I'm absolutely OK with that idea.

I have just one question : how is a kid supposed to prove that he/she is 16+ ?

As far as I know, no country delivers ID cards to anyone that is not a legal adult in that country, and that generally means 18.

So ?

Easy to fix. Old enough to walk, old enough to carry ID. Anyone** more than 3 should easily understand a policeman demanding "ID - schnell".

Anyway a good caning helped me learn back in the day. Tasing is a more modern and high tech version that doesn't leave unsightly stripes.

**QR codes on deaf kids.

One thing that keeps coming up is if betting sites can do it, why can't social media sites. No one seems to grasp the concept that to bet online you are going to need a credit or debit card, because the sites make their money directly from you, and that becomes a default proof of ID.

But social media sites make their money from advertisers and your viewing time. So make users give their card details to them? Their viewing numbers would tumble, not just from under age users, but because who would trust them to keep the details safe? Same goes double for online smut peddlers.

It's almost like all these online protection measures are actually designed to protect established, political-donating, venders of all the things the politicians all claim we need protecting from when it's provided by newly arrived providers.

See also the crackdown on small vape providers until big tobacco has had time to transfer it's business model over from their old nicotine delivery systems.

As far as I know, no country delivers ID cards to anyone that is not a legal adult in that country, and that generally means 18.

Spain requires people to have ID cards from the age of criminal responsibility onwards, which is 14.

In Australia you can get your learners drivers licence at 16, so that would work. And I have a vague recollection (it's been a while since I moved away from Aus), that there was a 16+ ID available from the police, same as an 18+ ID for those who dont have a drivers licence.

To clarify that statement in Aus, a drivers licence is the main type of ID you need for access to "Adult" things (Pubs, clubs, etc.), so for those that dont drive there is an 18+ ID you can get, so you can attend such places...

"To clarify that statement in Aus, a drivers licence is the main type of ID you need for access to "Adult" things (Pubs, clubs, etc.), so for those that dont drive there is an 18+ ID you can get, so you can attend such places..."

Why would anybody want to go to an Aussie pub?

For those who haven't visited the otherwise wonderful country, Australian pubs are uniquely grim. UK readers should imagine a down at heel student union bar in the days before student loans - big open areas with high headroom, usually in what is no more than a sparse and tastelessly decorated shed, cheap carpets that are sticky with spilt semi-congealed beer, any vestige of homeliness, comfort, or cosiness absent by design. The polar opposite to a decent UK pub or a characterful European bar.

There's always passports.. I think it's pretty standard now that anyone of any age can get them in most countries? There was a crackdown on the whole 'random children travelling on adult's passports without photo verification' thing some years back.

Australians who are not planning on heading overseas wont go out of their way to get a passport - reason: it will set you back somewhere between A$300-500.

I dont know anyone that dedicated to Antisocial media to pay that fee... ;)

I hate 'disinformation' rules, because every time I've seen it so far, it's almost all political, and at least half of the 'disinformation' is actually facts that are inconvenient to whoever is in power. Meanwhile,

actual disinformation that is positive to the current government is perfectly fine and allowed.

Whilst I agree that's often the case, there needs to be something to stop people encouraging violence.

The recent violent protests by right wing extremists in the UK, was all kicked off through the deliberate misinformation that the attack on a kids dance group was perpetrated by an islamic refugee (it wasnt). That deliberate misinformation was known early on, and deliberately spread wider in order to call for attacks on all immigrants.

Trumps bollocks claims about Haitian migrants eating their neighbours pets, was based on a deliberate piece of disinformation designed to try and get attacks started against Haitian migrants in the region.

Should those sorts of deliberate misinformation created with the express purpose of encouraging violence be allowed? It is time we took back the discourse from the extremists and return it to civil society. And that starts with reining in the Antisocial media firms and the echo chambers they deliberately create...

The cure will prove worse than the disease.

"That admission didn't go down well. Even so, the fact that scraping Australians' content was made possible by privacy laws that are less strong than those in the EU meant Meta was able to emerge without looking entirely villainous."

No, Meta still villains.

To use a well known phrase, just because they could does not mean they should.

Anybody who thinks EU rules have had any material impact on data scraping by Meta and the rest of US big-tech needs their head examining.

Yes, there's rules, there's even some enforcement, but only after the fact, it's incomplete enforcement, and big tech work on the basis that everything's legal unless they're caught, and then only after they've exhausted years of appeals up to the highest court possible. If GDPR was properly enforced, Google and Meta (for starters) wouldn't have any business in Europe at all.

Albanese's govt is facing an election early 2025 so a fair bit of this might be taken with grain of salt.

While I for one would be content if all social media were blocked in AU which is probably the only option that would prevent U16s from accessing these sites and even then I imagine there are quite a few cluey 15 year olds using a VPN.

We have the head of ASIO wanting to ban secure (uninterceptable) messaging (Clipper reheated?) and governments legislating age limits on access to specific internet services without any practical idea on how that might be implemented. Not too far from the US state legislature on biblical authority that once proclaimed π=3. ( Intelligent Design ? So how are you lot accounted for then?)

"Real experience from real people" while I understand what was intended this way of stating it seems just plain daft and open to derision like "you mean real abuse from real paedophiles?"

I would have thought "a rich variety of experiences in a broad selection of environments from a diversity of people" might better describe the challenging and enriching processes desired.