I am Australian, the state that we have become is just sad. The fact that this is brought under the disguise of "child protection" is ridiculous and I never would have imagine a future in my own country where I have to submit my ID to access anything online. They will never achieve anything with this because everyone will just use VPN. It's costing taxpayer's money without any useful outcome. The level of incompetence displayed by this government is astonishing.
naruhodo · 14m ago
As an Australian, do you remember:
* The Labor government's failed 2010 internet filter policy, [1]
"Those who claim the government's approach is akin to the sort of political censorship practiced by authoritarian regimes are simply misleading the Australian public."
* The Liberal government's passed 2015 mandatory metadata retention laws, [2]
"Critics say Australia’s data retention scheme is mass surveillance, and metadata is used to track where people go."
because it doesn't seem like you do. I could also point to the UK's full-take surveillance apparatus, or the US, from around about the same time-frame.
Australia is slowly copying China. They will move on banning VPNs in a year of two.
It may be government incompetence, but it might also be a plan to identify everyone online.
bamboozled · 2m ago
I’m not sure if there is some super secret hidden motive here but I do know that the internet and social media is basically poisoning politics and society. Go read about what’s happening in Japan. Some loser started a political party based on 100% lies about immigrants and vaccines destroying the country (sound familiar?) and just gained a huge share of votes in a small amount of time.
The argument you’re making is “freedom at all costs” the trouble with all of this is, can we even trust ourselves with this freedom. Your big brain might be immune to l the cruft out there but that’s not universal.
I honestly don’t know what the answer is but we’re in trouble. The reason China does what it does it not just because it’s an authoritarian hell hole, but because they know the games they play on others and don’t want it to happen to them.
intothemild · 3h ago
As a parent I really like googles family controls, all of it. Except ONE thing.. I cannot block or limit YouTube Shorts.
Whenever my daughter watches regular YouTube there's a good chance she might watch something creative or educational or something that ends up with her suddenly making something out of paper, or drawing or anything physical. Learning about something amazing and getting excited.
YouTube Shorts is just AI slop, and horrible content I wish never existed.
OneDeuxTriSeiGo · 3h ago
In general there needs to be a way to disable Youtube Shorts. It's a massive attention hole that preys on people in a very addiction forming way. Doubly so for people with ADHD, etc.
j1elo · 3h ago
You could access via web browser and try this uBlock Origin list [1], props to this commenter [2] who helpfully posted it a while ago. Or if you must use a native app, on Android use a patched version of YT that supresses shorts from the view (to be honest the user agency it still allows, is for me worth enough to prefer Android over its competition)
I use brave browser and block anything related to shorts. The sound still plays in the background but the videos don't play which makes it unenjoyable. Helped me give up shorts.
d0100 · 3h ago
> YouTube Shorts is just AI slop, and horrible content I wish never existed.
This is only what you watch, for me I get short form of the same content I watch on youtube video (music, games and podcasts)
intothemild · 3h ago
I'm talking about my kid here. I think you're missing the point of what I'm talking about here. YouTube is ok for the most part, where as shorts is mostly not ok, and there's no way to turn it off.
* The Labor government's failed 2010 internet filter policy, [1] "Those who claim the government's approach is akin to the sort of political censorship practiced by authoritarian regimes are simply misleading the Australian public."
* The Liberal government's passed 2015 mandatory metadata retention laws, [2] "Critics say Australia’s data retention scheme is mass surveillance, and metadata is used to track where people go."
because it doesn't seem like you do. I could also point to the UK's full-take surveillance apparatus, or the US, from around about the same time-frame.
This is a long term project.
[1] https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/internet-filter-is-not-c...
[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-17/metadata-retention-pr...
It may be government incompetence, but it might also be a plan to identify everyone online.
The argument you’re making is “freedom at all costs” the trouble with all of this is, can we even trust ourselves with this freedom. Your big brain might be immune to l the cruft out there but that’s not universal.
I honestly don’t know what the answer is but we’re in trouble. The reason China does what it does it not just because it’s an authoritarian hell hole, but because they know the games they play on others and don’t want it to happen to them.
Whenever my daughter watches regular YouTube there's a good chance she might watch something creative or educational or something that ends up with her suddenly making something out of paper, or drawing or anything physical. Learning about something amazing and getting excited.
YouTube Shorts is just AI slop, and horrible content I wish never existed.
[1]: https://github.com/Harren06/ublock-yt-shorts
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43848253
This is only what you watch, for me I get short form of the same content I watch on youtube video (music, games and podcasts)