It was an impressive launch of the social media regulation; an audience, good speakers, impassioned politicians, and a particularly effective video featuring Erica Stanford and a group of teenagers who outlined their personal experience and concerns about social media and, with the exception of one, who said they would not let their siblings near it if they had a choice.
A stat I hadn't heard was 40% of kids say they wish social media had never been invented. That gives pause, I would've thought.
Although the audience was clearly stacked and the speakers all said essentially the same thing, I did wonder what it must be like to work at Meta or any one of the big tech players who, by and large, globally are seen these days as pariahs.
They're constantly in court over any number of issues and almost permanently being fined for breaches.
How many times do you reckon Zuckerberg gets hauled in front of a Senate committee in Washington before he pauses long enough to wonder about what he has made?
Anyway, what we look to do is little different from anyone else, as far as I can tell.
In Australia it is not a panacea. In France a court has blocked it for now. The best I think we can hope for is it at least allows parents to say to their kids, if they want to, that it's the law. So that helps a bit.
For the purist, you can argue that it doesn’t actually work. It will never actually work.
But for the purist, you should've seen the room yesterday. I think the purist is very much the minority.
Big tech has Trump on its side, and they see it as anti-American, even though it's no such thing.
But in totality it's almost a collective moment in time. No matter what country you are in broadly speaking big tech, social media and its algorithms have massively overplayed their hands and people are sick of it and sickened by it.
It would be lovely to have free speech and to choose our course of our own free will. But the reality is the damage is too high.
The lack of guardrails is too glaring.
And so we join the growing number of what may well be a modern version of an historic line in the sand.
And time will show we were on the right side of it.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
Although the audience was clearly stacked and the speakers all said essentially the same thing, I did wonder what it must be like to work at Meta or any one of the big tech players who, by and large, globally are seen these days as pariahs.
They're constantly in court over any number of issues and almost permanently being fined for breaches.
How many times do you reckon Zuckerberg gets hauled in front of a Senate committee in Washington before he pauses long enough to wonder about what he has made?
Anyway, what we look to do is little different from anyone else, as far as I can tell.
In Australia it is not a panacea. In France a court has blocked it for now. The best I think we can hope for is it at least allows parents to say to their kids, if they want to, that it's the law. So that helps a bit.
For the purist, you can argue that it doesn’t actually work. It will never actually work.
But for the purist, you should've seen the room yesterday. I think the purist is very much the minority.
Big tech has Trump on its side, and they see it as anti-American, even though it's no such thing.
But in totality it's almost a collective moment in time. No matter what country you are in broadly speaking big tech, social media and its algorithms have massively overplayed their hands and people are sick of it and sickened by it.
It would be lovely to have free speech and to choose our course of our own free will. But the reality is the damage is too high.
The lack of guardrails is too glaring.
And so we join the growing number of what may well be a modern version of an historic line in the sand.
And time will show we were on the right side of it.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
3 comments:
I think social media is great for many reasons. Despite some of the flaws.
But how is social media defined?
I especially like YouTube and this website too.
You get an opportunity to see and/or read views on just about every subject. And you also get to voice an "opinion" in a comments section.
But with this legislation "under 16s" will lose their rights to voice an "opinion".
They will also lose the ability access "extra curricula" subjects - How to play a musical instrument, learn a new sport, or a multitude of academic subjects and views.
They will only have what is taught in schools and what the mainstream media feed.
A ban will only contribute to dumbing down our nation even more.
So, I think we should be careful what we wish for. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and this social media ban will just be another colossal farce.
Meta has announced the following changes to their platform after US litigation which require approval from the court.
- Time Limit - Teens will have a two-hour daily time limit on Facebook and Instagram, though it can be overridden by a parent. The two-hour total includes both apps.
- Night Mode - Users will be blocked from posting and viewing content between midnight and 6 a.m.
- School Mode - Notifications are muted between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.
- Prompts - The apps will send prompts after every 15 minutes of continuous screen time. There will also be prompts when daily usage hits 60 minutes and 90 minutes.
- Feed Control - Teens can choose a non-algorithmic feed that does not include personalization through the Instagram and Facebook recommendation systems. Parents will be able to require this setting.
- Autoplay Control - Teens will be able to turn off autoplay. Parents can require this setting.
Hidden Likes - Teens won't see the likes and reactions on a post by default.
- Filters - Cosmetic surgery and extreme makeup filters won't be accessible to teens.
A- ge Assurance - Meta plans to strengthen tools it uses to catch accounts belonging to users under 13, as well as accounts used by teens aged 13 to 17 to make sure the accounts have "experiences designed for teens."
- Parental Controls - Meta will add new controls for parents, notifying them if a teen links a second account or interacts with suspicious accounts. Parents will also get periodic updates on teen usage.
Direct Messages - Direct messages are exempt from Time Limit, Night Mode, and School Mode.
Meta will also pay approximately $18 billion to states to fund online youth safety initiatives, which is far less than its 2025 net income of $60.5 billion. The payment will be spread over a 10-year period, and Meta is withholding $5.3 billion unless TikTok and YouTube implement similar measures. If they do, Meta says it will lower daily usage limits from two cumulative hours across both apps to one hour for each app and expand Night Mode to run from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Meta wants YouTube and TikTok to add a one-hour daily limit, night mode, and age assurance measures, as well as pay $5.3 billion each to match Meta's withheld $5.3 billion. Meta posted an open letter calling on TikTok and YouTube to implement the same measures. Teens with restrictions on Instagram and Facebook could instead just move over to TikTok and YouTube, and Meta likely doesn't want to be the only company losing out on revenue.
Meta has been in a federal trial over the lawsuit, and had it continued, it could have been forced to pay more. California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey were seeking closer to $200 billion in civil penalties, according to Reuters. The settlement came before Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was set to testify, but Florida declined to settle and will continue litigation. New Mexico was also uninvolved because it won its own case against Meta earlier this year."
The smart thing to do is to wait at least a year or two for the Australian law to settle in, plus others.
David Seymour stated it the best and what he said was, that the introduction of the law in Australia has reduced the U16 on social media from 84% to 78% and the question is what is the cost of that 6% reduction, and I think we should wait to understand a little more.
This is just the usual stupid politics stuff. Fast followers make less mistakes when they understand the outcomes.
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