"Give me your phone, give me your laptop" works pretty well.

My phone has a giant "setup parental controls" button. You can block specific websites using tools like PiHole that are easy to set up.

Its a very simple fix with a few law changes.

1. The act of promoting or curating user submitted data makes the company strictly liable for any damages done by the content.
2. The deliberate spreading of harmful false information makes the hosting company liable for damages.

This would bankrupt Facebook, Twitter, etc within 6 months.

As someone that grew up with an "unmonitored" internet. I can say that it was significantly more healthy than the profit driven "keep watching" algorithm that is all of social media today.

Yeah. I saw "two girls one cup" and "lemon party". But, did I slowly have my perspective of reality changed by the 30 second videos I swiped on for hours at a time for days on end?

No, most of my time was spent learning about computers, "stealing" music, and chatting with my real life friends.

I don't think a kid today can experience that internet anymore. It's gone. But acting like "unmonitored" internet access is worse is pearl clutching and ignoring the fundamental problems the profit driven internet has created at the expense of societies mental health.

Kids will absolutely find another place to connect online in Australia. But, honestly, I think whatever that is will be healthier than the absolute brain rot that is profit driven social media.

Let's legally require social media companies to gather even more sensitive information about their users, making them more vulnerable to identity theft in the process and isolating the most vulnerable in our society from their support networks. There is literally nothing negative about this.

You are a fucking imbecile.

Strangely enough, support networks can exist outside of social media. It's very possible to directly message friends or neighbors without being subjected to the dregs of public social media. It remains possible to get world/local news without an attached public forum.

If you're going to make a space that has content for adults and allows for free adult discussions (with all the nuance and complications that entails), then restrict it to adults only.

This is only a problem in conjuction with legislation requiring social media use (ie: as an official broadcast system, payment platform, electoral tool, etc...). If we fight that and force it to remain an opt-in disinformation platform then who cares?

As it currently stands nothing is forcing you on these platforms other than a conditioned familiarity. Even worse, there are no tech or legal protections preventing them uniquely identifying users today. Them getting an official state ID doesn't change much. More barriers to entry for a shitty surveillance and propoganda platform? Literally no downsides there.

Tech giants are well known for lobbying against any legislation that gives them less freedoms to exploit markets and regulations of any kind that impact them - but this legislation that was targeted specifically at regulating them and removes a significant number of users - "this is suspicious, I think they might be the ones pushing it!"

There's so many people in under this post trying to turn it into anything but what it is - legislation attempting to protect kids from the harms of social media. Which, again - are well documented.