this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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Not to mention it is counter productive in a number of ways. I have lost the ability to monitor my kids YouTube usage, the kids are just going to move to alternate platforms, and I am amongst the cohort of sensible Australians who will refuse to use social media before I provide some dodgy AI company my ID, it's going to be a lot harder to convince my kids to do the same once all their friends and peers start ratcheting up the conformity pressure after they turn 16. This whole thing isn't misguided, it's a betrayal of the majority of Australians who are too dumb to realise what they are giving away to access these services.
You have opened my eyes to some important issues I had not considered before.
This law actually hurts parents who have actively looked out for their kids. They've been nurturing them, showing them the bad things that are on social media. Teaching them about critical thinking, how to spot bias. How to be aware of algorithms leading you down a path.
Is this the new age prohibition? We all know how that went.
But instead of banning it for everyone, we ban it for those who are youngest, most susceptible, and most unaware of the dangers? Does this put those children who would have been mentored and instructed by good parents and guided over years and throw them to the wolves? And prevent good, active parenting ?
What a silly thing to say. This law doesn't stop parents teaching their kids they evils of social media.
No, what it does is removes agency from parents and tells us that we aren't capable of raising our kids, the government will have to do it. My kids have been asking, for several years, to get Facebook accounts so they can use marketplace. I used that desire to have a frank discussion with them about how predatory Facebook is and how sinister it is that they have subsumed so many things that used to be independent and didn't require an account with them specifically so they can lock users in and Hoover up more data. I have told the kids that if they want Facebook accounts after they turn 18 they are welcome to open them then, but until that day I am not allowing them to give up their privacy. Do I seem disengaged as a parent?
Yes you really do seem... disengaged as a parent.
Prior to the ban, most parents wouldn't tell their kids they couldn't use social for fear of making them pariahs - excluded from something their peers are partaking of.
The ban provides parents with the agency to restrict their kids from using social, because at least the majority of kids won't be there.
I dont see how the ban prevents you from having conversations with your children?
So at this point I have to ask if you have experience raising children, because I have raising five of them and the last part of the previous comment describes excellent parenting, social media law or no.
For the record, I think this law is ineffective and I agree with the point raised in numbered form earlier of this government giving us things we don’t want or need, and ignoring the stuff we do.
Which part are you referring to?
Are you honestly suggesting that imposing a hard requirement for your children to exclude themselves from the platforms on which their peers are engaging with each other is good parenting?
You personally may not want this ban, but it has overwhelming support from parents generally. Its not even a divisive issue, it has bipartisan support. Thats not to say you cant criticise it, merely that "we" really did ask for this.
So it’s a bad idea when parents do it, but a good idea for the government to? Is that what you’re seriously suggesting? Does your whole point ride around peer ridicule, based on who applies the ban, or the ban itself?
Yeah I am honestly suggesting, because parents are better at that, given they know their own children better than most and the situation they’re in. And that it’s their role here, not the federal governments.
So what? Most of the shittier stuff we pass does. It’s a contributor why we’re called ‘the lucky country’.
This policy is lucky country policy.
No we didn’t. We asked for gambling ads to be removed and a solution to the housing crisis.
I can't believe I need to spell this out but here goes.
If kids are generally interacting with each other on social media, then excluding your own child from that will make them a pariah. You know, like the kid that can't go on the school camp because reasons.
With the recent ban, kids are no longer "generally interacting" with each other on social media. It doesn't matter that some will inevitably circumvent the ban. This gives parents the opportunity to enforce boundaries.
Nonsense. Federal government's impose age restrictions on all sorts of things for a variety of reasons. There are legislated ages of consent, alcohol consumption, driving, et cetera.
If something has bipartisan support then more or less by definition, you can't argue that "we" didn't ask for it, because everyone's representatives are asking for it.
By my experience, that didn’t happen. To them or most of their friends. Yes, I know it didn’t, the last one just left school and they were honest with us about it.
Are vastly different from engaging in social networks. That’s why good parents object to this.
I’ll ask again; do you have any experience raising children. For that matter, drinking or driving?
It doesn’t mean it’s in our interest and often means it’s lucky country politics.
I do have kids approaching this age, but I dont see how thats relevant.
Even as a childless bachelor, any idiot can conclude that children spending less time on social media is good for society.
It’s relevant because a lot of us who have raised children understand where the government has gone wrong with this.
That doesn’t mean we all agree, some parents who’ve been through this agree with the law, as you said.
The peer pressure, if it happens, will continue; that’s something I’ll let you know now before yours get to that age. In fact it’ll be stronger because this time they’re really being a rebel; it’s not just mum and dad.
Any idiot concluding that keeping children off social networks is a good thing, is not the same as a government introducing flawed legislation to do that, legislation which will be ineffective. As for what other problems arise from this, we have to wait and see.
Edit: they’re for you’re, third paragraph.
Edit 2: last paragraph for clarity
I started writing out a detailed reply going into all the nuance, but I feel that it's a waste of time. I'm not sure if you are trolling as such, but you are being deliberately obtuse. I actually feel like you understand the points that people are making to you quite clearly. This is terrible legislation, it's a knee jerk reaction to a complex problem, with very few exceptions this is almost always a bad way of enacting policy.
The jab at my parenting because I already do the things you claim parents are too feeble to do without the government holding their hand is admittedly irritating, but I am going to choose to move past it.
This is the brainfart of a conservative grifter, it's satanic panic, it's the war on drugs, it's another populist policy being pitched at the unintelligent to draw their attention while the business and political interests behind it are picking their pocket. You choose not to see it that way then fine, but we both know it's true.
I am going to stop engaging with you now, feel free to have as many last says and derisive put downs as you want. I will not be reading them.
What jab about your parenting? You seem kinda defensive about that actually. Maybe get that looked at.