The Australian Government is set to impose social media age limits, amid increasing concern over the effect of social media on youth mental health, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced today.
Legislation is to be introduced later this year, and is expected to gain bipartisan support after the leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, called to ban social media for under-16s earlier this year.
“We know social media is causing social harm, and it is taking kids away from real friends and real experiences,” said Albanese in a statement today, which also happens to be World Suicide Prevention Day.
“The safety and mental and physical health of our young people is paramount.”
“We’re supporting parents and keeping kids safe by taking this action, because enough is enough.”
The federal commitment to legislate social media age limits follows similar announcements from the Victorian and South Australian Governments, both of which want to ban social media for kids under the age of 14.
The new legislation will build on a report by former High Court Chief Justice, Robert French, released on Sunday. The report, commissioned by the South Australian (SA) Government, includes draft legislation banning children under 14 from social media outright, and requiring companies to gain parental consent for 14 and 15-year-olds to use their platforms.
Recent polling shows strong public support for an age-based social media ban, with 61% of respondents agreeing that the government should restrict the use of social media platforms for Australians younger than 17. Unsurprisingly, support was lower among younger Australians: 54% of Aussies aged 18 to 24 agreed with the ban.
The potential harms of social media for kids has come to prominence in the past decade, particularly with the ubiquity of the smartphone.
Author and psychologist Jonathan Haidt has said social media is “more addictive than heroin,” causing the “great rewiring” of childhood. He is one of many researchers who suggest that increased uptake of social media and smartphones has created an “international epidemic” of depression, anxiety and suicide among young people.
Research by Australia’s online safety regulator, eSafety, found that 75% of 16 to 18-year-olds had seen online pornography – of those, nearly one-third saw it before the age of 13 and nearly half saw it between the ages of 13 and 15.
In other research, eSafety found that almost two-thirds of 14-17-year-olds have viewed potentially harmful content in the past year, such as content relating to drug taking, suicide or self-harm, or gory or violent material.
There are also concerns about children being preyed upon online. Sonya Ryan OAM, the founder and Chief Executive of the Carly Ryan Foundation, has experienced this personally. Her daughter Carly, was killed in 2007 at the age of 15 by a predator she met online.
Ryan has voiced her support for new laws to protect kids, stating: “In my opinion the only way forward is to create appropriate legislation to protect our children from these harms and regulate Big Tech companies to include mandatory age verification across all platforms.”
Others are worried that banning children’s access to social media will cause unintended harms.
“Social media is one of the only public spaces where children can communicate directly with their friends – often maintaining connections with distant friends and loved ones that would otherwise be impossible,” said information and technology expert Dr. Dana McKay of RMIT University.
Instead of banning kids from social media, the focus should be on making social media safer, said Dr. McKay.
“Many of the problems can already be addressed by minimising advertising and detecting and addressing harmful interactions through behavioural analytics, for example,” she said.
Detail on how the new age assurance laws and technology will work is hazy until draft legislation is tabled later this year, but the concept has already been in development for some time.
The Federal Government has invested $6.5 million in a trial of age assurance technology which will be used to enforce the social media age limit, with the technology aspect of the trial currently out to tender.
At the same time, Australia’s online safety regulator, eSafety has given digital industry associations until the end of this year to propose improved industry codes that will be enforceable by eSafety to limit children’s access to inappropriate content online, including pornography and self-harm content.
Both of these initiatives are tied in with Age Verification Roadmap, which in turn is tied in with Australia’s recently legislated Digital ID framework, to which the government has allotted $288.1 million over the next four years.
In the coming weeks and months, I will be exploring this issue further on Dystopian Down Under. Subscribe to read more about social media, how it’s affecting us, and what we should do about it.
This article was originally published on Dystopian Down Under, Rebekah Barnett’s Substack newsletter. You can subscribe here.
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‘long covid’ is the result of the government fear campaign – in as much that it exists it’s a mental illness
I would flag up that a relative does seem to have case of post-viral fatigue after a positive SARS-COV-2 test.
Note that I’m very careful with the language there, and – you’ll be astonished to hear this – he has significant underlying health issues.
In the general case, yes, I agree that it’s more likely to be a skiver’s charter, or performative hypochondria.
technically both I and my wife have long covid – as defined by any symptoms lasting more than 3 months – which is why I’m so dubious about any analysis which seems more designed to scare and gain funding than anything else
not to day some people don’t have post viral fatigue syndrome – just that you have to be careful with definitions – depending on how long covid is defined it will either be 100% or 0%
I had a friend when ME/PVS was a relatively new thing. Sometimes she could not get out of bed, she was so tired and aching. Most people will claim they have PVS whilst feeling a bit lethargic and down, like all the exaggerations we have experienced for nearly 2 years now.
Mass lethargy is a serious health issue even if “only” caused by psychological factors squashing the imagination and willpower. It is also a huge (ahem!) “opportunity” for depopulationists.
For whatever reason, a lot of people are suffering fatigue at the moment. Classification and causation questions aside, there is a real issue here.
“Long Covid” is a bit of a stupid phrase.
The problem could be caused by microwave radiation (5G), a biological agent, psychological weapons, or some combination of the above.
But there is a real issue.
Or let’s take the Occam’s razor approach…
It could be caused by:
Or even a reduced level of health at the time of contracting covid?
Speaking of biological agents, me and the Mrs have noticed lots of chemical trails in the skies above us and we aren’t anywhere near an airport. Never seen trails like it – they start narrow and on a clear morning spread out to make huge cloud banks. I would love to know what’s going on.
Studies to “Gain Funding” BINGO!
No funding available for studies showing it isn’t happening, Climate Change model.
I tested Covid+ last week following a routine LFT during a hospital day visit.
SercoTrack’n’Trace subsequently phoned me, rudely, demanding to know my symptoms (& contacts/was I isolating blah blah) even though I had told them
“random test and asymptomatic”
.
Their surley phone operative seized upon my use of the word ‘fatigue’ even though I had also told him that this was the result of a pre-existing medical condition and treatment (reason for hospital visit in the first place).
I feel certain he wanted to steer my case towards ‘long covid’ because I’ve had fatigue for some time (ie way before LFT+) simply to justify Sercos existence especially now that it looks as though their sevices are about to be greatly curtailed.
There is no ‘long covid’, just people who keep testing positive for weeks/months because of pre-existing genetic material in their systems that the fake PCR tests claim is the fake virus.
Also, it’s perfectly normal to have a nasty cold that leaves you with a chesty cough for weeks afterwards, stop being a hypochondriac and put the test down.
The healthcare driver who took me home the day I got my Covid+ LFT (didn’t get result until after the journey but I gave his outfit a courtesy call about it) double tested for four following days, all negative and fine when we spoke on the phone earlier today.
How much did some Chinese firm profit from that ?
Probably not as much as some friend or member of the government (UK, Dutch, German, etc. – they’ve all been caught at it) who purchased the tests from the Chinese firm and sold it at triple the price to our governments, charged to the taxpayer.
Long covid is not associated with COVID infection, merely thinking you had a covid infection.
So yes it is a form of hypochondria.
Cruel Covid restrictions stole my parents’ dignity
https://unherd.com/2022/01/what-lockdown-took-from-my-parents/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=f7f048b429
BY KATE CLANCHY
Please come and join our friendly peaceful events.
Tuesday 18th January 2pm to 3pm
Yellow Boards By the Road
Junction Ringmead & Hanworth Road
(9 minutes walk from South Hill Park)
Bracknell RG12 7YW
Stand in the Park Sundays 10am make friends, ignore the madness & keep sane
Wokingham Howard Palmer Gardens Cockpit Path car park Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Henley Mills Meadows (at the bandstand) Henley-on-Thames RG9 1DS
Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
Agreed. Long Covid was pure invention to provide more Covid horror stories for the press about people who may or may not have had genuine medical issues that they could stick a ‘Covid’ label on for their front page.
Same as the Daily Telegraph still putting a Covid slant on any story they can (at least twice in this mornings Roundup).
Long Covid also satisfied that FOMO feeling for people who wanted to demonstrate that they too had a part in Great Covid Soap Opera when all they had was stubbed big toe.
I disagree!
I don’t know about long covid, but if you have respiratory disease it’s quite possible even after recovery of initial infection you will suffer from some cell damage to lungs etc. Full recovery takes time for your body to repair.
Is it seriously debilitating probably not, is it the same as a common cold, probably. Has covid been overhyped, certainly.
I’ve had a lifetime of occasional respiratory infections (from asthma, COPD, smoking); symptoms* always resolved quickly with antibiotics but with no residual debilitation, back to normal very quickly.
*symptoms = lots of deep chest flob needs coughing up and feeling “ill”.
But your normal appears to be repeated infection.
Once every alternate year which is acceptable.
Just like fibromyalgia, Long Covid is made up just to give the worried well something to talk about on their zoom calls.
“Long Covid”? Just another attempt – like ‘asymptomatic transmission’ (invented for the cameras by Whitty to scare the population and make everyone potentially a ‘carrier of the Covid plague -worked a treat!) ,- to force the testing fraud and push the mRNA Gene Therapy injections – forever’
The vaccinated will of course have ‘long Covid’ as the reproducing Spike proteins continue to ravage their immune system for 15 months after the last injections.
For the best account of what is being done to us, nothing beats’ “Pseudo Pandemic” The New Normal Technocracy’ by Iain Davis – the whole country should sit down and read it cover to cover!
Agreed – brilliant book and the most plausible explanations of the “conspiracy theories” – all hidden in plain sight
Agree.
I am a big fan of Iian Davis’ work which can be accessed via the excellent UK Column website – for those not familiar.
I’m prone to Long Idleness, but I’m prepared to re-badge it if it means less pushback.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60015294
“The pandemic has made the world’s wealthiest far richer but has led to more people living in poverty, according to the charity Oxfam.
Lower incomes for the world’s poorest contributed to the death of 21,000 people each day, its report claims”
“…lockdowns, lower international trade, less international tourism, and as a result of that, 160 million more people have been pushed into poverty.””
Oh dear! Lockdown caused the deaths of 21,000 people each day – over 10 million and counting! More than the total deaths with/of covid!
And those people dead of lockdown are inevitably younger than the octagenarions dying with covid
Lockdowns made the rich richer and the poor poorer. Fucking hell, what a surprise! They talk about it as if this was an unexpected outcome, rather than one of the clear aims of those pushing the agenda.
Bill Gates has said on camera that he expects a 20:1 return on the money he invests into vaccines. The depopulators really are having their cake and eating it.
Was that not part of the Davos Deviants game plan?
Indeed it was. Outlined in black and white for all who care to look to find.
Agreed HuxleyP….
Still think this is just crazy conspiracy theories?
The pandemic is therefore achieving exactly what in was intended to achieve
in “Phase One” of this diabolical project involving all the world’s top Institutions – gathering all the money and assets into the hands of the super rich.
Post viral fatigue is likely to affect a very small number of people as a result of many viruses, but I never believed the scare stories that it (under its new scary name of ‘Long Covid’) was a disproportionate issue with this particular virus,
Given the results of Dr Arne Burkhardts post mortems in Germany , it appears plain that that there can be significant residual damage from the jabs and from Covid 19 ( widespread blood clotting ) To call it Long Covid is ridiculous, however, akin sexing up the weather by giving winter storms a name.
Agreed.
“And coming up on the blind side we have storm Elsie.”
Oh do FO.
I’d be interested to see the breakdown between those in the public / third / salaried sectors reporting it versus those self employed or on zero-hours.
I say “interested”, but I think we can already predict what the results will be.
If I’m wrong, well, being wrong just proves that you’re right. </SAGE>
Would also be interesting to see if there’s a correlation between ‘so-called Long Covid’ and those who were ‘working from home’.
And long covid in people who get full pay when they are off sick
The politicised ONS release “stats” that any sentient Jo Shmo will be aware of, but they refuse to release the “stats” on death’s and injuries caused by the cytotoxins given to children! Are you watching Mr Justice Swift? You rancid fucker…
Noah, there are plenty of things that could be done to prevent patients ending up in ICU and ensuring Ivermectin is available once more is the primary one.
End of. The removal of Ivermectin must be the biggest red flag of the Scamdemic.
It shouts out loud “SCAM” but the “plebs” can’t hear it!
When will they make it a “criminal offence” to mention ‘ivermectin’ probably in the “On Line Harms Bill’?
I thought that Long Covid was a medieval village abandoned by its superstitious inhabitants following a minor plague, but I could be wrong – it’s not on any OS map.
Was it the one where someone with a cold was accused of having the plague so they wiped out the village?
If I remember correctly, the Covidian monk Whitty wrote in his ‘History of the Plague Years’,
“A rumour arose among the people that the King, with many of his nobles, first besieged Long Covid for two years before putting the villagers to the sword, after which they raised their habitations to the ground. But ’tis misinformation. The people, with joy in their hearts, gave up their village for the greater good and thanked the King for the medicinal leeches he gave them every month to cleanse their blood.”
Whitty, later in his account, wrote that the King’s advisors placed the blame for the continuation of the plague on
“…a despised class, who spoke against the remedy of the King.”
…Still no mention of the fact that there has always been various prophylactics available to treat people, and indeed to save lives. One of the most shocking aspects to the whole Covid saga…and something I hope gets huge attention in the coming months.
How embarrassing…or it would be, if any of the covid fear porn merchants were capable of embarrassment.
No, ICUs and ventilators are the great danger. There are alternatives… if only they will let them be used…
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/after-28-days-ventilator-family-loses-legal-battle-try-ivermectin-other-alternative
The Chinese recommended ventilators to the Italians who gave us the early horror pictures of their use at the beginning of the” Covid Terror” campaign .( they reappeared in the Government horror advertising using actors last summer
We now know that the ventilators were the kiss of death for many, who ought to have been given oxygen and ivermectin.
Long covid was made up, Asymptomatic covid was made up (you are asymptomatic until you either get symptoms or get over it). Asymptomatic probably became a thing when not-a-vaccines were introduced which mess about with your immune system!
After 2 years of brainwashing it is no surprise that snowflake bedwetters believe they have long Covid.
If we had asylums where we kept people with mental illnesses until they got better, then you’d probably find quite a lot of the issues clear up on their own. You’d only attend an asylum if you were truly suffering.
When something stops being useful for value signalling, then you reveal the real scale of the problem.
Fake vaccine is a fate worse than death.
Videos like this have been posted daily for a full year now, impossible to count them all at this point. Denialists claim they are fake or taken out of context, probably scared to death the same is going to happen to them. You can’t hide from the truth forever.
“Of course, there’s much that can and should be done to prevent people landing in the ICU, such as voluntary vaccination”
… A diagnosis from the Ark.
This is an absolutely must-watch in full, whipper snapper making the dutch neoliberal leader look like a fool.
Watch: Rookie Dutch MP Routs PM Rutte, Speaks Truth To ‘Great Reset’ Power 2mins
That is brilliant. The lady MP behind this young chap is great to watch. As the spat develops she realises Rutte is getting his arse well and truly kicked.
Every lazy MP in Westminster should be forced to watch this clip every day for a month. And yes I do understand the dictatorial nature of such an edict.
Magic stuff.
Thank you.
I’ve just watched it again. It’s bloody compulsive.
very good.
Safe to say I enjoyed that moment a lot more than Mr Rutte did.
That young man will go far!
Thanks, I’ll be sharing this around.
Has anyone had the balls to do a similar study on the vaccinees who survived the jab but suffered serious injury from either the spike itself or the cytogenetic/mutagenic cationic lipid nano particles delivery system?
Too much poncy self-righteousness here BTL. The fact is that the manifestation of the hypochondria which is probably much of ‘Long Covid’ is yet another effect of the induced mental illness resulting from the psy-ops.
News from France
Despite condemnation by many parliamentarians of Emmanuel Macron’s promise to drag the unvaccinated “in the shit”, the French parliament voted 215-58 today to introduce a vaccine pass.
The main effect of this law will be to require a “vaccine pass” where currently “only” a “health pass” is demanded . A negative SARSCoV2 test will no longer be sufficient for those aged 16+ to enter restaurants and bars or to travel long-distance on public transport.
Medical Apartheid means no holiday spending from me.
https://www.tiktok.com/@newsdrips/video/7051706198692826414
Confirmed true. Asian Editor of New York Times, based in Seoul – died in the night after taking his third jab and calling out the unjabbed, aged 49yrs.
At least he wasn’t a prick though.
Just the female near equivalent?
To know the kind of world we live in, take a look at the question in the trash Daily Mail’s latest headline. (I did not link to it because I don’t want to provide this trashy criminal rag with clicks.)
The question: “British terrorist shot dead in Texas synagogue siege was banned from Blackburn court 20 years ago for ranting about how he wished he had been on one of the 9/11 planes – so why WAS he let into America?”
The answer: The Cabal that rules the United States (and United Kingdom) eagerly want terror attacks and mass shootings so as to instil fear in the population and promote their agenda for gun confiscation and tight gun control.
Thus, the CIA will ensure that any proven terrorist that shows up at a US border crossing will be welcomed with a red carpet. What’s pertinent about this in the UK is that this attitude is in a city or town very near you.
A channel ABC programme called Media Watch in Australia aired this piece, proving the NSW health department used crisis actors to play covid anti-vax regret victims in hospital. A real pandemic would not require such fraud.
Are we in hell yet? Serious question.
They are.
Certainly purgatory – and for a very long time to come!
But a real fraud would require fake actors and a fake pandemic.
They did another one like this last year, with a young lady gasping on a ventilator. Someone with a sharp memory recognised her from an old anti smoking campaign.
Jordan Peterson gives his views on the Canadian restrictions.
https://youtu.be/xu3ux1h_caU
Wanna bet that ‘long covid’ cases shrivel up after someone deigns to abolish covidianism?
Who wants to be a vocal martyr to the emperor’s new clothes syndrome after all?
Very strange illness. You won’t be able to contain it using rational or empirical categories. One of the cultists was caught wearing a necklace with an upside down cross surrounded by small rubies, the symbolic death of the sun; They know it themselves we are moving into a period of the quietude of the sun. This is the big secret the elephant in the room. If we ascend to the challenge of talking about this issue then we might have some chance of survival.How on earth can you avoid talking about the most important entity in our lives.
It’s been shown by several studies that Long Covid is mainly a psychosomatic condition – mainly suffered by the middle-classes who can work from home in their home offices. Bastards.
Medical clinics and hospitals in USA are denying life-saving Ivermectin medicine even with court orders. Big Pharma doing all that they can to push the vaxx and inoculate us while effective and cheap COVID cures exist. There turns out to be censorship that we have never seen before for those who are looking for these treatments. We say over and over again that indepenedent researchers found Ivermectin safe and very effective for these Flu-Corona symptoms. Getting Ivermectin is easy https://ivmpharmacy.com
I am quite sure that Long COVID exists, just as ME does. Just because you cannot find any abnormal results does not mean there’s nothing there, and in my view most so-called psychological conditions have a neurochemical basis. However, I don’t think Long COVID is any different from other post viral syndromes and its severity has been grossly overblown.
One day on a ventilator? That is more than a little suspect.