But kids have a lot of things happen for the first time in their lives. They adapt.
> Even for parents who support the ban, it could be a very long summer.
My god, kids will be bored! What will we do? They'll have to learn to entertain themselves and god knows what kind of mischief that will lead to.
Re: Not a Problem, an Opportunity (Score:1)
Drugs, anyone?
Re: (Score:3)
> Drugs, anyone?
No. That's illegal too.
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> or an easy way to contact their friends.
Along those lines, many of us used to use our telephones to call each other or actually talk to our peers at school to make plans.
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Okay Boomer.
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Reading books, playing sports, visiting friends....all the sort of stuff people did before the internet.
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> Thus restoring the normal order of human life and making the central parts of towns and areas far more vibrant. Nothing like the energy of a lot of bored young people trying to create some excitement ...
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> Reading books, playing sports, visiting friends....all the sort of stuff people did before the internet.
In Melbourne, the early adopters seem to have chosen car-jacking, home invasion and machete crime instead
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Yeah, I call BS on that.
First of all the blocking has not even started, so the can not be the cause.
Secondly I doubt they were big users of social media anyway.
And Melbourne has always had a crime issue.
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>> Reading books, playing sports, visiting friends....all the sort of stuff people did before the internet.
> In Melbourne, the early adopters seem to have chosen car-jacking, home invasion and machete crime instead
You have it all wrong. Now it will be illegal for those miscreants to post their exploits, they'll have to stop and take up table-tennis or something.
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Simple: They will just learn ways around this ban. And then maybe the surveillance fascist assholes behind it will actually have taught them how to not get spied on later in life.
Mummy I'm bored (Score:2)
Go and tidy your room
Yes, I know there are strange teenagers that have tidy rooms...
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> My god, kids will be bored! What will we do? They'll have to learn to entertain themselves and god knows what kind of mischief that will lead to.
You speak with the bias of a person who has experienced a life of multiple hobbies and multiple possibilities and dismiss very legitimate concerns. For people who are actually addicted to shit like social media things can get very nasty indeed.
Bonus points for the article being about Australia, yet another car dependent place with cities designed by morons who produce people in servitude to someone who can take them somewhere for their hobbies. The "go out and play in the park" that would easily apply in ma
Delivering IT education (Score:4, Insightful)
Banning social media will do more educating teenagers in networking and IT than entire school system. They will soon know how to configure VPN, what are common ways to shape network traffic, and what are typical network intercepting proxies are and how to avoid them.
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Or download the TOR browser for zero-configuration and free censorship circumvention. Like people in China do. Good thing too.
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"Or download the TOR browser"
Kids don't know what a browser IS!
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They'll probably just continue to use whatever they're using now. Kids have been lying about their age on social media to avoid account restrictions longer than any kid today has been alive.
Remember that social media companies are just like any other corporation and couldn't care less about anything other than this quarter's profit. They are going to do the absolute minimum to tick the "doing enough" box without a second's thought toward social responsibility. This is absolutely not going to escalate int
Think of the children... (Score:5, Interesting)
Is almost universally not about the children. In this case it's about de-anonymizing the Internet to aid in mass surveillance.
Re:Think of the children... (Score:5, Insightful)
EXACTLY! It's all about tying your real identity and government ID to your online presence. It's amazing no one really sees this, as people in the UK are getting arrested, detained and harassed by police simply for their opinions. The leaders who want this are doing it for authoritarian means and they are utilizing the useful idiots who scream, "think of the children."
The argument is social media is bad for kids. Hey, it's bad for adults! Being 30 or 40 doesn't make it any less terrible. I know people my age who keep looking at their phones while at a bar or party or restaurant, as well as people way younger than me who know how to be present now with people who are really around you. Everyone should get off of social media, and refuse to use any "big" services that want to tie you to some national ID database.
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Obviously. Kinds that want to have had access to all of the Internet for a long time and that is not going to change. Negative effects? Quite limited and can be compensated with good parenting.
This is exclusively about surveillance fascists getting their wet dreams implemented.
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'Negative effects? Quite limited'
Source please. There's a lot to suggest it's doing long term damage
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Life is doing long-term damage. You need to stop listening to the propaganda.
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> Life is doing long-term damage. You need to stop listening to the propaganda.
Life will ultimately kill you, it's true.
But if you grow your way through life without the ability of thousands (or more) people you don't know beating down on you, you might have the time to develop the skills and (for most people) the resilience to shrug it off. The remark by Slumdog about social media being bad for adults too, and how being 30 or 40 doesn't make it any less terrible is a truly facile comment to make and completely ignores the differences between a tween or teen and someone who's grow
What next, ban under-16s from installing Firefox? (Score:3)
First off, kids will just find lesser-known social media sites that aren't blocked. Or they'll all install some free multiplayer mobile game that has public chat and use that to communicate.
Second, isn't Mozilla adding some kind of free web-based VPN to Firefox?
Third, I'd bet on many kids knowing more about the internet and getting around the rules than I trust a bunch of politicians to dream up and enforce those rules.
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They'll learn to run their own instances. At least that's my pipe dream...
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Next will be incredibly tight regulation on VPN access and use. Leading up to government-run vpns and a Chinese style great firewall.
This is a authoritarian power grab and once authoritarians start grabbing power they don't stop.
I don't think it's anything that can be stopped because voters are too distracted by the culture war bullshit.
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Relax, we've been having this exact same discussion since 1994. This slope isn't nearly as slippery as you think.
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No way! Our politicians, and [1]particularly our engineers [slashdot.org] are way smarter than that.
[1] https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=298229&cid=20607407
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> First off, kids will just find lesser-known social media sites that aren't blocked. Or they'll all install some free multiplayer mobile game that has public chat and use that to communicate.
I work at a university. Even old me is aware that Discord is used quite a bit by our students. Good luck regulating THAT.
hey kids, go old-school! (Score:2)
there thousands of old-school BBS being run by enthusiasts that would be thrilled to have influx of new accounts and activity. almost none have ads and i am willing to bet zero are affected by “the algorithm.”
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When I was a high school technology teacher I would show the students how to telnet into BBS systems around the world. They were not impressed in the least. Maybe now they will give the tech a second look. Time to dust off my Wildcat diskettes.
I'll tell you what will happen (Score:3)
What always happens when you try to block kids from doing anything: they find a way to do it anyway.
We older folks too were "blocked" from doing stuff as kids, pre- and post-internet, and we too did it anyway. And it actually made us smarter, as we had to devise ways around the obstacle.
Kids are smart. This will just make them smarter.
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Indeed. Blocks and other restrictions by authoritarian assholes do not work on things people want to do. And that goes even more for teens.
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I think that's a lot less true now.
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It also got me into many dangerous situations, where I couldn't ask my parents for help because then they would know I did whatever it was, or where no one would have any idea where to start looking if I didn't come home...
Ok but then what? (Score:2)
Any folks in Australia can describe what social activities for bored teens? At least here in America we've been shutting down the stereotypical things; the malls are dead, movie theaters are expensive and dying.
My town tried to open a skate park and it became a neighborhood controversy, yard signs were erected, multiple meetings had, families were torn apart. Ok I made that one up part up but seriously, we've made the world a bit hostile for teenagers and if you're like many here as well they live in the '
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At least in the States they could join a gun club.
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It's Australia, so maybe they'll just all go walkabout.
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I definitely don't disagree with this as an option it's just very humorously American. Guns, that's our first answer for every problem!
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Yep, everything I use to do as a teen is either gone, or doesn't allow teens without their parents. (And I don't even mean a parent, because they limit how many teens each adult can bring, and many places won't allow it if it's apparent it's a group of friends rather than a family. They expect each teen to actually have their parent there with them. So even if teenagers were willing to hang out with their parents over their shoulder, friends would have to have their parents' ability (work schedule etc.) and
Boomerang gangs (Score:2)
...will spring up and brake windows ... twice!
Crazy (Score:2)
Too bad Australia's court hold zero sway over these social media companies and their fines mean nothing.
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How's that?
Any company that wants to make significant money in Australia has an office there.
And any company that holds an office in Australia can be called into court.
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No. None of these companies have ever *needed* a physical presence to make significant amounts of money in any given country. They don't offer physical products or services. I'm sure the physical presence makes some things easier, but certainly not necessary. They could simply shutter the Australian offices and tell the courts to go fuck themselves. They wouldn't lose any money long, or short, term.
Re: Crazy (Score:2)
Meta (Facebook / Instagram / Threads / WhatsApp): Australia office located at 200 Barangaroo Avenue, Barangaroo, Sydney NSW. Source: mindtrip.ai (search "Meta Australia Barangaroo" to verify) Twitter / X: Australian headquarters located in Sydney CBD. Source: articles confirming Twitter's Sydney HQ launch. TikTok: Sydney office located in the Salesforce Tower. Source: Office Snapshots article on TikTok Sydney office. Pinterest: Pinterest maintains an office in Sydney. Source: LinkedIn post announcing the
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None of those buildings or employees were ever required to run the company or to allow those countries access to the social media. Could just shut them down and let everyone go, court can't stop them. Court's only response could be to try and force local ISPs to block the offenders, but local ISPs don't have to do it and doesn't prevent VPNs from bypassing it.
Not to mention, all the companies you just mentioned are run and controlled by complete retards that know nothing about conducting good business.
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Which doesn't matter because she has even less power to do anything.
Simple (Score:2)
All these teens find out how to circumvent laws made by adult assholes. Might be a good thing too.
Everyone will just move to Telegram (Score:2)
That doesn't seem to be included on the list.
back seat (Score:1)
Without social media being a meeting place for teens they will meet where they have meet and should meet. In the back seat of a 1959 Plymouth Fury or 1958 Chevy Impala. Ford Galaxy seats would bust your butt.
If teens can't figure it out... (Score:2)
If Australian teens can't figure a way around it, Australia is .... hint: Shadowsocks
What happens? (Score:3)
VPN providers make bank.
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They go somewhere else....
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If they have a phone they'll still be able to send text messages.
The creative ones will figure out ways...
And those that gets isolated will get "creative" and start to make a mess.
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Far more likely it wasn't considered social media because there's no algorithm pushing for engagement, it's just humans communicating with humans in a way that is unmediated by some random company and its attempts to drive outrage, engagement, and shopping.
Re:What happens? (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if they'll discover bulletin board systems (BBS) like we used to use before the internet was even a thing.
Seems to me there might be a proliferation of such systems appearing in Oz. I wonder if they could even "import" content from other mainstream social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube etc like FidoNet used to do with usenet postings. Now *that* would be interesting.
Hey... come to think of it, let's just revive usenet and be done with it!
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I blame my access to BBSs and modems for the reason why I never became enamored with social media and mobile phones. I got all of that out of my system very early.
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I ran my own BBS back in the day as a teenager. Most of the people on BBSes were there because they had an interest in computers, whereas most of the people on modern social media couldn't care less about the technology and are there to discuss something else. It used to be that you had to have some basic knowledge to get online, now phones come preloaded with the Facebook app.
Basically, the normies/"Eternal Septembers" took over.
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No.
Not for long they don't (Score:1)
The next step is to ban vpns. They will be more tightly regulated than guns.
Not that it matters because human civilization is collapsing but all this think of the children bullshit is just a power grab by authoritarians.
We can't do anything about it because we're too busy worrying about woke trans drag queens forcing us to say happy holidays while playing Mortal Kombat on the Sega Genesis.
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We can go down that rabbit hole, but it depends on how tyrannical a government is willing to go. North Korea can slam the screws all the way down to the point of installing client software on devices.
However, can other governments go to those extremes and be effective? Some other states ban VPNs, but one can just use things like SSH to get around that prohibition. This is a cat-and-mouse game that some countries can win... but many cannot, unless they remake the entire Internet.
Re:Not for long they don't (Score:4, Informative)
[1]Michigan has a bill [mi.gov] to ban VPNs where SSH is just another "circumvention tool" that must be blocked too. If SSH works , then your ISP is liable for $125,000 per day until they break it.
No more ports 22 or 443 in Michigan if this passes. No more e-commerce. No more banking. No more encrypted internet for anyone, of any age. Telnet and http-no-s are coming back! (Until someone tunnels through them; then ISPs will have to block those too.)
[1] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2025-2026/billintroduced/House/pdf/2025-HIB-4938.pdf
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, everyone. My mistake. An ISP which tolerates its users using ssh or https would be liable for $250,000 per day, not $125,000 per day. I realize that in the time since I posted, many of you made the determination "oh, it's not so bad" and bought houses in Michigan, now to be blindsided by that fact that I negligently underestimated the cost by a factor of two. I apologize for the error.
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Yeah. China tried that. The UK too. Does not work. And to make things like the TOR browser illegal is not easy and subject to the Streisand-effect.
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That's a great option for kids who lack bank accounts.
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I don't think the goal of the legislation is to ensure that 100% of kids under 16 are off social media. I think the goal is (more realistically) to get most kids off social media. And VPNs cost money and usually require a credit card to sign up. This is something that most under 16 year olds in Australia don't have. So there is a barrier there.