Australia's social media ban - an excuse

As the deadline looms for the social media ban for teenagers in Australia to take effect on December 10th, more and more articles pop up. To top it all up, 2 weeks before this deadline, a constitutional challenge has been filed in the nation’s highest court.

While I admire the plaintiffs' motives, there is something they do not understand and I am truly sorry to break it to them: This law was not created to protect children and teenagers. Which is unfortunately the reason why this challenge is futile. Whatever the lawmakers told them was a lie and just an excuse to begin with. As they have already figured out (the lawmakers as well as the teenagers), it's rather easy to circumvent this ban with VPNs and fake accounts.

Wait... here it comes:

This law was created to monitor everybody else.

Luckily I don't care for social media, but if I were, I'd have to verify my age using an official government issued ID. This means that every account I'd use would be inextricably linked to me. In many cases this might not be so problematic, but what about people who are persecuted or afraid of retaliation? Don't forget, these days you can't say anything without offending at least one person. If it is the wrong person (even if that person just misunderstood you), it will lead to your job termination or getting blacklisted.

Freedom of speech. Voicing your opinion. These are concepts that do not exist anymore in today's society.

This is why this law is so dangerous. Yet, they push forward, very well knowing that this law won't protect children and teenagers at all. But at least they can quench any form of opinion they deem equivalent to dissent. And now they know who you are.