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34 votes
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Australia’s social media ban and why it's not cut and dry
Australia’s proposed social media ban is deeply concerning and authoritarian. It's disturbing to see how much of the general public supports this measure. Prominent organizations, including...
Australia’s proposed social media ban is deeply concerning and authoritarian. It's disturbing to see how much of the general public supports this measure.
Prominent organizations, including Amnesty International, the Australian Human Rights Commission, and Electronic Frontiers Australia, have voiced significant concerns about this legislation:
Amnesty International's Explanation of the Social Media Ban
Australian Human Rights Commission on the Proposed Social Media Ban for Under-16s
EFA's Critique of the Social Media Age BanAustralia has a troubling history with internet legislation. Noteworthy examples include the Australian Internet Firewall under Stephen Conroy and Malcolm Turnbull's infamous statement, "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia," regarding encryption backdoors.
While I recognize the issues with social media, "don't feed the trolls," along with maintaining online anonymity and implementing parental controls ( no phones with unfettered internet access ), should work. This law indiscriminately punishes all Australians for the missteps of a few, potentially leading to increased identity theft through phone and email scams and causing older family who are not tech literate to lose connections with their families due to the complexities of government-issued tokens.
Adults will be the ones who are going to be most impacted by this legislation.
The scope of this law is extensive. The Online Safety website suggests that this is merely the beginning, with plans to cover the entire web, including games, adult content, and more. The consequences are profound: the erosion of true anonymity and increased risk to government whistle-blowers and journalistic sources.
Requiring individuals to provide their identity to a third party to access the internet, which many have used freely for decades, is alarming. It threatens to sanitize search results and revoke access to purchased games if users refuse additional identity verification measures. There are no grandfathered exceptions, highlighting the law's intent to de-anonymize the internet.
Although Australia lacks a constitutionally protected right to free speech, this law poses significant risks to whistleblowers and marginalized youth in remote communities. Instead of banning access and creating allure through prohibition, we should address the root causes of why younger people are drawn to such content.
Once entrenched in law, any opposition will be met with accusations of perversion or indifference to child safety, compounded by the spread of misinformation. We must critically assess and address these laws to protect our freedoms and privacy.
There wouldn't be speculation if they defined how they intend the law to work. Instead of a "don't worry about it we will work it out", give people something to say that's not so bad and I can live with it
15 votes -
Closing asset loophole can raise $100 billion in taxes, US Treasury now says
10 votes -
Oregon, USA introduces new statewide recycling rules to combat plastic waste
13 votes -
Norwegian Parliament votes to extend abortion access to eighteen weeks into a pregnancy, adding six weeks to a limit set in 1978 when the procedure was first legalized
9 votes -
Australian Parliament bans social media for under-16s with world-first law
61 votes -
Norway has paused its controversial project to open up its seabed for commercial-scale deep-sea mining
17 votes -
History is in the making - It's technology and ideas, not politics, that change our lives the most. History should reflect that.
10 votes -
Norway wants to open its Arctic seabed to mining for critical metals – the WWF is suing the state in a bid to halt exploration
9 votes -
“Solidarity is the only thing that can save us”: An interview with Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix
10 votes -
The price America paid for its first big immigration crackdown
29 votes -
Supreme Court wants US input on whether ISPs should be liable for users’ piracy, in $1 billion Sony v. Cox case
38 votes -
In Northeast D.C., a rancorous post-election fight erupts — over bike lanes
15 votes -
The Texas OB-GYN exodus – Amid increasingly stringent abortion laws, doctors who provide maternal care have been fleeing the state
36 votes -
Scrapped policy to charge London’s drivers by the mile
4 votes -
Is the current war in Palestine the first time the victim wound up being seen as the aggressor?
Something interesting about the latest escalations in the Israel-Palestine war since oct of last year is that Hamas was the one who launched the terrorist attack which lead to the current...
Something interesting about the latest escalations in the Israel-Palestine war since oct of last year is that Hamas was the one who launched the terrorist attack which lead to the current escalation.
Israel suffered a loss and was the victim on that day and the following days, but since their actions in Gaza and Rafah and other neighboring countries, the coverage of Israel very much shows the govt of Israel as the aggressor. It's felt like a complete role reversal to me.
Makes me wonder if this is the first time this has happened in such a short time? You can say that U.S. did the same thing after 9/11 but imo it's actions in the Middle east did not gain it a negative perception amongst world leaders nearly as fast.
19 votes -
Otto Drakenberg is challenging Alisher Usmanov for the leadership of the International Fencing Federation – Usmanov is the heavy favorite despite international sanctions
3 votes -
‘Do not pet’: A robotic dog named “Spot” made by Boston Dynamics is the latest tool in the arsenal of the US Secret Service
20 votes -
Should a country speak a single language? In India, one of the world’s most polyglot countries, the government wants more than a billion people to embrace Hindi.
10 votes -
Danish lawmakers have agreed to plant one billion trees and convert 10% of farmland into natural habitats over the next two decades
27 votes -
The overlooked lesson of Octavia Butler's "The Parable of the Sower"
13 votes -
As 4B takes the world by storm, South Korea is grappling with a backlash against feminism
28 votes -
Montana voters approve abortion rights in state constitution
29 votes -
After a unanimous local vote in 1996, the Swedish town of Växjö became the first in the world to commit to becoming fossil fuel free
14 votes -
A history of US cabinet appointments ...and why they matter
15 votes -
Denmark is the latest country to join the Artemis Accords, the 48th country to sign the document outlining best practices for sustainable space exploration
6 votes -
New York Governor Kathy Hochul to relaunch congestion pricing with $9 base toll, sources say
15 votes -
Sorry for the mess (post mortem for a Topic that went sideways?)
Last night I posted a video that came across my YouTube feed. I had never seen this particular creator before, but I found the video entertaining and thought provoking in isolation. I hadn't seen...
Last night I posted a video that came across my YouTube feed. I had never seen this particular creator before, but I found the video entertaining and thought provoking in isolation. I hadn't seen any videos like this anywhere else on Tildes, so I decided to post a new Topic. I wasn't sure how to word the description. I knew I wanted to hear other points of view, so I hinted at wanting a discussion and didn't really get into my own thoughts.
I hit submit and went to bed, thinking that in the morning I might be able to clarify my thoughts, and add to the discussion without dominating it.
But I woke up to a mess! A mess that I made. The post had been locked and deleted. Apparently this particular YouTuber is very controversial, and posting without any context turned out to be problematic. I was hoping for discussion and boy howdy did I get discussion.
But since I never really voiced my original intent for posting, it all left me feeling like I had spilled some milk and then someone else had cleaned it up for me. The problem is that I never got to apologize for spilling the milk, and never got to thank the people who cleaned up for me while I was sleeping.
So I suppose this is sort of a meta post. Has anyone else here had something locked/deleted before being able to "make it right"? Should I have provided more context up front? Vetted the creator better by researching their other videos or other online activity? Am I doing the wrong thing by talking about it post-mortem? I definitely don't want to make things any worse, and super duper do not want to be kicked from Tildes! I really enjoy interacting with people here, and want to make sure I'm adding rather than taking away.
Also, I just want to say that I'm sorry if this reignites any problems related to the original (now deleted) Topic, and I will happily accept if this Topic also needs to be removed. Please excuse my mess. :)
49 votes -
Tens of thousands of Chinese college students went cycling at night for soup dumplings in Kaifeng. That put the government on edge.
24 votes -
The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation
6 votes -
What moderate countries are left to emigrate to?
I think I'm not the only one asking themselves, whether it's time to pack up and leave. But where to? So for the sake of brainstorming I need your help. As for myself I'm willing to go basically...
I think I'm not the only one asking themselves, whether it's time to pack up and leave. But where to?
So for the sake of brainstorming I need your help. As for myself I'm willing to go basically anywhere as long as I can imagine a future there.Edit: Since you all are getting caught up in telling me how naive/wrong/misguided I am, I'm boiling it down to one question:
What countries are not on the verge of descending into fascism and are accepting in some form or another of westerners moving there?
All I want is countries I can look into myself and give people in my spot something to look into, please for the love of all that is holy if you don't have anything positive to say, save it.
41 votes -
I think it's time to give a "news detox" a try
I've spent the past months with an unhealthy obsession with "the news", due to both an election in my own country and the one in the US. Maybe it was an attempt at being in control of a situation...
I've spent the past months with an unhealthy obsession with "the news", due to both an election in my own country and the one in the US. Maybe it was an attempt at being in control of a situation I have absolutely zero control over, despite it shaping aspects of the world I really care about. But that control is an illusion.
I've rediscovered an older article by Rolf Dobelli called "Avoid News – Towards a Healthy News Diet". It argues against the value of high-frequency (daily) news consumption in 15 points. It does not vilify journalism as a whole, however, arguing for replacing a daily feed of online news with individual, high-quality, in-depth articles consumed weekly or so.
I know that I probably can't resist having some idea of what is going on in the world (and I have some niche interests that I genuinely find productive to keep up with). So I'll try something simple: No "news" (quotes because I include random social media feeds in this) during weekdays. No news websites, no tildes, no reddit. There's ways to filter for the top posts of the "last 7 days". I never use this feature since I look almost daily, anyways. Well, I'll try and make that my default way of consuming social media. On weekends I can decided to use some of my precious free time to read up on the "big" events of the week. I hope this will make me realize that most weeks go by without producing any information that I can use to improve my own life (both privately and at work) or that of people I care about.
There is stuff I'm looking forward to: This sounds depressing but I have this huge list of non-critical things I wanted to accomplish that I kinda stopped even considering because every damn minute of free time I had was spent doom-scrolling. I hope the "touch grass" people are right and spending more time focused on my own environment will also help me get a better sense of what is important.
I also feel slightly guilty about the thought that this will make me less compassionate towards people who live outside my own bubble and whose stories I would not hear just talking to friends and family. This is an attempt to put my head in the sand and pretend that large parts of the world do not exist. But the truth is: There is only so much I can do, effectively. I can maybe join a group dedicated to fixing a specific wrong or raise awareness. Maybe two. But I could never address that whole laundry list of problems from my news feed that left me paralyzed with fear. I will have a more positive impact on the world if I focus on less.
Let's see where this goes.
67 votes -
JibJab - Second Term (2004)
5 votes -
American election mental health thread
I posted my own thoughts here, TLDR: I am afraid and catastrophizing and thinking very black and white and spiraling quite a bit and I'm not even American. Click to view it copy/pasted They have...
I posted my own thoughts here, TLDR: I am afraid and catastrophizing and thinking very black and white and spiraling quite a bit and I'm not even American.
Click to view it copy/pasted
They have sweeped the election and are now in control of the house, the senate, the supereme court.
I'm a Scandinavian but I am very afraid for the queer community over there and for us here - American politics has far reaching influence on western countries. If the right wing wins the next election, they will take many pages out of the Republican book and likely roll back policies on especially trans people - the minister of equality already said "the rights of trans people should be limited".
While Russia doesn't have the capacity to do much else than provoking NATO in terms of playing around on the Eastern European borders, we will definitely be seeing a lot more hybrid warfare in the next 4 years. I am very afraid for Ukraine because despite Zelensky's visit and meeting with Trump, they are a lot less likely if not guaranteed to receive way less support now because the Republican party as a whole is more isolationist than the Democratic party.
This also means that while not under immediate existential threat, I don't think China is likely to turn down rhetoric nor "exercises" and border provocations regarding Taiwan. China has been building their military for years at this point, spending almost as much on it as the US when accounting for purchasing power. There has been speculation that they will be capable of launching an attack by 2030. I'm saying all this because Biden's promise about defending Taiwan probably won't be extended by Trump's government.
Palestine and Lebanon is in more danger than ever. Israel will increase their aggression and more civilians will die through excuses that killing 1 terrorist hiding in a hospital is worth the lives of dozens of innocents. They will annex more of the west bank, settlements will increase, everything will be worse. Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan, you name it, can all become more aggressive and commit more and more crimes against humanity because the white supremacist isolationist American government will do nothing.
And then there's all the other things that I don't know as much about. But homophobia, sexism, and racism has once again won. It has been legitimized. Human rights worldwide will suffer because of this, not to mention the disastrous consequences for our climate and environment.
This is not meant to be another ~news thread.
Please keep discussion in this thread to mental health only.
How are you doing?
What will the impact of this be on your life?
76 votes -
Could we get a ~politics.us?
With the inevitablre result of the US election, for the next four years all media will be totally overwhelmed by one person. It'd be nice to be able to at least on Tildes shove all of that into...
With the inevitablre result of the US election, for the next four years all media will be totally overwhelmed by one person. It'd be nice to be able to at least on Tildes shove all of that into one corner so it can be hidden.
While Tildes is quite US focused, there is still a lot of us non-us people here.
40 votes -
Pussy Riot - Make America Great Again. (2016)
8 votes -
What is happening outside the US?
Hello all. I feel like our US election upset (or victory depending on viewpoint) has really run wild on Tildes. I appreciate all the solidarity and encouragement from the non-US folks. I know for...
Hello all. I feel like our US election upset (or victory depending on viewpoint) has really run wild on Tildes. I appreciate all the solidarity and encouragement from the non-US folks. I know for better or worse it affects many of you as well.
While knowing these are special circumstances, I was thinking maybe folks feel a little left out or overshadowed by our drama.
Back before I had to go on a podcast diet, I really enjoyed the weekly updates from American Prestige because they would discuss important or interesting political/social developments and explain their implications.
So what's something happening where you are? How do you feel about it? What do you wish more people knew about it? It can be big or small. It does not have to be something political, just something important to you.
35 votes -
Federal Reserve cuts its key interest rate by a quarter-point amid postelection uncertainty
16 votes -
Paternity leaves in Finland have nearly doubled in length after a 2022 reform of the parental leave system, the social benefits agency has said
13 votes -
This was always going to be a generational fight for transgender people
29 votes -
Iceland's president urged to intervene over Europe's last whaler – conservation groups are asking for the decision to allow Hvalur to hunt to be put on hold until after election
5 votes -
Sweden rejects applications for thirteen offshore wind farms – government believes building them would have unacceptable consequences for national defence
11 votes -
The Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide
29 votes -
Rebuilding The Village - The Radical Act of Depending on Each Other
16 votes -
Iran: undressing protest shows how women are still fighting even as morality laws get harsher
21 votes -
UK calls bluff of ultra-rich foreigners threatening to leave
17 votes -
The boy who kicked the hornets' nest – Stieg Larsson's double life as an anti-far right activist in Sweden
13 votes -
The world's most feminist city – how Umeå in Sweden became an idyll for women
7 votes -
US Joe Biden–Kamala Harris administration announces $45 million to reduce electric vehicle battery recycling costs
29 votes -
Poking Holes in Potatoes: An excerpt from Brian Taylor Cohen's book, SHAMELESS
7 votes