"At the least, letting children and young teens have unfettered online access will seem worse than letting them frolic in rush hour traffic. Come to think of it, it already does."
#JaneClifton, The Listener, March 4-10, 2023
Well ... yes. The key word here being "unfettered". Having arrived online in the late 1990s, when it was a cross between a university campus and a red light district, it's never been news to me that it's not a place for children to play *unsupervised*.
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#CLuxon is doubling down on the #B416 social media ban for kiwis under 16. This is a terrible idea, for many well-documented reasons. But, if tech policy and civil rights activists allow ourselves to be pulled into a narrow, negative campaign against it, there's a risk this will push many people into supporting it on a 'better than nothing' basis.
What we need is a positive campaign for a suite of tech regulations that can actually shift power away from technofascists.
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#CLuxon is doubling down on the #B416 social media ban for kiwis under 16. This is a terrible idea, for many well-documented reasons. But, if tech policy and civil rights activists allow ourselves to be pulled into a narrow, negative campaign against it, there's a risk this will push many people into supporting it on a 'better than nothing' basis.
What we need is a positive campaign for a suite of tech regulations that can actually shift power away from technofascists.
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"... the advocates of a social media ban for kids under 16 appear willing to ignore the privacy implications that the proposal would have *for everyone*. For a glimpse into the void, check out the United Kingdom’s Offcom advice page on the subject, which cheerily makes a case for wholesale privacy intrusions, with a minimum of reliable safety rails."
#GordonCampbell, 2025
The OffCom page Gordon links to is;
"Of course, now these fights are all about real things. Now we need to worry about centralization, interoperability, lock-in, surveillance, speech, and repair. But the people – like me – who've been fighting over this stuff for a quarter-century? We've gone from 'unserious fools who mistook tech battles for human rights fights' to 'useful idiots for tech companies' in an eyeblink."
@pluralistic, 2025
https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/13/digital-rights/
Glad I'm not the only one who's noticing this.
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I see it a combination of two dynamics. Firstly, a cynical hijacking of the techlash as a cause celebre by political parties.
This is obvious in openly right-wing parties like the one currently in charge of the NZ government (eg #B416 is astroturf funded by partisans). But it also includes centre-right liberal parties cosplaying as "centre-left". Sir Smarmer's "Labour" party leaning into the "Online Safety" Act is an example, as are the dominant Clintonite faction in the US Democrats.
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"David Seymour told Radio NZ that social media was 'messing with kids’ brains' and something must be done. He said there should be an inquiry before any policies are drawn up."
#TomPeters, 2025
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/05/15/geab-m15.html
Not sure about the first part, but I agree with the second part. Let's have some intelligence gathering about the problem - starting with whether there even is one - before drafting legislation. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Age verification has overextended itself 🚨
UK users are coerced into giving sensitive data to many unregulated providers under the threat of wide-ranging censorship.
It’s an open goal for cybercriminals 🤬
Tell your MP (UK) the Online Safety Act isn’t working ⬇️
https://action.openrightsgroup.org/tell-your-mp-online-safety-act-isn%E2%80%99t-working
#OnlineSafetyAct #privacy #ageverification #onlinesafety#OSA #ukpol #ukpolitics #freeexpression #censorship #freedomofexpression #freespeech
If anyone following my account still supports CLuxon's crusade to ban people under 16 from "social media" (still not sure how they define that), I suggest you look into how age verification is working out in practice in the jurisdictions that are already trying it.
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