Australia has just passed a law that will ban kids from social media online. How exactly? Well, through the amazing power of… shoosh.

  • Gorgritch_Umie_Killa@aussie.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    18 days ago

    Theres no line for the Liberals to win a young constituency of voters on this. They voted in line with Labor and waved it through Parliament.

    Part of me knows this is a populist strategy, but there is the chance that the Parliament has been privy to information the public isn’t.

    Three things make me wonder if theres some urgent-ish security concern raised in regards radicalisation of young people driving this,

    1. Both Partys generally line up on National Security matters.
    2. They cut debate, and oversight. Maybe to save time, maybe because they are allowed to specify the real reason.
    3. The Big Social media companies haven’t wet the bed and begun a campaign against it.

    If this is related to security, then theres probably other clues. It’d be interesting to see if theres a difference in different country’s Social Medias reactions, say tiktok’s reaction as opposed youtube’s? There could be a clue there. We’re not far off the Aus election, but we have also just witnessed a fairly hot election in the USA, maybe we should be looking back at that, instead of forward.

    Or i’m wrong and its just a populist election move that the Liberals weren’t going to let Labor capture the narrative on.

    • Ilandar@aussie.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      18 days ago

      Social media pushes people towards fringe beliefs and breeds anti-establishment sentiment. It is definitely in the best interests of the established, centrist (relatively speaking) major parties to attempt to curb any radicalisation occurring in the populace. And I don’t mean that in a cynical sense - I am sure politicians in Canberra have been thinking a lot about where society is headed at the moment.