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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

#121

Post by riffraff »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #90
bigfatkitten wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

But this goes back to the original argument: maybe if you can't avoid causing harm then you shouldn't be allowed to operate?

E.g. if you produce eggs and you can't avoid salmonella at some point your operation should be shut down.

Facebook and its ilk have massive profits, they can afford more moderators.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#122

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jackvalentine wrote: post #100
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can’t just grow a Wikipedia link to manufacturing consent from the 80s as an explanation here. What a joke of a position. Do you dispute the thesis of the book? Moral panics have always been used to sell both newspapers and bad laws. > Maybe people have been hoodwinked by a media conspiracy or maybe they just don’t like what the kids are exposed to at a young age these days. People have never liked what kids ar…

I dispute you’ve made any kind of connection between the two beyond your own feelings. I put it to you, similarly without evidence, that your support for unfettered filth freedom is the result of a process of manufacturing consent now that American big tech dominates.

The trouble with that theory is that tech megacorps are a relatively recent development, whereas e.g. the court cases involving Larry Flynt were events from the 1970s and 80s and the likes of Hustler Magazine hardly had an outsized influence over the general media.

Meanwhile morals panics are at least as old as the Salem Witch Trials.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#123

Post by Nursie »

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…

> your browser history may be used as evidence in a criminal case

As others have said, that's the case already and not just in Australia. Same in lots of other places like the UK and the whole EU. Less so in the US (though they can demand any data the ISP has, and require ISPs to collect data on individuals)

> Australia is quietly extremely authoritarian.

It is weird, as a recent-ish migrant I do agree, there are rules for absolutely bloody everything here and the population seems in general to be very keen on "Ban it!" as a solution to everything.

It's also rife with regulatory capture - Ah, no mate, you can't change that light fitting yourself, gotta get a registered sparky in for that or you can cop a huge fine. New tap? You have to be kidding me, no, you need a registered plumber to do anything more than plunger your toilet, and we only just legalised that in Western Australia last year.

It's been said before, but at some point the great Aussie Larrikin just died. The Wowsers won and most of them don't even know they're wowsers.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#124

Post by bobbyraduloff »

Taken straight from the new regulation: “Providers of internet search engine services are not required to implement age assurance measures for end-users who are not account holders.”

How can you argue any of this is NOT in the interest of centralised surveillance and advertising identities for ADULTS when there’s such an easy way to bypass the regulation if you’re a child?

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#125

Post by Nursie »

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…

> The fact is that moderation is hard

Moderation is hard when you prioritise growth and ad revenue over moderation, certainly.

We know a good solution - throw a lot of manpower at it. That may not be feasible for the giant platforms...

Oh no.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#127

Post by AnthonyMouse »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #105
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Active refusal can (and commonly does) take the form of intentionally being unable to respond or merely putting on such an appearance. One of the curious things about Twitter pre-aquisition was that underage content somewhat frequently stayed up for months while discriminatory remarks were generally taken down rapidly. Post acquisition such content seemed to disappear approximately overnight. If the system is patholo…

> One of the curious things about Twitter pre-aquisition was that underage content somewhat frequently stayed up for months while discriminatory remarks were generally taken down rapidly. Post acquisition such content seemed to disappear approximately overnight.

This isn't evidence that they have a system for taking down content without a huge number of false positives. It's evidence that the previous administrators of Twitter were willing to suffer a huge number of false positives around accusations of racism and the current administrators are willing to suffer them around accusations of underaged content.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#128

Post by almosthere »

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…

2027: ufos visit, and decide to end the human experiment, game over.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#129

Post by rendall »

strken wrote: post #62
xboxnolifes wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both proposals are mollycoddling children. It just happens that one of them inconveniences adults.

"Inconvenience" is downplaying the impact of not letting adults use incognito mode to search for things. Yes, right now search engines are only going to blur out images and turn on safe search, but the decision to show or hide information in safe search has alarming grey areas. Examples of things that might be hidden and which someone might want to access anonymously are services relating to sexual health, news stori…

Also porn. Let's be honest, all of this energy expenditure is about porn.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#130

Post by jackvalentine »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #122
jackvalentine wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dispute you’ve made any kind of connection between the two beyond your own feelings. I put it to you, similarly without evidence, that your support for unfettered filth freedom is the result of a process of manufacturing consent now that American big tech dominates.

The trouble with that theory is that tech megacorps are a relatively recent development, whereas e.g. the court cases involving Larry Flynt were events from the 1970s and 80s and the likes of Hustler Magazine hardly had an outsized influence over the general media. Meanwhile morals panics are at least as old as the Salem Witch Trials.

Megacorps, simultaniously impotent and trillion dollar companies.
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