Australia's social media ban for those under 16 takes effect on December 10, 2025. The law requires platforms to take "reasonable steps" to prevent under-16s from creating accounts, though specific details about the age verification methods remain under development. While platforms must comply, parents are unable to consent for their children to use these platforms.
This is a synopsis of the upcoming "social media ban for minors" in Australia at the end of the year. And while I think banning anything normally has the opposite effect on the product, I do agree that kids shouldn't be on social media in the ways that they currently are. And while I am in defence of parents taking responsibility, the unfortunate fact is that most do not take responsibility for their kids in any significant way that matters, which is evidenced through so many indicators of people suffering from childhood all the way into adulthood.
Parents need to be guardians.
Guardians of their children's future.
And even though the social media ban is unlikely to have the desired effect in the areas where the most problems lay, what it does do is increase the thirst for alternatives to the current crop of platforms. Essentially, the platforms have the responsibility to ensure that there is adequate age verification, or they will be fined. However, in the case of a decentralised platform like Hive, who are they going to fine?
There is no single owner.
Not only this, while there is a social aspect to it and it could mimic Facebook, TikTok or YouTube, it also isn't only a social media, because all Hive actually does is record transactions. The interfaces themselves might be considered social media however, which raises the question as to whether something like @Peakd or @Ecency would ever come to the attention of the legislation, though I suspect it would require a large influx of users.
Even so, that influx could happen, as while Australia are the first to make such a move like this, it is clear that many other countries are considering similar, even if only to appease the masses by showing they are "trying" to do something, or as a revenue exercise. And as more countries look to ban, more people will look to offboard centralisation and embrace decentralised experiences. I say experiences, because I believe that being on Hive can alter the way we look at the entirety of our life, not just what we see through the screen. And the more people interact with it, the more they will look at the rest of the offerings and say....
"Huh? WTF have I been doing?"
Centralisation is the process of enrichment of a decreasing minority, not the spread of resources effectively to the majority. We can see how in the last 100 years, the concentration of wealth has narrowed at an increasing rate. And while for the first half of the process there was significant increase in global improvement, the back half has seen an accelerating decrease in many areas of society, which is fuelling a lot of the global unrest in the world.
Previously, decentralisation at the global level and still maintain scale wasn't possible, because the technology didn't exist to organise it. This meant that to achieve scale advantages, centralisation was the way to go. However, centralisation isn't self moderating, it is self-perpetuating. And like eating junkfood, without moderation, the negative effects can quickly spiral.
If the economy was a person, it would be overweight, and riddled with cancers and mental problems.
Decentralisation isn't a fringe idea to dabble with, it is something that must happen to improve the health of the economy and society in order to save us from the minority. I am not talking of a class war here, more that if we are to effectively develop what we need to advance as a healthy species, we need to spread the development processes, rather than being reliant on small pockets of massive control with an agenda to maximise itself. With the oncoming onslaught of automation through AI, this is even more imperative.
Banning doesn't work, if there are no healthier alternatives. This means that we as a society have to develop healthier alternatives to the things that harm us. It is unreasonable to think that people are just going to stop using the things that harm them, especially when they are considered integral parts of life and they are addicted to them. The alternatives have to offer an incentive to make the shift and a punishment for not. The major incentive for Hive is pretty clear in terms of tokenisation, and if the bans ramp up globally, the punishments will be applied outside of Hive. This means that there is the potential for Hive and other decentralised experiences to attract a large number of users, looking to find a new home and, earn a little of something along the way.
Hive is healthier.
We tend to equate success of something to the amount of money it generates, but in terms of societal outcomes, we can see that this is a very poor metric. We need to judge business on the health outcomes for society, not on wealth. Wealth can be averaged to make it look like society is improving, even if average health is decreasing. Average health needs to increase, regardless of what the financial economy is doing. Centralisation of wealth and power increases the dysfunction of society.
But what government or corporation will give up power and profit?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
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