So what? There will be a "Yes I'm over 16" check box which will be as meaningful as the "Yes I'm over 18" one on porn sites?

Any hope of governments or social media sites enforcing this will come with big ethical and technical compromises and I dont think anyone is actually going to really bother.

We already have limits on what children do with other potentially harmful things like fire, sharp objects, heights and roads and they all come from parents. If this law has any real and positive impact it will be the message that it sends to parents.

For a second I thought the headline said Australia banned social media for 16 seconds 🤣

Well that's not going to work out.

Ah fuck. Canada is likely to copycat this, we love copying Australia's homework. NDP and Cons BOTH already favor this idea except it's also all 18+ websites. Gov ID to wack off. Puritans are on every wing and I wish we could shake them off.

ah yea that'll work

Then I read that chat apps and YouTube would not be banned, and scoffed

Literally chat apps are social media. You can post stories and pump memes and news. You can even have bots that scrape and post content. YouTube is just a matter of checking a box whether it's "for kids" and they already do that. Basically the whole thing is stupid

Now ban everyone else (except Lemmy of course).

Not a bad idea all things considered

Edit: Save for the "Showing your ID" part, anonymity is healthy for the net and far too rare these days