Social media ban (2 Viewers)

[Studentwhowantstoknow]

two things: 1. as long as scratch, yt and chess.com are allowed I'm fine. 2. like all other bans, internet filtering etc. this will flop worse than anything else.

 

[Study to success]

two things: 1. as long as scratch, yt and chess.com are allowed I'm fine. 2. like all other bans, internet filtering etc. this will flop worse than anything else.

YouTube is banned. But u can still watch vids but u can’t have an account

 

[spiderlemonade]

two things: 1. as long as scratch, yt and chess.com are allowed I'm fine. 2. like all other bans, internet filtering etc. this will flop worse than anything else.

peak pfp

 

[Socialism]

Hopefully this ban prevents young australians being exposed to harmful material online and turning out like socialism

 

[m_avi]

Hopefully this ban prevents young australians being exposed to harmful material online and turning out like socialism

i think you misspelt your username

 

[SylviaB]

i think you miss spelt your username

miss spelt

 

[totally_screwed]

late but I do support it, idk too much about this and how it’s gonna be enforced and all that

my little brother and the current generation of kids are rlly just wow wtf.. like kids don’t touch grass anymore it’s sooo pathetic, and they’ve all got shitty marks at school too like there’s definitely a correlation between screen time and academic, I thought the kids of my generation were doing too much back then but yeah no we were ok

 

[Studentwhowantstoknow]

@Socialism
And this is my desktop screen:

 

[Studentwhowantstoknow]

i don't think so, she's 2026 HSC

Never can be too sure you know.

 

[Study to success]

I swear if yt thinks I'm under 16 I'm gonna explode

 

[Study to success]

I swear if yt thinks I'm under 16 I'm gonna explode

@m_avi this is serious business this is not a joke jk

 

[cristal]

I'm surprised there's no thread here yet since the other hs chats keep yapping about it, so i made one :>

What do y'all think of the social media ban for under 16s? According to ABC news the government is considering adding Roblox, Reddit, Discord, Whatsapp, Steam, Lego Play, Twitch, Pinterest, Steam, Omegle, and Tumblr to the list of banned apps + youtube isn't fully banned bc it's educational but theyre making it so that under 16s cant make an account

My view:
As someone who was born at a very young age(currently year 8) I think that there should definitely be something done about social media use for teenagers especially around harmful content and the impact of social media on mental health. But i don't think a complete ban is the right solution, plus come on, they're banning the lego app

Also i'm curious about how accurate the age verification system would be. If they use face verification, what if someone looks older or younger than their age? If they use ID verification, wouldn't that make it an easy target for hackers? Either way, everyone's gonna be using a VPN anyways...

I do feel there should be more restrictions on roblox
Pinterest is pretty crazy, sure there's a chat on images but it's not really a video or anything
I think there was some thing about VPN but I'm not sure, and these platforms have probably saved our IP addresses somewhere asw

 

[its_ace21]

My sisters friends have been using relatives faces to be able to access Roblox chat

 

[Study to success]

My sisters friends have been using relatives faces to be able to access Roblox chat

so kids will just do that to access social media

 

[Study to success]

I honestly don't think this ban will work cause there's so many ways that I can think of already for kids to bypass the ban like using older people's faces and id. I think the only way to fix this problem is if parents are more responsible and put restrictions on their kids through vpns that block them from using social media like my parents or they have education to encourage kids to be more responsible and to follow the rules. It's about changing their mindset to realise that they can live without social media and encourage them to find joy and to occupy themselves with other things. But obv with the whole world revolving around social media it's hard to change things. But this ban could encourage kids to find other ways to communicate and occupy themselves

 

[Study to success]

I think china has this rule where kids are only allowed to play like 1-2 hrs of games a day and then it automatically blocks them from playing but that wouldn't solve any problem cause kids would still use parents id to pretend that their not a child.

 

[aaliya]

Luv this thread tbh y'all r speaking fax ( dont jump on me btw 4 dum reason, I just saw this n was like oOoHHh let see so yea)

 

[WTbattleace]

Yeah this Labor initiative will backfire big time. Kids are quite quizzical that they will find ways around the ban. Apparently the High Court has already agreed to hear a challenge about this ban being 'unconstitutional'?

I can unfortunately see Australia following at the heels of the Starmer-led digital I.D push. It appears that this is step 1 in the process.

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12...llenge-to-under-16-social-media-ban/106103338

 

[HazzRat]

Yeah this Labor initiative will backfire big time. Kids are quite quizzical that they will find ways around the ban. Apparently the High Court has already agreed to hear a challenge about this ban being 'unconstitutional'?

I can unfortunately see Australia following at the heels of the Starmer-led digital I.D push. It appears that this is step 1 in the process.

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12...llenge-to-under-16-social-media-ban/106103338

In my opinion the Digital Freedom Project case will fail. Their entire argument is that the law is unconstitutional because it burdens the freedom of political communication implied within the constitution for young people. While the high court would be able to strike down a law that specifically targets freedom of political communication, they have have a willingness to allow laws created for the greater wellbeing of young people, of which a hinderance to political communication is just a consequence. For example, they allow cinemas to reject young people from buying tickets to mature movies, even if those movies have political content, and they allow venues to reject young people from political functions where alcohol is served. Also young people 13 and under were already banned from these platforms so there’s so real difference. So although the act would burden political communication for young people, as long as that wasn’t the act’s sole purpose I think it’ll be fine.

I think the most interesting part of the law is seeing what externalities it causes, and how it affects people over 16. Hopefully the act isn’t too burdensome for us. I don’t want to be hooking my drivers license up to any of these platforms, and I certainly don’t even want to create an account for others.

 

[HazzRat]

I honestly don't think this ban will work cause there's so many ways that I can think of already for kids to bypass the ban like using older people's faces and id. I think the only way to fix this problem is if parents are more responsible and put restrictions on their kids through vpns that block them from using social media like my parents or they have education to encourage kids to be more responsible and to follow the rules. It's about changing their mindset to realise that they can live without social media and encourage them to find joy and to occupy themselves with other things. But obv with the whole world revolving around social media it's hard to change things. But this ban could encourage kids to find other ways to communicate and occupy themselves

I think parenting is the solution too. Surely parents would realise if their kid is wandering around the city late at night, or recklessly partying, or friends with a bad bunch. So I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch for parents to be a bit more keen about monitoring their kid’s social media use. I think this whole conversation has made us more aware as a society that there are just as many threats inside the house for their kid as outside the house. Perhaps parents in the past were too fervent about keeping their kids at home and away from danger, thinking that their devices were completely safe and stranger free, that they forgot that strange individuals can coalesce behind the screen just as much as the real world. I think a good correction would be for kids to spend more time playing with friends outside in their suburb after school than online on roblox. Although some suburbs are more dangerous than others, the majority of suburbs are incredibly safe and pose no threat. If parents want to keep in contact with their kid, just in case, a simple flip phone or nokia would serve the same function as an iphone.