[linuxandrew]

> They specifically don’t prescribe any particular age verification methods. This would be a great time to follow up with legislation that updates their national IDs to be able to provide cryptographically secure proofs of age without leaking identity.

Hard disagree. We do not need an internet driver's license. Australians are supposed to have a right to interact with organisations with privacy protections under the Privacy Act 1988, like APP2 which allows individuals to deal with organisations anonymously or pseudonymously.

Social media companies are doing a great deal of harm to society, but banning under-16s is tackling the symptom, not the problem. All people should have more rights and protections, like opting out (or better, opting in) to infinite scroll and algorithmic content suggestions as opposed to subscribed content. Algorithmic content today is akin to spam in the early 2000s which governments regulated and has had some impact on bad behaviour by local companies (of course I am not under any pretense that spam will ever really be solved). Social media users should be able to opt in or out of content categories which AI could potentially help with that categorisation, ideally in an uber-transparent way.

I'm young enough that "modern" social media was just starting up when I was a teenager. It's not clear that banning under 16s from modern digital communication would provide any benefits (which, by the way, social media is very loosely defined under the amendment).

> Absent that, I’m sure many of the comments to come will worry about the privacy implications.

The big issue is that we are importing the UK model which will see identity outsourcing to companies like Yoti and AU10TIX, the latter which was hacked in 2021 and led to some pretty serious implications for affected users.

Of course the reality is that Meta is already doing age and identity verification on users who use privacy-protecting technologies like Firefox Container Tabs, at least in Australia, and has been for a number of years. This usually leads to an account being blocked until the user provides their ID via a photo. This will become formalised so that accounts that are detected as possibly being U16 (via various techniques like profiling and data matching against external sources) will be requested ID, and Yoti will likely be used to actually perform that verification.

Another big concern will be that this is forced onto smaller operators like Australian Mastodon sites, internet forums, mailing lists and others.

[ehnto]

They can opt out, by not participating with the site. No one is mandated to use social media. But I would also want to see things go the other direction anyway, default to non-algorithmic feeds. Those with the awareness to opt-out are not the people at highest risk.

I agree with basically everything else you said, and I think social media is generally a blight on society. But we can opt-out already, if you are on social media platforms with algo feeds, you are signalling that this works for you. You need to accept that responsibility in the same way it's up to ourselves not to drink 40 beers a day at home.

[Springtime]

Reddit is among the range of sites deemed 'social media' per the article. Reddit is practically a glorified forum where users directly influence which submissions rise above others via personal voting and self-curation of communities to follow. There's no voodoo there forcing non-subscribed things in one's feed unless one is logged out (ie: non-participating anyway).

Given the timeframe to come up with how it's meant to be practically implemented it's not hard to imagine on various services all users of all ages from the region would be required to submit standard ID rather than an idealized age verification the GP suggests that prevents either storing or leaking identity (in either direction). If it went that way it'd be a major blow to user privacy and data security concerns.

Looking at criticism of the legislation there were a range of organizations pointing out such issues, including UNICEF.

[rebuilder]

Isn’t this kind of like saying the solution to robocalls is not having a phone?

[linuxandrew]

> They can opt out, by not participating with the site

The definition of social media under the legislation is essentially any form of digital communication that allows two or more people to communicate, as decided by the minister.

> No one is mandated to use social media

OK, I'll bite. What if you want to join an interest group (crafts, technical, political etc) that organises meetings digitally on a social media site? Sure, you have the choice to not use a social media website, and if you do, in all likelihood not join your choice of interest group. The point is that Meta long used unfair and anti-competitive means to corner the market, and obviously not to interoperate so that it is difficult for people to leave. This might surprise you but the relationship between platforms and users is usually coerced and not really consensual. If you do not find yourself in this position, good for you. I'm a very firm believer that anti-competitive social media companies should be regulated in positive ways, like forcing interoperability and forcing companies to making algorithmic content opt-in.

> if you are on social media platforms with algo feeds, you are signalling that this works for you

Yeah except people are usually on those platforms for many reasons, like access to group chats and messages, as the platforms have a wide reach. A lot of people become outcasts by quitting social media, myself included, because our friends choose to continue to use it.

[liammclennan]

Did you see the "without leaking identity" part? Your comment seems to ignore that.

[wqaatwt]

Only for now. After requiring an ID to sign up is normalized governments will inevitably try to eliminate any anonymity to “protect children”/catch criminals/censorship/etc.

[pixxel]

You must be a child, yourself. Incredibly naïve.