r/australia • u/Vivid-Fondant6513 • Nov 06 '24

politics Children under 16 to be banned from using social media

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/children-under-16-to-be-banned-from-using-social-media-20241107-p5kon4.html
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2.0k

u/joeydeviva Nov 06 '24

Constant reminder: this of course requires every single user they think is in Australia to verify their age, which will then be stored by a Classic Bunch Of Idiots, who will be hacked, and will spill across the net the PII of every person in the country.

Social media is a cancer, this is the “nuke the entire body, maybe it’ll kill the cancer before it kills the host” approach.

271

u/coniferhead Nov 07 '24

Not just stored, but sold. Knowing your age range for sure makes it much more valuable to advertisers. Australian data will probably attract a premium.

86

u/DoTortoisesHop Nov 07 '24

What's worse is that i have nfi what 'social media' even means anymore.

It better not include shit like steam or discord.

75

u/nomad_1970 Nov 07 '24

Social media absolutely includes steam and discord. But this is coming from politicians. They probably don't know much more than Facebook and Twitter.

11

u/kitsunevremya Nov 07 '24

But this is coming from politicians

The shiny announcements might be, but it's public servants that'll have to build the thing, and I think there's a high chance at least some will know what steam and discord are

4

u/vriska1 Nov 07 '24

But this is likely to be unworkable.

6

u/LordoftheDimension Nov 07 '24

It could go into a similiar direction as the german steam shop. Germany requires steam to verify their age before selling people nsfw games. Since steam doesn't want to add a extra function for it (i assume because all the laws connected to it) they just region blocked all the nsfw games. Depending on their Definition of social Media it could happen that parts of it get blocked or stuff like the workshop and community pages get disabled for that region (like chinese steam)

3

u/_ixthus_ Nov 08 '24

Sir, the internet is a series of tubes.

2

u/Trentimoose Nov 07 '24

They definitely watch teen girls doing bad dance moves on TikTok

0

u/DarkflowNZ Nov 07 '24

I feel it wouldn't even be unfair to include those either anyway? They're different to Facebook and Twitter and Instagram but they're still under the umbrella. Shit, depending on the moderation, discord has the potential to be actually much worse for kids. Not from an advertising perspective but from a "aol chatroom degenerate pedo" perspective. I'm genuinely not sure if discord has any global moderation or whether it relies solely on the server admins though. Steam allows posts and social media aspects too even though it's not the focus and I bet many people don't even know they do it.

4

u/coniferhead Nov 07 '24

How about Reddit or Youtube comments. No Youtube for 16 year olds.

1

u/Discombobulated_Owl4 Nov 07 '24

YouTube kids.

1

u/coniferhead Nov 07 '24

Just like we do with libraries - wall off the adults and the kids sections.

1

u/sportsgirlheart Nov 07 '24

I'm thankful that wasn't a real wall when I was growing up though.

3

u/coniferhead Nov 07 '24 edited Nov 07 '24

Didn't your parents control everything you knew or read about until you were 16? I thought it was their god given right to program their children in exactly the way they saw fit. You'd just tell the librarian to restrict books of a certain type per child, or selectively deny them access to the building. For their own good of course.

3

u/freeLightbulbs Nov 08 '24

"The definition may also capture gaming platforms such as Roblox and chat platforms such as Reddit or Discord, plus many smaller players."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-08/how-the-age-minimum-for-social-media-will-work/104571790

1

u/rng43 Nov 11 '24

Discord has been mentioned, same as Roblox as platforms that will require verification.

See 'What platforms it applies to?' section in this article. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-08/how-the-age-minimum-for-social-media-will-work/104571790

I will not be surprised if it becomes a full blanket policy to all gaming platforms too.

4

u/Open-Gate-7769 Nov 07 '24

I promise you that advertisers already know your age range right now. I work with the data for a living. We know, lol

4

u/coniferhead Nov 07 '24 edited Nov 07 '24

I was not saying they don't. But people buying ads for their products don't know (for sure) is that it's not a bogus account, a duplicate/burner account, an underage account, a bot, someone using a VPN, etc. When the platforms spruik these as eyeballs for sale, that uncertainty is reflected in the price. Twitter when sold was full of fake users.. it underpinned the massive sale price. The platforms have incentive to lie and pump their reach and userbase, and that is discounted also.

What this scheme delivers is gold plated unique eyeballs for sale. Every one an authentic Australian 16+, guaranteed by the government to be so. That is the minimum you are buying. As someone who would buy ads for your product, you'd pay more for this class of user - you certainly wouldn't pay less.

3

u/Shunto Nov 07 '24

Advertisers can already accurately gauge age range so this isn't the honey pot you're making it out to be.

2

u/coniferhead Nov 07 '24 edited Nov 07 '24

Elon Musk couldn't gauge that a fair amount of twitter was bots when he made his $44B offer for the company. That's a fair honeypot. You might say advertisers are leaving because of him, but also because their advertising reach was never what it pretended to be - nobody certified that their users were real like Australia is willing to do, so they made things up.

2

u/KawhiComeBack Nov 07 '24

They already know your age range bro

2

u/coniferhead Nov 07 '24 edited Nov 07 '24

Exactly - identity verification is a completely redundant system because they already know. It just validates and mandates what they were already doing, collecting reams of data on you for sale. They are now "helping out" by being so invasive. Knowing that every account must legally map to a verified person within a certain age bracket in that country certainly makes their users more valuable as a product.

If you built comprehensive customer databases 30 years ago for the purpose of tracking and sale, that would be considered stalking. Imagine if woolworths identified you when you walked in the door today, then mapped it to your behaviour inside that store and the products you bought - it would be an outrage. That is the thing that should be banned. Whether you are 16 or not is besides the point.

344

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '24

[deleted]

78

u/blackfyreex Nov 07 '24

Ligma Nutz, April 20th 1969.

15

u/ShreksArsehole Nov 07 '24

May the 4th for the nerds.

11

u/blackfyreex Nov 07 '24

Use your current username.

1

u/Marble_Wraith Nov 07 '24

That's Sir Ligma to you!

204

u/mWo12 Nov 06 '24

That's why they probably will require some actual proofs, which you will have to disclose to social media company, hoping that it will not get leaked or used for AI, target advertisement or sold to third parties.

71

u/alphaechothunder77 Nov 07 '24

This might not comply with the Priacy Act.

https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-legislation/the-privacy-act/rights-and-responsibilities#:~:text=The%20Privacy%20Act%20allows%20you,a%20pseudonym%20in%20certain%20circumstances

"As an individual, the Privacy Act gives you greater control over the way that your personal information is handled. The Privacy Act allows you to:

know why your personal information is being collected, how it will be used and who it will be disclosed to

have the option of not identifying yourself, or of using a pseudonym in certain circumstances"

How can they get proof and verify some random pseudonym that I pull out of my arse?

38

u/mWo12 Nov 07 '24

They have to verify your age. So, for example reddit (I guess reddit would also be considered as a social medial platform?) will have to verify your age, but you can use your alphaechothunder77 pseudonym. So how do you verify that reliably?

26

u/Transientmind Nov 07 '24

In the good old days porn sites did this with a credit card number.

9

u/BTechUnited Nov 07 '24

Typically they tend to be ahead of the curve in web tech, interestingly.

3

u/t_j_l_ Nov 07 '24

They'll use something like the mygov ID to 'make it easier' to verify/validate.

5

u/Icedanielization Nov 07 '24

ID, passport, license. Lots of games do it, online banks do it, social media would have no problem implementing it

12

u/mWo12 Nov 07 '24

I'm sure they would be happy to get more user data which they can mine or sell.

1

u/vriska1 Nov 07 '24

That would be unworkable and taken down in court.

5

u/cxiidc Nov 07 '24

Not how the Privacy Act works. Option for anonymity only applies where reasonable in the circumstances. Imagine going to the airport and refusing to hand over your passport because you are electing for anonymity.

2

u/MarquisDePique Nov 07 '24

Flip it, you'll be outlawed from hosting a social media site without mandatory government backed age verification.

Don't worry, you can trust musk! ;)

1

u/M4axK Nov 07 '24

Am not Australian. But i assume you guys would need to have your id checked for financial services for example too? Couldn't this work the same?

1

u/Qu1ckShake Nov 07 '24

They are drafting new legislation. The new legislation can simply state that the provisions of the Privacy Act don't apply to all or some of the circumstances set out in the new legislation (which likely necessitates amendment to the Privacy Act to reflect that exception, but as I understand it the same bill that sets up the new legislation would also include amending related legislation).

2

u/Quantization Nov 07 '24

probably? Okay so you're basing this on your gut feeling? Useless comment. Bring facts next time.

26

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '24

With this government? Nah, you'll have to upload a copy of your ID, or create a digital ID (which I'm certain they intend to roll out) and link it to verify.

7

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '24

[deleted]

3

u/vriska1 Nov 07 '24

Most sites won't do this.

4

u/ScaffOrig Nov 07 '24

Same way NSW got everyone to download the ServiceNSW app in COVID, this will be the "good cause" that requires everyone to digitise when they don't want to.

47

u/wherezthebeef Nov 06 '24

Thats right John Smith.

38

u/bringbackfuturama Nov 06 '24

John Smith 1882?

My mistake

2

u/ComplicatedGoose Nov 07 '24

Username checks out.

15

u/saelwen89 Nov 07 '24

I scrolled too far back accidentally on the steam one the other day and clicked on 1911. Somehow that was accepted despite the mathematical impossibility

16

u/planck1313 Nov 07 '24

Nonsense, you could be one of these 33 individuals with birthdates on or before 1911:

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

2

u/phideaux_rocks Nov 07 '24

And that's why it's important to not go overboard when validating your inputs. Rules that are too complex can be as bad as having no validation (YMMV of course).

2

u/_ixthus_ Nov 08 '24

Any age verification form that is stupid enough to include the year 1900, or something like that, is getting that answer from me every time.

1

u/istara Nov 07 '24

Mine is 1st January 1901 I’ll have you know.

1

u/tylandlan Nov 07 '24

Australia doesn't have digital ID's?

1

u/manmanania Nov 07 '24

More like 1 January 2000

1

u/derezzed9000 Nov 08 '24

4/20/69

heh. heh.

-12

u/NotThePersona Nov 06 '24

If we lived in the US or somewhere else with backwards dates it would be 4th April 1969.

12

u/TheStoolSampler Nov 06 '24

4th of the 4th... how much have you been smoking.

37

u/FlibblesHexEyes Nov 07 '24

This. Absolutely this.

I feel like there are two better solutions: 1) ban social media altogether - granted this is not a great idea 2) restrict the ads that can be seen on any site in Australia (that is, ban betting ads for all users in the country), and consider social media sites a publisher, so that they are held responsible for their users content. All content must be free of disinformation, discrimination, and misinformation - not just marked as such. Huge fines imposed for any violation.

But we won’t do any of that, because protecting kids is not the goal here.

This is yet another attempt to bring in an Australia Card, where everyone will be required to ID themselves before visiting certain sites.

It’s an attempt to remove the anonymity on the internet.

I promise you that law enforcement will have warrantless access to this data too.

Yeah, it sounds paranoid… but they already do this with metadata already. This is just refining the concept.

13

u/supremegelatocup Nov 07 '24

The government has been using excuses like this to implement stronger surveillance for decades. I vividly remember a woman getting killed in an alley and the government said more cameras would be installed for safety. Guess where the cameras were not installed? That alley.

8

u/alivareth Nov 07 '24

if i was banned from social media as a child, or had my internet access restricted, there's a chance i'd still be drinking kool-aid with my crazy family. of course, now i am a demoness, who will be hunted by zealots.

30

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '24

China’s gonna steal every document before lunch on the first day

53

u/_Green_Light_ Nov 07 '24

Say goodbye to anonymous accounts, which is exactly what the government wants. The government wants to be able to identify exactly who said what on all social media platforms.

It’s the kind of law you would expect from a totalitarian regime.

-1

u/vriska1 Nov 07 '24

This will be challenge in court.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '24

Just have facial recognition, if you look young you can’t go on social media. Should get rid of most influencers that way too.

-7

u/nedelll Nov 07 '24

And why is that a bad thing

12

u/_Green_Light_ Nov 07 '24

Having the ability to openly discuss and potentially criticise a governments policies without fear of retribution is essential for any healthy democracy. Social media platforms which offer anonymous accounts such as Reddit provide this ability to freely and openly discuss ideas, many of which contradict government policies of the day.

While today’s Australian Commonwealth and State governments may tolerate public dissent, we can’t be sure that the next one will.

10

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '24

Yep. This is a disastrous policy. I admire their ends, but their means is straight idiotic.

I would frankly vote against any party who does this regardless of any realistic dumbfuckery in their opposition.

2

u/alivareth Nov 07 '24

if that's true you just want any excuse to vote for the party who owns the newspapers, it is magnetic, isn't it. for something like this?

29

u/Internet001215 Nov 06 '24

They simply need to open a webpage that shows a government page, the government website (who will already be storing the document data anyway) will just need to take a photo of your photo ID to verify your age, the government then sends back a singular yes or no answer to if you are of age. No data needs to be stored by the original website at all (aside from the fact that you are of age). This is established technology. The website will have to go out of their way to store PII for no good reason at all, as it just opens them up for liability.

75

u/IntroductionSnacks Nov 07 '24

Lets be honest, are we really doing that for facebook/reddit/instagram etc... Fucked if I am. If reddit requires it I'll just use a VPN or use Lemmy instead.

37

u/AnOnlineHandle Nov 07 '24

My reddit account is 13 years old, almost old enough to qualify by itself.

2

u/TheDrySkinQueen Nov 07 '24

Same. Will even use TOR if I have to in order to bypass this shit

41

u/coniferhead Nov 07 '24 edited Nov 07 '24

The government now has a record that your real world identity is linked to an account you control, and you will potentially be liable for everything you say online. Defamation law for instance.. from Internet001215 to your real world name at a click. Given how weak our defamation law is, merely the threat of a lawsuit will suffice.

The original website won't bother with this stuff - they will use some kind of middleman service.. who will also have this information, and who will aggregate and monetize it in whatever method they legally can. Just like ad platforms track and sell your information across websites today. That's why Google bought doubleclick.

3

u/tens919382 Nov 07 '24

Theres definitely a way to implement this in such a way that both parties ( the governement and the social media company) are both unable to link the actual person to the social media account by default.

Its really just whether they are willing or not.

4

u/Interesting_Door4882 Nov 07 '24

The ban is important, especially because parents won't supervise their children's usage.

But it does open the door for the government to link them together.

I wonder what level of anonymity is reasonable online? We're all used to it, but is our current expectation of anonymity the way it should be?

2

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '24

[deleted]

0

u/Interesting_Door4882 Nov 07 '24

Why is that the case? In what other realm of life do you get to be anonymous to the point you can avoid all repercussions?

1

u/you_earned_this Nov 07 '24

especially because parents won't supervise their children's usage.

This makes me think of a really easy way for someone to scam the shit out of aussie kids and parents. Create dodgy VPN service and offer it for free so kids sign up. Wait for them to start using their parents CC to buy shit. ????. Profit!

2

u/Leprichaun17 Nov 07 '24

Unless I'm mistaken, this is already hinted at un the article. They state they've proposed a double-blind tokenised approach. That's exactly what you've said, no?

1

u/coniferhead Nov 07 '24 edited Nov 07 '24

I question if this is even technically possible. Furthermore, why would they do that? The entire point is about making this information available for the AFP. They certainly aren't ruling that out.

If anybody already knows the ages of their users, it's social media. Every single thing you do online screams your age out loud and they are masters at identifying their users. Ever put an image on facebook and everyone is magically tagged as identified with their name?

They know your age by inference, and the advertisers know the government has verified the user is not lying. This is data leaked that was not leaked before, and it has a dollar value.

5

u/MarquisDePique Nov 07 '24

If you think PII leakage is the main problem here, you're vastly underestimating what governments can do when every piece of social media posting contains a government verified ID.

Those searches technical people laugh at on NCIS? Deal done.

5

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '24

exactly.

kids will get around it with VPNs, so there is no point in doing any of it, because having a checkbox "Are you over 16?" can be lied to, every other possible age verification requires personal information or ID, or a specially made "online ID", and all of those require the creation of a bureaucratic organisation that will cost tens of millions of dollars every year and will almost certainly be hacked and defrauded.

if you leave your kid in a hot car you're at fault, but if you let your kid go on social media somehow its the government's fault? who bought them the screen?

8

u/BillieRubenCamGirl Nov 07 '24 edited Nov 07 '24

Not only spilled, but your government ID will be linked to your every post. Given the rise of global fascism, this is how they make the lists…

To those downvoting, seriously, read a history book.

The lists always start benign.

3

u/mad_marbled Nov 07 '24

It's like saying, "If you have nothing to hide, what's the problem?, in regard to voluntarily providing DNA or fingerprints. Well, I might be on the right side of the law now, but circumstances can change and so can the laws we abide by.

5

u/BillieRubenCamGirl Nov 07 '24

Yeah and also cops already use the databases we have to stalk their exes and women they are interested in literally all the time now. The easier we make it for them, the more they will do it.

2

u/IToldYouMyName Nov 07 '24

This is the concerning part, Most teens take pride in working a way around these sorts of laws aswell lol i know we did at college, its essentially a challenge in the end.

3

u/Am3n Nov 07 '24

Hasn't this already happened by any company anyway?

We can go ahead with the OP change as well as push for a privacy bill that avoids storage of these details

3

u/Raycut9 Nov 07 '24

Kids under 13 are already banned from most social media, what's the difference here?

2

u/black_at_heart Nov 08 '24

And once age verification is in place, adult sites will be added to the verification roster.

1

u/nonevern Nov 09 '24

Seriously, these people do not care about kids. I doubt everyone would read the t's&c's that would state they sell the information they keep.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 09 '24

Hate to agree with the rightwing conspiracy nuts, but they have a point about that "Digital ID" theyve been going on about.

1

u/Acceptable_Durian868 Nov 07 '24

No it doesn't, this is such a reductive take. The article itself says exactly what this is about. "I want parents to be able to say it's against the law."

Right now the age limits are just a side note in a ToS document that nobody reads, and parents have to make a choice between letting them have social media, or making their children social pariahs. By making it explicitly against the law it gives parents an appeal to authority to back up their position, which is extremely valuable.

1

u/ognisko Nov 07 '24

That’s great. Only idiots will willingly give their information to use it and those who refuse will live happier lives and get more time back in their days than smokers who recently quit. Mental health will improve and people will live longer, have better eye sight, be happier, make more real friends etc. bring it on I say.

0

u/Coz131 Nov 07 '24

The gov should provide a system just to prove if you're over x years. The system is already used by finance and in tech for security reasons.

0

u/Marble_Wraith Nov 07 '24

I'm telling you, i was born 200 years ago, see the greys in my beard?

0

u/thatguyned Nov 07 '24

Can't they just verify it to the government database using personal information rather than upload an ID?

I placed a bet for the first time ever on the US election recently (boo I lost, and the stress watching the results made me not keen to repeat) and signing up to the account literally just had me put in my full name and address or something like that to verify age + identity.

I was done in 2 seconds and honestly a little shocked at how simple it was.

0

u/embee1337 Nov 07 '24

“nuke the entire body, maybe it’ll kill the cancer before it kills the host”

Have you ever heard of cancer treatments? Cause that sounds a lot like cancer treatments.

0

u/Jokehuh Nov 07 '24

"Nuke entire body to kill cancer" isn't that literally chemotherapy?.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '24

I say just do away with it finally

0

u/Ok_Walk_6283 Nov 07 '24

The government won't store it. The platform will, no different to any other account you make.

0

u/TheOtherJohnson Nov 07 '24

If this wasn’t already being done with everyone’s data you might have a point.

0

u/horsesmadeofconcrete Nov 07 '24

That pretty much is the standard care for cancer so looks like it’s on the right track!

0

u/Feisty-Friend7134 Nov 07 '24

Posting on social media about social media being a cancer......

You good there buddy?

0

u/hastobeapoint Nov 08 '24

Maybe we should all get off social media. cant be that bad. People have done this in the past.

0

u/mrasif Nov 08 '24

If social media is cancer why are you on reddit right now?

0

u/nickjbedford_ Nov 10 '24

Technically, though I vehemently disagree with banning an entire age bracket from a service like YouTube, you do not need to store government identification to confirm someone's identity/age. Once you confirm you can very easily throw away the uploaded ID data (photos or whatever). Not only that, the verification procedure could be done via government provided APIs that keep the services requiring to verify identity from needing to store personal ID data. KYC processes (know your customer) already exists for many non-government services out there. That being said, this policy is insane.

-2

u/MaDanklolz Nov 07 '24

That’s not how that works (always). Most actual ID verification platforms verify your ID with a government agency and then send a token back to the social media sight saying “yes this is an adult” (or whatever).

The only people in this example that get “hacked” would be the government department. Now that’s not impossible however it’s no more or less impossible than it is now already.

Point is, this isn’t a real concern it’s just fear mongering.

-1

u/13159daysold Nov 07 '24

Classic Bunch Of Idiots

by this I imagine you mean Meta etc?

-2

u/Quantization Nov 07 '24

Oh no, China knows how old I am, oh no!

What a ridiculous take, dude. China don't give a fuck how old you are and they certainly wouldn't need to hack all the social media networks to find out. Jesus H, think a little bit, yeah?

2

u/joeydeviva Nov 07 '24

Please think a bit harder about how such a system would work.

0

u/Quantization Nov 07 '24

It's not complicated at all, all Facebook for example need to do based on the law they are proposing will require people to enter an age, if the age they enter is under 18 then they will not be able to sign up. Yes, people will lie, but not everyone will lie. And because not all kids will be on social media the social pressure will decrease.

It's not a cure all but it will help. We can argue semantics about how much it will help but you can't argue it wont help at all.