@decryption “It follows a move in December in #Australia, where parliament enacted the world’s first ban on #SocialMedia for children — setting the minimum age at 16.”

Read the HN [1] post and AP news article.

> I, too, was a really great parent before having children.

I was expecting the usual younger, “no lived experience responses”, instead those responding have some knowledge of either Denmark, EU law or have children themselves. What is interesting the replies focus on mobile phones as a delivery for social media. Why not tackle mobile usage?

Having followed the news on the SM ban (OfCom OSA 2023 Act [2]), it is my view, a Trojan horse for digital information snooping via end to end encryption busting when the technology becomes available.

“The UK home secretary Amber Rudd has previously called encryption “completely unacceptable” and the UK prime minister Theresa May has said that the big internet companies give terrorists “safe spaces” to communicate. In November 2016, the UK parliament passed the Investigatory Powers Act that put into legislation the ability to force companies to remove encryption. But how that will work in practice is far from clear.”

Remember the “laws of mathematics don’t apply to Australia, only laws of Australia” comment by our PM in 2017? [3] <https://www.newscientist.com/article/2140747-laws-of-mathematics-dont-apply-here-says-australian-pm/ >

The SM ban is a side quest. The breaking of E2E encryption is the “main quest” of OSA.

[1] HN should only be thought of as a, “per post” representation of readers who vote and comment. Not a broader representation of the hacker or startup community there.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Safety_Act_2023

[3] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2140747-laws-of-mathematics-dont-apply-here-says-australian-pm/

[4] https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/06/osb-encryption-scanning-feasibility/

@decryption people love to vote for face-eating leopards while the leopards are over there

@decryption from my perspective it’s one of those positions that, prima facie, warrants a ‘shrug? Of course’ response but ACTUALLY hides implementation toxicity. Ie. “How do without remove anonymous internet access?” “How do without data and privacy catastrophe?” “HM What actual problem we want solve?””Hm wait so safest is just make all internet child safe? Surely no can do problems, me wonder who benefit from ‘child proof’ all internet content.”(Read all that with appropriate Neanderthal accents).

When experts are asked, however, suddenly it becomes a ‘oh god definitely do not legislate this for myriad of reasons ’ conversation.

@decryption important to remember that HN skews very strongly USA, which is to say its full of bad opinions from people with a narrow world view