The road to hell is paved with good intentions – and so is the road to a potential surveillance state.
After losing its high-profile case in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last week, TikTok is now one step closer It is being completely banned in this country.
If the Chinese-owned app fails to find a political ally in the incoming Trump administration by January 19 (or new domestic ownership), mind-numbing scrolling sessions and silly viral stunts will soon be unavailable to its 170 million US users. .
While many may view the Biden administration’s actions as overreach, a ban on TikTok would be the one thing many American parents are desperate to see: a ban on social media for their children.
The harmful effects of predatory algorithms on young people are now as clear as the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.
Last year the US Surgeon General had warned the country young people who are engaged in “Being on social media more than 3 hours per day doubles the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, including depression and anxiety symptoms.”
However, protecting our children from Silicon Valley (and China) is not as simple as banning carcinogenic apps. This is a reality that is being demonstrated right now in Australia.
Late last month, the Land Down Under passed unprecedented legislation to completely ban social media for anyone under 16.
The new rules slap TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram on Barbie and fine those companies up to $50 million AUD (about $33 million) for failing to ban children from their content.
Parents applauded the legislation, with polls showing that 77% of Australians approve of the government’s new rules. In principle, I do too. I moved to Australia from the US in 2022 and am now the father of a true Aussie ‘Roo’. Like many parents, my wife and I started planning our family’s approach to “screen time” around the time of conception — and a world where scrolling isn’t an option sounds better.
Unfortunately, Australia’s “fair dinkum” (or downright political) attempts to woo parents like me are not as straightforward as it might seem. And they won’t be in America either.
“I think a lot of parents are struggling,” says Lisa Given, an information studies scholar at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. “They see [the ban] As if the government is trying to do something. But at the end of the day, the question is, ‘How will the police handle this?’ ,
In fact, no one knows how Australia’s ban will work in practice when it begins in the coming year. All social media users may now be asked to log in with a government-issued ID such as a driving license (the government has said this will not be required).
Or worse, and perhaps even more likely, social media companies will start using facial recognition or biometrics to confirm a user’s age (although early reports suggest this approach). Less successful for children who are not Caucasian,
The third approach is “pattern recognition” – tracking a user’s overall Internet activity to estimate his or her age. This would require a higher level of general internet surveillance and open the door to privacy issues a la Mode. Welcome to China.
“I don’t think it will be successful if you’re thinking about it as a way to protect children from harm,” Given says. “Many children will still be able to access content, whether they are using a technical solution like a VPN, or just using a shared device in the house. , , We really need to fight things like image-based abuse, we need targeting algorithms.
And, of course, where there’s a will, there’s a way: Teens still vape, they still smoke quietly and they’ll still find a way to make alcoholic beverages.
It’s hard to believe that the ban isn’t, at some level, some way to monitor and censor every Australian’s internet activity. Even if that’s not the case, the ban leaves the door open to government spying.
What’s worse, we already know there’s a better way: Tech companies have the ability to modify their algorithms so they don’t force-feed their users negative content.
But they will not do so if the government, namely the US government, does not put pressure on them.
Otherwise, it’s business as usual, greed over goodness. Sorry Australia, the dingo ate your baby.
