[kennysoona]

It can't work. Teens will just jump to mastodon instances. I can even see it being the case where running an instance become like being able to make fake ids or sell some weed or something, one person will do it and be cool have friends because of that. Parents won't know about it and it won't raise any flags in logs if done well.

Not to mention just using a VPN or something.

[4ad]

The system will work just fine. You seem to be under the impression that the purpose of the system is to prevent teenagers from accessing some websites. That is not the purpose of the system, that's just the pretext for implementing it.

[kennysoona]

You're saying the system is to get everyone to submit their ID so their social media can be tracked? That too will be mitigated by increased adoption of decentralized services.

[somanyphotons]

> It can't work

Depends on what 'work' means.

Pre-internet Australia had pretty strong media censorship.

I view this a quiet attempt to disentangle Australia from any foreign company that isn't willing to jump through longer-term censorship hoops.

[reshlo]

There’s also that law allowing the Australian government to compel any tech employee in Australia to covertly insert a backdoor into the encrypted communication systems that their employer builds, which feels very similar.

> The founder of an encrypted messaging app who left Australia for Switzerland after police unexpectedly visited an employee’s home says he had left because of Australia’s “hostile” stance against developers building privacy-focused apps…

> Linton also pointed to the expected arrival of age assurance for social media, as well as a new code coming into effect in December on cloud and encrypted messaging providers from the eSafety commissioner, as other evidence of the hostile environment for privacy-focused apps.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/nov/05/sessi...

[averageRoyalty]

The vast majority of teens don't have the skillset to cover their tracks like that. Although the vast majority of parents don't know how to check logs.

The issue here (as always) is a parenting one. If you are supervising your children (as is your responsibility) then these issues can't happen. I hear from people all the time that supervision is unrealistic and not feasible, from the same people who have 12+ hours of screen time reports on their phones...

No government policy or technical solution will cover for people being shitty, disconnected parents.

[kennysoona]

> The vast majority of teens don't have the skillset to cover their tracks like that.

Every class has a classmate, or sibling or friend of a classmate who would have the skills, and you only need one such kid for a few hundred people.

> The issue here (as always) is a parenting one. If you are supervising your children (as is your responsibility) then these issues can't happen.

I would say teens shouldn't be supervised to this extent and pushback against such tight supervision is natural and IMO justified.

[averageRoyalty]

> Every class has a classmate, or sibling or friend of a classmate who would have the skills, and you only need one such kid for a few hundred people.

You're discussing organised conspiracy, opsec across teenagers here, and a subject knowledge cover all sorts of different networks and devices across a single source unlikely for teenagers. Not to mention many hours of tech support. It's therotically possible, but in reality it's unlikely.

> I would say teens shouldn't be supervised to this extent and pushback against such tight supervision is natural and IMO justified.

You're right, my statement came across too absolutist. I'm not advocating for a prison level supervision program, but an awareness of what your child is doing online and who they're interacting with. There are also other elements that come down to parenting - building healthy and trusting relationships with your kids, giving them pathways to be able to talk to you about mistakes or things they're uncomfortable with, pushing for honesty as a core attribute, etc.

A mixture of these things and a reasonable level of age appropriate supervision will remove this problem in all but the most extreme edge cases. However most parents don't do even the bare minimum - giving their kids phones, not bothering to learn how to set up restrictions, spending their time staring at their own devices, etc.

The issue that is being attempted to solve here is a parenting one fundamentally, not a technology or government policy one.

[kennysoona]

> You're discussing organised conspiracy, opsec across teenagers here, and a subject knowledge cover all sorts of different networks and devices across a single source unlikely for teenagers. Not to mention many hours of tech support. It's therotically possible, but in reality it's unlikely.

Alternatively, I'm discussing a tech savvy teen creating something that takes maybe an hour to setup and it spreading via word of mouth, which seems pretty likely.

I agree it makes sense to monitor internet activity to an extent, I just don't know to what extent. being able to look up the stuff I was able to look up in the 90s was incredibly useful to my development, even if it would not have been allowed. I might monitor, reluctantly and mainly for certain keywords, but mostly I would want to foster trust and responsibility.

[aaplok]

There are many things that are illegal to minors around the world, and that teenagers do anyway. That's what (healthy) teenagers do: disobey.

The purpose of these laws is to make it illegal for adults to encourage those behaviours.

[dyauspitr]

Who cares? It’s not one unified place they can all congregate.