Australian Politics Forum - Under 16s Ban on Social Media.

Sir Grappler Truth Teller OAM

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Under 16s Ban on Social Media.
May 10^th, 2026 at 8:51pm

Coming up on 7News Spotlight - kids will be there saying they just skirt around it.

I've been 'monitoring' (remember that media monitoring thing on my CV? Not a science - an art form requiring specific characteristics) Facebook for Twerps and Dorks ... and let us say that their presence is patchy, to say the least.... still a bit starting Thursday through to Friday - but they are pretty plain to see..

Thing is - this media thing on Spotlight is looking like it will say the Ts and Ds get around it easily.. if they do - it's not for very long.

Facebook DOES - and look back at what I posted about AI and the future in that strand on AI - have some very easy ways of detecting frauds ... a kid who starts up a new account and say he's 48 is looked at for post content etc... and a few other things ..... and is 'canceled' pretty quickly. ALL new accounts are scrutinised using the parameters I laid out in the 'AI Will Take Our Jobs' strand.

MY primary concern is how dangerous all this access to information by an internet company - and by extension the ready availability to governments of the same information - is to the ordinary user.

A kid with no 'credit card' is doomed ... no car ... no preference in housing ... no creds to speak of... these Baby Terminators are easy to spot... rubber skin... the Cyberdyne 101+ models had human skin and hair, BO and sweat glands, you name it ... they were harder to spot... dogs knew the difference....

The amount of mega data available to these people is enormous.... to facilitate advertising they say .... and a government with not so good intentions could access it as well...... and then the horizon for use and misuse and abuse is limitless...

Welcome to 1984 for real...

You are warned again.... I break my Code of Silence daily now... for the sake of all living things...

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« Last Edit: May 10^th, 2026 at 9:25pm by Sir Grappler Truth Teller OAM »

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
― John Adams

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Vic

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Re: Under 16s Ban on Social Media.
Reply #1 - May 11^th, 2026 at 7:47am

All my Grandkids are still on it, as are their Mates. A humungous waste of money for a scheme that was due to fail even before it was implemented. If people want to stop their children accessing Social Media on a device they bought for them, there are a lot of software options and machine setting tweaks that will stop them. Stupid Idea in the first place

What is interesting also in your post is AI. The impact this is having is only the tip of the iceberg. I have been experimenting with AI writing EXCEL script for a small project I am doing. It wrote 10 VBA modules in 1/2 hour - something that would take me weeks. AI has many educational institutions worried about the originality of work to the point they employ software to determine if AI was used to do the work. AI is going to make hundreds of thousands of jobs redundant in our lifetime

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« Last Edit: May 11^th, 2026 at 7:52am by Vic »

“Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus”

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freediver

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Re: Under 16s Ban on Social Media.
Reply #2 - May 11^th, 2026 at 8:30am

On the AI side, I recently added a word game to the website - swordle. For the most parts I was using google's AI answer to get code snippets to do what I want. As well as usually getting the code correct, it often gave good advice. It was all based on the code snippets and discussion in the links provided by the regular google search, but it saved me a lot of time trawling through them and getting my head around it.

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People who can't distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways I cannot put into words.

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MeisterEckhart

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Re: Under 16s Ban on Social Media.
Reply #3 - May 11^th, 2026 at 9:50am

Vic wrote on May 11^th, 2026 at 7:47am:

All my Grandkids are still on it, as are their Mates. A humungous waste of money for a scheme that was due to fail even before it was implemented. If people want to stop their children accessing Social Media on a device they bought for them, there are a lot of software options and machine setting tweaks that will stop them. Stupid Idea in the first place

Like catching water in a sieve...

Were the current politicians in cryogenic suspension for the last 30 years? The latest generation always masters new technologies exponentially faster than the previous...

More of a political stunt than effective legislation.

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Dnarever Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 61625 Here Gender:	Re: Under 16s Ban on Social Media. Reply #4 - May 11^th, 2026 at 9:53am Becoming a nanny state isn't the answer.
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Sir Grappler Truth Teller OAM

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Re: Under 16s Ban on Social Media.
Reply #5 - May 11^th, 2026 at 1:12pm

Vic wrote on May 11^th, 2026 at 7:47am:

All my Grandkids are still on it, as are their Mates. A humungous waste of money for a scheme that was due to fail even before it was implemented. If people want to stop their children accessing Social Media on a device they bought for them, there are a lot of software options and machine setting tweaks that will stop them. Stupid Idea in the first place

What is interesting also in your post is AI. The impact this is having is only the tip of the iceberg. I have been experimenting with AI writing EXCEL script for a small project I am doing. It wrote 10 VBA modules in 1/2 hour - something that would take me weeks. AI has many educational institutions worried about the originality of work to the point they employ software to determine if AI was used to do the work. AI is going to make hundreds of thousands of jobs redundant in our lifetime

If kids stay under the radar and don't act like dorks - they can do pretty well getting through - that the ISPs have that much control over knowledge should be scary to you...

The software is available to cut things out on demand - what is lacking is the will- which shows there is no real intention of cutting back on access to nasty sites.

AI is a serious danger in many ways.

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« Last Edit: May 11^th, 2026 at 1:28pm by Sir Grappler Truth Teller OAM »

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
― John Adams

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tallowood Gold Member Offline Израиль Навсегда Posts: 7848 Gender:	Re: Under 16s Ban on Social Media. Reply #6 - May 11^th, 2026 at 3:13pm Probably there will be social side effect when some kids get back in real world of life in streets of concrete jungle. It would be interesting to see street gangs and crime statistics if it ever be published.
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