The pieces of software the article mentions are:
Meta – Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp Snap Tiktok YouTube X Roblox Pinterest Discord Lego Play Reddit Kick GitHub HubApp Match Steam TwitchSketchy ID verification aside, I agree with everything except for GitHub and YouTube.
YouTube is such a resource for DIY and learning, you just can’t ban kids from it, even if parts of it are sketchy. A restricted mode for kids would be better.
GitHub is also a huge database of knowledge, important for being techy and computer literate, and doesn’t really even have much on the way of social features. Banning this would be asinine.
I was initially against Steam, but then I realized that parents could still buy their kids games, and it’s probably better to force parents to take responsibility for that anyways.
Call me old, but I don’t think that under 16s should be allowed on a dating site even without an social media ban.
So far, I thought this was the norm. Dating apps are basically all 18+ here, although I did encounter kids posing as adults while I still used them
I agree.
Should a government be forcing this? I don’t think so. Especially if that requires providing personal information to the internet to enforce compliance.
Who but the government would enforce the law? Because if there is none, there is no reason for the dating app to self-limit their customer base. They might write “you have to be 18+ to use this app” in the T&Cs, but nobody could held them responsible if school kids hang out there with fictional birthdays.
No one under 16 should be on a dating app
No silly you need to upload your drivers license to some shady 3rd party age verification service to protect 16 year olds from accidentally using dating sites.
They even pinky promised to not store your data in some vibe coded system that will leak it all the first time a hacker so much as scans for api end points.
Now stop asking questions and grant front camera permissions so our AI that is maybe 75% accurate cab guess your age.
Fucking leaky vibes.
Yeah, “even dating apps” is kind of strange wording.
Especially dating apps would make so much more sense
I mean, probably best to keep <16yos off dating apps…
The rest of it, yeah. I heard Github is also possibly on the list? XD
Is lemmy not on the list?!??? WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? We are so gonna be flooded with teens…
The rest of the world
Good. The vast majority of social media is corporate cancer and kids should have a chance to develop critical thinking skills before they start using it.
where else do you passively get information?
People seem to forget that a great multitude of information sources existed prior to social media - even on the Internet.
Every time I hear about another overreach from the eSafety commissioner I think I of this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw-1K8Fr4QA
Big Mother is watching you. Mother’s protecting you. Mommy knows what’s right for you.
btw you know she worked as a “government relations manager” for twitter, adobe and microshit before landing this job
