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What's the expected online experience of minors ousted from social media by surveillance state age-ban (identity-gating) laws? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) by streetfestival@lemmy.ca to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

(Age-restricting social media is primarily about de-anonymizing online activity [by requiring each online user to submit legal documents and/or biometric data to link to their online behaviour] as a means of social control, eg, to eliminate future anti-fossil fuel organizing.)

That said and, hypothetically assuming a teen can't circumvent the age restriction, what would the average 15 year old's online experience be like? What would they do/ see/ be exposed to? I'd expect most would spend time on social media if they could. So absent that, youtube (if somehow not categorized as social media), gaming (if they're into that), and the 'AI' baked into common searches and browsers primarily? Is there 'underground' social media that the average teen would access?

I don't think kids of that age would have been taught to run actual searches, examine sources, and read content from primary searches.

Is a potential impact of this legislation to reinforce the next generations' use of the 'AI' and the closed, corporate-controlled internet big tech wants (ie, walled off gardens, pay-to-access information, etc.)?

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[–] mrbn@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 hour ago

It will likely push them to more fringe platforms with less moderation and a greater risk to the "children" that these laws that are pretending to be about protecting them.

[–] Bitflip@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 hours ago

They'll probably look for an alternative without age restrictions, fill their system with malware and blindly become part of the next ddos botnet.

[–] EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app 4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I guess I imagine it'll be more like the early internet, before everyone visited the same 10 websites only. I hope anyway.

[–] ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I kinda need to visit more sites myself.

[–] EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app 2 points 2 hours ago

The fediverse is kind of the start of that journey for me! 🥰

[–] msokiovt@lemmy.today 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Kids always know how to bypass this stuff, especially these days. They know they'll eventually have to ditch systems require digital ID.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

This comment is downvoted, but that's exactly what is happening in Australia

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jun/24/australia-under-16-social-media-ban-no-substantial-effects-study

[–] streetfestival@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

A useful early data point, a survey study of kids 3 months post policy change; thanks for sharing. But what they implemented so far in Australia wasn't much of a barrier and doesn't seem that representative of what could happen under effective id-gating. Maybe kids have more fight in them than I give them credit for though; that's what I'm hearing from the room.

Although two-thirds of teenagers in the study said they had to complete age verification checks, only 5% of 12- to 13-year-olds and 11% of 14- to 15-year-olds had to provide a photo of official ID. The two most common checks were asking teens their age and uploading a selfie.