The Australian government has announced what it describes as world-leading legislation that would set 16 years as the minimum age for children to use social media and hold platforms responsible for ensuring compliance.
I’ve been in online communities since shortly after my 10th birthday and this has never once been a problem.
Most of my friends when I was a teenager were people I met online. It was beyond a reasonable doubt good for me to be on the Internet during that time because it was the only place where I fit in, where I could be myself.
If I ever have kids, I hope they fit in better than I did offline, but if they don’t, there is no way I am going to prevent them from socializing in online communities.
That’s great. That’s a personal antecdote though. I was online, unsupervised at 14 years old back in the late 90s, and being into anime and furry shit, I definitely had more than a couple people online trying to roleplay sexual shit with me…a fourteen year old kid. Even though my account profiles stated so. Unfettered, unsupervised access is also not the solution. I’m basing my opinion on this on my own experience as well. There are a shitload of predators out there.
I am not saying a blanket, hamfisted ban is the solution either. This is more complex than being a black and white problem. Where the fuck is everybody’s parents? They should be the ones actively guiding their kid through online spaces, not the government. It was literally a slogan in the 90s to “ask your parents before accessing such and such website” on every ad having to do with the Internet. WTF happened.
I’ve been in online communities since shortly after my 10th birthday and this has never once been a problem.
Most of my friends when I was a teenager were people I met online. It was beyond a reasonable doubt good for me to be on the Internet during that time because it was the only place where I fit in, where I could be myself.
If I ever have kids, I hope they fit in better than I did offline, but if they don’t, there is no way I am going to prevent them from socializing in online communities.
That’s great. That’s a personal antecdote though. I was online, unsupervised at 14 years old back in the late 90s, and being into anime and furry shit, I definitely had more than a couple people online trying to roleplay sexual shit with me…a fourteen year old kid. Even though my account profiles stated so. Unfettered, unsupervised access is also not the solution. I’m basing my opinion on this on my own experience as well. There are a shitload of predators out there.
I am not saying a blanket, hamfisted ban is the solution either. This is more complex than being a black and white problem. Where the fuck is everybody’s parents? They should be the ones actively guiding their kid through online spaces, not the government. It was literally a slogan in the 90s to “ask your parents before accessing such and such website” on every ad having to do with the Internet. WTF happened.