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Australians to face age checks from search engines

ia.acs.org.au

41–50 of 274 posts

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#41
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> misinformation Nothing screams “not living in Soviet Russia” like having a ministry of truth.

So is being fed propaganda 24/7, the KGB seems to be winning by reading some of these comments. I don't see kids being banned from reading history books, which would be more like the world you're describing, I see a country which is pretty multicultural and open minded trying it's best to protect itself from the absolute nonsense that circulates online. When I was a kid, I could only watch certain TV shows because my…

yep mutual deligitimation and hasbara are operating in full force. over 80 countries have "cyber troops" - there are so many countries trying to destroy the social fabric of the west. why shouldn't we shield our children who have no way of understanding or protecting themselves from it. plus the fact that the "thought and ideological leaders" of this generation have no thoughts or coherent ideologies is pretty telling.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#42
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's the alternative? Is it really information or misinformation?

I remember when any anti-Iraq-invasion material was considered "misinformation" in the US. Wonder how it went in Australia, since they were also very involved.

My recollection of the time is that most citizens that paid attention and a majority of the politicians in the UK and AU were fully aware the "intel" was sketchy and the motivations impure .. the debate was less about the information quality and more about the obligation to partner with the US in the invasion.

The UK PM and the AU PM backed the US position and sent troops in (in the AU case they even sent in advance rangers | commandos | SASR to scout and call targets from ground) but they were both aware the "justification" and WMD claims were BS.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#43

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...

We don't need ASIO to tell us that. The real problem is that early on when Big Tech first took a stranglehold of the internet in the early 2000s that governments failed to regulate, they did SFA despite the warning signs.

At the time it was obvious to many astute observers what was happening but governments themselves were mesmerized and awed by Big Tech.

A 20-plus year delay in applying regulations means it'll be a long hard road to put the genie back in tbe bottle. For starters, there's too much money now tied up in these trillion-dollar companies, to disrupt their income would mean shareholders and even whole economies would be affected.

Fixing the problem will be damn hard.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#44

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…

> 2030: you must be logged in to visit these specific sites where you might see naked boobies, and if you're under age you can't - those sites must enforce logins and age limits

Some states in the US are doing this already. And I think I saw a headline about some country in Europe trying to put Twitter in that category, implying they have such rules there already.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#45

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…

> 2042: your browser history may be used as evidence in a criminal case We already reached that point several years ago.

yeah true, I should have made it more explicit that it's your entire browser history, and every criminal case

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#46

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…

If only there was a name for this fallacy. Something slope something

So, is this particular slope likely to be slippery? Do governments have a history of looking for ways to control what information people can see, or looking for ways to identify people who post disfavored information?

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#48
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when any anti-Iraq-invasion material was considered "misinformation" in the US. Wonder how it went in Australia, since they were also very involved.

My recollection of the time is that most citizens that paid attention and a majority of the politicians in the UK and AU were fully aware the "intel" was sketchy and the motivations impure .. the debate was less about the information quality and more about the obligation to partner with the US in the invasion. The UK PM and the AU PM backed the US position and sent troops in (in the AU case they even sent in advance…

So some government officials were probably in the pocket of Halliburton (i.e., just like the US government) while selling a weak justification to the public.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/halliburton-australia-p...

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#49
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’m an Australian who values privacy and civil liberties more than most I meet."

Same here. Early on, if I found a site interesting I'd often follow its links to other sites and so on down into places that the Establishment would deem unacceptable but I'd not worry too much about it.

Nowadays, I just assume authorities of all types are hovering over every mouse click I make. Not only is this horrible but it also robbs one of one's autonomy.

It won't be long before we're handing info that was once commonplace in textbooks around in secret.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

We don't need ASIO to tell us that. The real problem is that early on when Big Tech first took a stranglehold of the internet in the early 2000s that governments failed to regulate, they did SFA despite the warning signs. At the time it was obvious to many astute observers what was happening but governments themselves were mesmerized and awed by Big Tech. A 20-plus year delay in applying regulations means it'll be a…

Even harder now that the US President is siding with the tech broligarchy since it aligns perfectly with the America First ideology.

(It may be the last thing that the US has the world lead on)

It's also why legislation protecting privacy and/or preventing the trade of personal information is almost impossible: the "right" people profit from it, and the industry around it has grown large enough that it would have non-trivial economic effects if it were destroyed (no matter how much it thoroughly deserves to be destroyed with fire).

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