What is it with some of the anglo countries and these ridiculous slides into nannying, vaguely repressive surveillance. It's not even much useful for real crime fighting, as the case of the UK amply and frequently demonstrates.
Australians to face age checks from search engines
191–200 of 274 posts
Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The premise is that you admit the huge corporations with billions of dollars don't have the resources to pay moderator My contention is more that they don’t have the will, because it would impact profits and that it’s possible that if they did implement effective moderation at scale it might hurt their bottom line so much they are unable to keep operating. Further, that I would not lament such a passing. I’m not sa…
> My contention is more that they don’t have the will, because it would impact profits and that it’s possible that if they did implement effective moderation at scale it might hurt their bottom line so much they are unable to keep operating. Is the theory supposed to be that the moderation would cost them users, or that the cost of paying for the moderation would cut too much into their profits? Because the first one…
Smaller forums are more likely to handle moderation effectively and in a timely manner. I frequent a few such forums, and have seen consistently good moderating for many years.
Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines
#193A resident of said country here. Another questionable measure by Government to protect our mollycoddled, insufficiently-resilient society. That said, a better approach would be to limit kids under certain age from owning smartphones with full internet access. Instead, they could have a phone without internet access—dumb phones—or ones with curated/limited access. Personally, I'm not too worried about what risqué stuf…
I find I am broadly supportive of these laws (The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024), even if this specific regulation is a bit of pearl clutching wowserism.
Why? If you read the original legislation https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display....
You get 30,000 civil penalty units if you are a scumbag social media network and you harvest someone's government ID. You get 30,000 civil penalty units if you don't try to keep young kids away from the toxic cesspool that is your service, filled with bots and boomers raving about climate change and reposting Sky News.
This absolutely stuffs those businesses who prey on their users, at least for the formative years.
And when I think about it like that? I have no problem with it, nor the fact it's a pain to implement.
Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines
#194A resident of said country here. Another questionable measure by Government to protect our mollycoddled, insufficiently-resilient society. That said, a better approach would be to limit kids under certain age from owning smartphones with full internet access. Instead, they could have a phone without internet access—dumb phones—or ones with curated/limited access. Personally, I'm not too worried about what risqué stuf…
Australian gov can’t even enforce vape ban, how you’d expect smartphone ban to be enforced?
What if the point isn't to enforce at the user level, but at the company level?
30,000 penalty units for violations. 1 unit = $330 AUD at the moment.
Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines
#195People need to realize that Australia is a testing ground for laws like this.
Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines
#1962025: 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 rul…
There are a lot of people changing their own light fittings. I have never heard about laws against plumbing but I don't see them stopping old mate from doing it.
Electrical work can be pretty dangerous...
Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines
#197Earlier 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. This legislation has got nothing to do with moderation or "protecting children" - that's just the excuse that the government is using to push the legislation through. There are better ways of achieving that goal if that was the goal. The actual goal is, as always, complete control over what Australians can see and do on the internet, and complete knowledge of what we see and do on the internet.
Pfft.
https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display....
Read it. It is specifically targeting companies who currently run riot over young individual's digital identity, flog it off to marketers, and treat them as a product.
Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines
#198What is it with some of the anglo countries and these ridiculous slides into nannying, vaguely repressive surveillance. It's not even much useful for real crime fighting, as the case of the UK amply and frequently demonstrates.
https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display....
Read the legislation. Ask yourself if it's better for a country's government or a foreign set of social media companies to control what young people see. One has a profit motive above all else. One can be at least voted for or against.
Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines
#199I’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’m an Australian who values privacy and civil liberties more than most I meet, and that's why I think this bill is horrible, is full of unintended consequences, and will be worked around by kids who care to do it.
https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display....
Read the bill. Gov ID collection is just as much a violation as failing to take any action
Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 rul…
There are a lot of people changing their own light fittings. I have never heard about laws against plumbing but I don't see them stopping old mate from doing it. Electrical work can be pretty dangerous...
Yeah, here in WA at least, there are signs up in the plumbing section of Bunnings saying “Stop! DIY plumbing is illegal! Only buy this stuff if you’re getting a professional to fit it!”
The reasoning is often “people might contaminate the water supply for a whole street!” Which just points to poor provision of one way valves at the property line.
But yeah, illegal.
I agree there are limits with what you want to do on electricity, but turning the breaker off and replacing a light fitting or light switch is pretty trivial. And I know people do just get on with it and do some of this stuff themselves anyway.
Was particularly pissed off that in January this year the plumbing “protections” were extended to rural residents who aren’t even connected to mains water or sewage, to protect us from substandard work by … making it illegal for us to do it ourselves. Highly annoying.