This week's edition of The Fold discusses the Oz ban on (some) social media companies allowing under-16s to access their platforms;

https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/02-12-2025/the-fold-australias-big-tech-revolution-rolls-on

On one level, I'm playing the world's smallest violin for the DataFarming platforms targeted. I'm also relieved that the ban doesn't seem to apply to fediverse services, and other not-for-profit online services that clearly could be put in the "social media" bucket if the politicians were so inclined.

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"... you have politics litigated on the platforms where young people are - everyone kind of is but particularly young people - and all the incentives of those platforms are to practice politics as this kind of bombthrowing exercise. Where the ... policy outcomes and how it might ultimately reach you feel a long way down the list, if they're on it at all."

#DuncanGreive, 2025

https://thespinoff.co.nz/podcasts/the-fold

They're not. The Algorithms do not care about policy.

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"... I used to study medicine, I was training to be a doctor. But I couldn't actually afford my rent because it was London, so I had to work in marketing on the side. Then I started to really get into marketing to the point where I actually left medicine ..."

#AndrewTindall, System1, 2025

https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/02-09-2025/the-fold-myths-and-truths-in-modern-advertising

His job could have been saving people's lives, but instead it's persuading them they want stuff. That's heartbreaking.

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