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Australian Senate, last sitting of the year. No idea when the Social Media Ban debate is kicking off.
If anyone's keen, feel free to give a live run-down of anything interesting in this thread.
(sorry about all the edits, just trying to get a decent thumbnail: 
)
We should ban u16s from public transport. Too many have had fatal accidents due to dangerous behaviour around railways and bus stops. Compulsory learning from home, now!
Call of duty lobbies mentioned in senate. What a time to be alive lmao
Yes, and rightly so. Because this bill is so immensely stupid and the process by which it has been enacted so deeply undemocratic, that even a moron like Canavan (or was it Antic?) can see that the way they've carved out exemptions is haphazard and poorly thought through.
"Comrade! Papers! NOW!"
I remember when we used to be horrified at some of the terrible regimes and their draconian requirements and powers.
And yet, here we are happily strolling into the same situation.
I don’t see how the communist remark is relevant. Social media has proliferated largely unchecked. They are potentially damaging platforms, especially for younger people. That’s ignoring the rampant misinformation. I mean have a look at X and the “your body my choice” nonsense. I’m surprised people are genuinely advocating for the multimillion dollar corporations being in charge rather than our government.
It's a wild overstep peddled in the name of "think of the children!!"
As any 12 year old with a porno mag will tell you, kids will get around this without even blinking. And the fun fact is that I, a grown arse adult three times their "acceptable" age to fuck around with the dangerous social media will coincidentally be asked to prove my age, full name, address to any comment I may make online and boy oh boy wait until I say something that disagrees with the obsidian order.
This comment right here. Not a fan of this bill at all and may potentially leave any platform that demands this information and/or ‘digital id’.
Moving countries here. just gonna post on this instance for nostalgia
For real? Hyperbole? Or vpn joke
Not OP, but this garbage solidified my decision that I wish to move countries sometime soon. I think the EU's done a good job at regulating corporations while also not making such over the top decisions, and generally respecting democratic processes when they do make heavy handed decisions
If I had better earning potential I probably would have absconded to Europe
Why does Labor always do this? Instead of concentrating on good social policy and undoing some of the pro-corporation crap the Liberals have snuck in, they come up with some utter stupidity about the internet and end up dying on that hill.
Internet filter repeat incoming. This will be their undoing next election.
Is lemmy exempt I wonder?
They prolly don't know it exists. If they do, be prepared to switch instance as I doubt lodion will want to deal with Id checking
I, and at least one other person here sent submissions in specifically mentioning the fediverse.
Mine wasn't a very technical submission, i tried to focus on the value and potential destruction of that value if safeguards aren't allowed for nascent social media.
So at least there is a record of it. My worry is all the Muskivites submissions will drown out ones like mine.
It's not even clear yet what form the ID checking will take. They've rushed this through way too fast and without proper consultation. But there does seem to be some sort of a plan that the ID checking would be done by a government service in some manner, rather than users needing to send ID directly to the platform.
Govt service is still bad, still links everyones social media accounts to their ID. The bill will do jackshit anyways, as under 16s will simply move to social media hosted outside of Australia.
So of the top ofnyour head, a VPN will allow you to skirt this law?
I don't use social media beyond lemmy but be fucked if I want to give my I.D to anyone in relation to my online activities
Well, a VPN fakes your country, and the law only applies in Australia. Also, it is an unenforceable law anyways so I doubt it would do much
Yes, but Social Media apps can derive location data through other means, including time zone and language settings, visible WiFi Access Points, not to mention GPS.
The Libs passed the legislation because they're corrupt.
Labor passed it because they're incompetent.
Either way, it's likely that the AustGov will be the gatekeepers of 'onboarding' and re-verification of existing users.
It's a disgrace.
"are you over 16" clicks yes well your honour they clearly provided false data so it's not our farkin' problem.
because honestly what fucking 16 year old has a proof of age card
Last I saw the suggestions were drivers license or equivalent, face scan, or digital id. They’ve probably walked that back though or will do so because hell nah
Govt service, or privatised ID assurance face-scanning service wrought with error?
Like I said, it's not clear yet what form it will take.
I'll take that as a no
The relevant Minister will be able to give exemptions as needed, but unfortunately there is no threshold for any sort of minimum size requirement or for non-profit community groups. So we would probably, to be completely lawful, need to get chummy with some politicians who can reach out to the Minister and seek an exemption.
(But realistically, we're probably small enough that nobody would notice.)
it's seriously annoying as fuck how there's no exemption for any of these internet regulations based on size, all it it seriously achieves is strengthening corpos and depowering individuals with souls
The info is still really vague but seemed to so far apply to big platforms like reddit and facebook and X - however my info might be outdated by now.
Then again it could be that the fines for non compliance and verification charges might also apply to smaller platforms with less available funding than the big companies, and push them under.
The info I’ve been reading seems to be inconsistent and sometimes even conflict. And yeah, could be outdated by now
Faaark, I'm agreeing with Malcolm Roberts!
Too many kids die over this shit. The corpos have had, what, 15 years (?) to sort this shit out.
So now we see the heavy handed government regulation coming along. That’s what happens.
i guess that's true but the system totally shouldn't function that way at all, group punishment is retarded.
we pay these dumbasses to run our government for us, shouldn't we be holding them accountable when they do dumb shit like this, rather than just accepting it as how the real world is?
Have mega corporations like Facebook/meta and Twitter/x been held accountable? Because they’ve resulted in kids killing themselves or developing psychological disorders.
What I’m not seeing is the backlash against those.
Fuck our useless government. Incompetent like most. But I’m so sick of the corpos getting a little bit of outrage and then not only do people move on in short order, but they keep using their platform and generating profit for them.
Come to Darwin where because there are people who get drunk and do stupid shit and get banned from buying alcohol, we are all punished and must present I.D every time we purchase takeaway alcohol.
Governments love group punishment because it's easiest to implement.
So now we all have to hand over ID to the government which will link our real identities to our online activity?
And that's a good idea you think?
Are you sure you can't imagine a scenario where that might be an issue?
Actually, don't worry. Government databases never get hacked, and politicians never deceive the populace for nefarious purposes.
🙄
I have warned about this. Access to online services will soon be locked behind your mygov id.
These plans have been in motion for a long time.
Games are explicitly excluded from this law.
Which is kinda fucking ridiculous, as pointed out in debate, because in-game chat is often some of the most toxic you'll encounter.
tbh I'm more concerned about kids on cod or battle.net than insta chat (research has found a lot of kids using Instagram for absurd numbers of hours are actually just chatting).