Mid-week tech news roundup: Russia out of your Facebook and other apps, protections for teens on Instagram, and someone blew up Hezbollah's pagers

There might be fewer social media transmitted talking points readily available for those wanting to debate the issues now that Meta has decided to ban Russia Today or RT as it is now, Rossiya Segodnya (Sputnik, RIA Novosti) and other state-controlled media outlets on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram.

Judging by the strong reaction from the Kremlin denouncing the ban while at the same time denying it will stop the interference and influence operations, Meta's move is clearly a setback for Russia's efforts, which include online fund raisers to buy its soldiers weapons and armour.

How enthusiastic Meta was in implementing the ban is less clear, but there was little the social network could do, after the United States State Department announced this:

"Today, the United States is designating three entities and two individuals for their connection to Russia’s destabilising actions abroad. According to new information, much of which originates from employees of Russian state-funded RT (formerly “Russia Today”), we now know that RT moved beyond being simply a media outlet and has been an entity with cyber capabilities. It is also engaged in information operations, covert influence, and military procurement.

These operations are targeting countries around the world, including in Europe, Africa, and North and South America."

Russia has long weaponised the greatest general purpose network humanity has created in different ways. Ransomware groups have been linked to the country's intelligence agencies, and there's the Internet Research Agency online troll farm in St Petersburg, founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin of Wagner Group infamy, who died in a mysterious plane crash after rebelling against Russian president Vladimir Putin.

How effective the ban will be is another question however. Western nations have restricted Russian state media for the past few years, and RT was kicked off YouTube for example. The propaganda is still available on the web, Elon Musk's Twitter-X and many other of the "socmeds" which might or might not follow suit and cull the Russian outlets.

Russia was actually first out of the gates on this and banned Meta properties - and Twitter-X - but the only way for that to be successful would be if the nation was to cut itself off the worldwide Internet. Which Russia has threatened to do for years now, but which has yet to materialise. 

Meta adds restrictions on Instagram accounts for teens

Social media is as the above suggests very powerful. Increasingly, voices have been heard that say it's too powerful, particularly so if children use it. There's official action on this, like in South Australia which wants to ban kids under 14 from social media, so as to protect them from harm.

Meta which uses different tools for Facebook for example to work out if users are 13 and limit what they can do and see on the social network, has now brought in Teen Accounts for its hugely popular Instagram platform. This is in response to pressure put on Meta, and will put the brakes on who can contact teens under 16 and limit the content they can see, along with automatic time restrictions on how long they can spend on Instagram.

Accounts will also be made private by default, and will be filtered to remove bullying. Random tagging won't be allowed either. Parents can also surveil and supervise their kids' Instagram use and age verification will be enforced. It doesn't take too much imagination to understand why this has happened, sadly. 

That all sounds sensible, but it's guaranteed to grind kids' gears enormously. Netsafe came under fire recently for saying a ban won't solve the underlying problems with young people on social media, and might cause further harms as kids often use online channels as a way to seek support and to express themselves positively.  

Like it or not, children and young people aren't half-formed humans that need to be strictly managed until a certain age when all a sudden they can be given full rights to self determination. Instead, not consulting and engaging with the constituency you're seeking to regulate is very likely to cause hurt and deep resentment. The Australian government funded National Youth Mental Health Foundation's headspace recognises this, and it can't come as news to anyone.

What we need to be mindful of is the usual easy solution to moral panics, to make them go away: farm out the work to private interests seeing a business opportunity and offering technological solutions. In seeking solutions to problems that make people feel uncomfortable, it's easy to be swayed by magic thinking that imbues contracts between public and private entities with thoughtfulness, ethics and the ability to consider the greater good when the leitmotif of the businesses engaged is simply to exploit moral panic for profit.

Meanwhile, read the first story about Russian influence operations and consider the harm they have caused, politically and to our public health measures such as vaccinations, conservation, and ethnic relations. With that in mind, would it not make more sense to restrict adult access to social media instead? Adults are after all society's most powerful people who have the vote, lots of money and in too many cases, an inclination to cause harm to others because of warped beliefs. Jus' sayin'.

Yes, that's tongue in cheek and no, nothing about this difficult topic comes with easy answers.

Next level electronic warfare

The other big news today: Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon was hit by a spectacular attack, with reports of dozens dead and thousands wounded as someone exploded pagers worn by the terrorists. As you'd expect, there is much ghoulish speculation online around how that was achieved. There will no doubt be more detail on this soon.

The grim irony here is that Hezbollah resorted to pagers as using mobile phones for communications made it easier to track and target the terrorists.