 | Edition 2470 |
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Good afternoon! Thanks to the Sizzlefather for covering yesterday, and apologies for today’s edition being a bit late. As you can probably guess I’ve been knee deep with… |
The News |
The teen social media ban is already a success or a failure, depending on who you ask |
It’s day two of our post-social media world for teens and there’s two ways to look at how it’s going. On one hand, the 10 listed social media platforms took steps to restrict access to teens. (Guardian) None of them left the country. On the other hand, it was almost comical how many teens appeared to get around the ban, posting on — where else — social media about how easy it was and openly mocking the prime minister for saying it was a “success” and that they’d restricted access. |
 | For some reason the “teen revheads TikTok” community has been particularly active |
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The Sizzle: I have two main thoughts: |
Watching TikTok videos or seeing posts from teens who were scheming about how to get around the ban, engaging in criticism of our tech policy, having fun and playing, I was struck by something. Unintentionally, we’d created an event that brought out the best of social media use: actively making stuff, building community, learning about things, and exploring the world (Crikey, $) Clearly, not everyone was like that, but I just found it so perfect that teens were just being teens by rebelling against authority and figuring out ways around things. Yesterday was a mess, but I do expect these systems to get better at figuring out kids’ ages (Guardian). I think the various systems that these companies use will catch more and more teens — and I think the government will slowly turn the screws on them so that they try harder — so a pretty embarrassing first day isn’t really that important. What transpired yesterday is 10000000x less important than how this ban actually affects kids in time. I hope everyone gives the same amount of attention to the data we get on how kids are faring post-ban that they have to its first day. But for now — thankfully to everyone who’s probably sick of me writing about it! — I don’t think there’s much more to be said until we can actually find out more.
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Further reading: Australia starting to build the safer internet big tech feared (AFR, $) Finding your tribe: Why Australia’s social media ban gets It wrong (Ben Harris-Roxas) and I interviewed Communications Minister Anika Wells. |
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum. |
Guess I’m not going to the United States any time soon |
The Trump administration is planning on requiring all Australian travellers to provide their social media handles for review when visiting the US (The Verge). At the moment, Australia is one of the 42 countries that can visit the states without a visa for up to 90 days under its ESTA system. While visa applications have already required providing social media handles, the US Customs and Border Protection wants to add a “mandatory” review of social media history for the past five years to part of the ESTA application. This is, uh, quite concerning given this dictatorship’s country’s recent weaponisation of its immigration system against its political foes — and the big technology link is we know they’re fanging all this stuff in AI to do it (Axios). |
The Sizzle: |
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum. |
The deep state has signed off on letting Apple Watch users know if they’re about to have a heart attack |
Australian Apple Watch users will soon get high blood pressure warnings after our regulator gave the new feature the tick of approval (Information Age). This new feature was announced in September and rolled out to 150 countries — but in Australia, we needed to make sure everything medical-related was on the up-and-up. Now, the Therapeutic Goods Administration has given the green light to Apple to introduce this feature and all that’s left is for Tim Cook to go flip a switch somewhere in Apple HQ. I gotta say, it’s sick as hell that consumer products can now do this. |
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Although I should mention: my Apple Watch keeps telling me I have possible sleep apnea. I went and told my doctor, he looked at me like a lunatic, asked me a few questions like “are you tired all the time” (no more than anyone else), “do you fall asleep mid-conversation” (no), “have you ever fallen asleep driving” (no), and then just said “uhhh you’re fine” and sent me on my way. So, take it all with a grain of salt! |
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum. |
Leftovers |
Australia: |
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Rest of the world: |
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Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum. |
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Oh, Also |
If you like comparing random animal sizes, boy do I have a neat website for you |
Here’s something from a repeat “Oh, Also” offender: a fun website showing the size of different animals. |
 | I guess the “Goliath Frog” name is relative to other frogs |
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Trust me, it’s gorgeous — and don’t forget to turn your audio on. |
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum. |
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Bargains |
Electrical & Electronics |
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Computing |
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Mobile |
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The End |
😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius. |
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The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present. |
