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Australians to face age checks from search engines

ia.acs.org.au

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Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#81

Post by jackvalentine »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #67
jackvalentine wrote: post #6

Australians are broadly supportive of these kind of actions - there is a view that foreign internet behemoths have failed to moderate for themselves and will therefore have moderation imposed on them however imperfect. Can’t say I blame them.

> there is a view that foreign internet behemoths have failed to moderate for themselves and will therefore have moderation imposed on them however imperfect. This view is manufactured. The premise is that better moderation is available and despite that, literally no one is choosing to do it. The fact is that moderation is hard and in particular excluding all actually bad things without also having a catastrophically…

> This view is manufactured. The premise is that better moderation is available and despite that, literally no one is choosing to do it. The fact is that moderation is hard and in particular excluding all actually bad things without also having a catastrophically high false positive rate is infeasible.

Manufactured by whom? Moderation was done very tightly on vbulletin forums back in the day, the difference is Facebook/Google et al expect to operate at a scale where (they claim) moderation can't be done.

The magic solution is if you can't operate at scale safely, don't operate at scale.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#83

Post by marcus_holmes »

bigfatkitten wrote: post #12
jackvalentine wrote: post #6

Australians are broadly supportive of these kind of actions - there is a view that foreign internet behemoths have failed to moderate for themselves and will therefore have moderation imposed on them however imperfect. Can’t say I blame them.

If you read through the issues that ASIO says they are most concerned about, it’s clear that companies like Meta have a lot to answer for. https://www.intelligence.gov.au/news/asio-annual-threat-asse...

I just read through that, and it doesn't even mention Meta. Why do you think this is about "companies like Meta"?

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#84

Post by marcus_holmes »

Sevrene wrote: post #25

I’m an Australian who values privacy and civil liberties more than most I meet. While I yearn for the more authentic and sincere days of the internet I grew up on, I recognize very quickly by visiting x or facebook how much it isn’t that, and hasn’t been for a long time. I think this bill is a good thing and I support it.

I don't understand why you think this bill and that phenomenon (the fact that Xitter or Facebook aren't like the old days of the internet) are connected, can you explain why you think this, please?

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#85

Post by bigfatkitten »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #77
bigfatkitten wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The premise is that better moderation is available and despite that, literally no one is choosing to do it. It’s worse than that. Companies actively refuse to do anything about content that is reported to them directly, at least until the media kicks up a stink. Nobody disputes that reliably detecting bad content is hard, but doing nothing about bad content you know about is inexcusable. https://archive.is/8dq8q

Your link says the opposite of what you claim: > Meta said it has in the past two years taken down 27 pedophile networks and is planning more removals. Moreover, the rest of the article is describing the difficulty in doing moderation. If you make a general purpose algorithm that links up people with similar interests and then there is a group of people with an interest in child abuse, the algorithm doesn't inherentl…

> Your link says the opposite of what you claim

I don’t know where you got that from. Meta’s self-congratulatory takedown of “27 pedophile networks” is a drop in the ocean.

Here’s a fairly typical example of them actively deciding to do nothing in response to a report. This mirrors my own experience.

> Like other platforms, Instagram says it enlists its users to help detect accounts that are breaking rules. But those efforts haven’t always been effective.

> Sometimes user reports of nudity involving a child went unanswered for months, according to a review of scores of reports filed over the last year by numerous child-safety advocates.

> Earlier this year, an anti-pedophile activist discovered an Instagram account claiming to belong to a girl selling underage-sex content, including a post declaring, “This teen is ready for you pervs.” When the activist reported the account, Instagram responded with an automated message saying: “Because of the high volume of reports we receive, our team hasn’t been able to review this post.”

> After the same activist reported another post, this one of a scantily clad young girl with a graphically sexual caption, Instagram responded, “Our review team has found that [the account’s] post does not go against our Community Guidelines.” The response suggested that the user hide the account to avoid seeing its content.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#86

Post by naruhodo »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #24

2025: if you're logged in, then we check your age to see if you can do or see some stuff 2027: the companies providing the logins must provide government with the identities 2028: because VPNs are being used to circumvent the law, if the logging entity knows you're an Australian citizen, even if you're not in Australia or using an Aussie IP address then they must still apply the law 2030: you must be logged in to vis…

Mate...

> 2038: all visits to all sites will be recorded

That's been the case since 2015. ISPs are required to record customer ID, record date, time and IP address and retain it for two years to be accessed by government agencies. It was meant to be gated by warrants, but a bunch of non-law-enforcement entities applied for warrantless access, including local councils, the RSPCA (animal protection charity), and fucking greyhound racing. It's ancient history, so I'm not sure if they were able to do so. The abuse loopholes might finally be closed up soon though.

https://privacy108.com.au/insights/metadata-access/

https://delimiter.com.au/2016/01/18/61-agencies-apply-for-me...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-18/government-releases-l...

https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2023/government-acts-to-finall...

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#87

Post by g-b-r »

jackvalentine wrote: post #81
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is a view that foreign internet behemoths have failed to moderate for themselves and will therefore have moderation imposed on them however imperfect. This view is manufactured. The premise is that better moderation is available and despite that, literally no one is choosing to do it. The fact is that moderation is hard and in particular excluding all actually bad things without also having a catastrophically…

> This view is manufactured. The premise is that better moderation is available and despite that, literally no one is choosing to do it. The fact is that moderation is hard and in particular excluding all actually bad things without also having a catastrophically high false positive rate is infeasible. Manufactured by whom? Moderation was done very tightly on vbulletin forums back in the day, the difference is Facebo…

Were web searches moderated?

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#88

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jackvalentine wrote: post #81
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is a view that foreign internet behemoths have failed to moderate for themselves and will therefore have moderation imposed on them however imperfect. This view is manufactured. The premise is that better moderation is available and despite that, literally no one is choosing to do it. The fact is that moderation is hard and in particular excluding all actually bad things without also having a catastrophically…

> This view is manufactured. The premise is that better moderation is available and despite that, literally no one is choosing to do it. The fact is that moderation is hard and in particular excluding all actually bad things without also having a catastrophically high false positive rate is infeasible. Manufactured by whom? Moderation was done very tightly on vbulletin forums back in the day, the difference is Facebo…

> Manufactured by whom?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

> Moderation was done very tightly on vbulletin forums back in the day, the difference is Facebook/Google et al expect to operate at a scale where (they claim) moderation can't be done.

The difference isn't the scale of Google, it's the scale of the internet.

Back in the day the internet was full of university professors and telecommunications operators. Now it has Russian hackers and an entire battalion of shady SEO specialists.

If you want to build a search engine that competes with Google, it doesn't matter if you have 0.1% of the users and 0.001% of the market cap, you're still expected to index the whole internet. Which nobody could possibly do by hand anymore.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#89

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #56
jackvalentine wrote: post #6

Australians are broadly supportive of these kind of actions - there is a view that foreign internet behemoths have failed to moderate for themselves and will therefore have moderation imposed on them however imperfect. Can’t say I blame them.

I'm split on it. 100% agree that kids being off social media is better for society. But I can't see how it could be enforced without privacy implications for adults.

Don’t buy them devices and lock down your computer and networks.

I guess if a teenager is enterprising enough to get a job and save up and buy their own devices and pay for their own internet then more power to them.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#90

Post by AnthonyMouse »

bigfatkitten wrote: post #85
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your link says the opposite of what you claim: > Meta said it has in the past two years taken down 27 pedophile networks and is planning more removals. Moreover, the rest of the article is describing the difficulty in doing moderation. If you make a general purpose algorithm that links up people with similar interests and then there is a group of people with an interest in child abuse, the algorithm doesn't inherentl…

> Your link says the opposite of what you claim I don’t know where you got that from. Meta’s self-congratulatory takedown of “27 pedophile networks” is a drop in the ocean. Here’s a fairly typical example of them actively deciding to do nothing in response to a report. This mirrors my own experience. > Like other platforms, Instagram says it enlists its users to help detect accounts that are breaking rules. But those…

Your claim was that they "actively refuse" to do anything about it, but they clearly do actually take measures.

As mentioned, the issue is that they get zillions of reports and vast numbers of them are organized scammers trying to get them to take down legitimate content. Then you report something real and it gets lost in an sea of fake reports.

What are they supposed to do about that? It takes far fewer resources to file a fake report than investigate one and nobody can drink the entire ocean.

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