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Australia has a history of dumb "somebody think of the children" laws that the children bypass within 20 seconds.
Are small breasts still functionally banned, or has the classification board smartened the fuck up in the last decade?
Excuse me, what's functionally banned now?
They're not banned in porn unless it's already noncey
I can't help but feel this is partially an attempt to ban trans youth by proxy - essentially an attempt to limit the ability for a kid to get out from under the thumb of their parents. You can see it in the arguments that claim this ban returns power to the parents - they know they're stifling communities and ways of spreading knowledge.
Australia's never had a proper reckoning with the trans issue - we just keep importing views and controversies. But if push came to shove, I know exactly where this reactionary country is landing
I agree that's a negative consequence of the bill but I think it's unintended. I don't think it has even figured into the planning.
It's surveillance stuff, plus when you're the ostensibly centre-left but actually still reactionary neoliberal party you can't do anything meaningful so you just ban something.
figured into the planning.
Being a bit generous there aren't you? This is "fuck it, she'll be right" Australia we are talking about.
cowards
it should be banned for under 60
Over 60 too, but also under 60
You can only use social media for three days after your sixtieth birthday.
Access to social media as a young teenager melted my brain. I had an Instagram account at 11 and was being bullied by adults at 12. That's not even getting into exposure to porn and grooming. I wish the internet was properly regulated so that young people could have a safe space. But this sure as shit isn't it
Do you have parents? Why did they give you IG at 11? TBH that's how the internet is regulated for most people. Rather than the state violently imposing restrictions on children.
Have you ever considered that the nuclear family is a bad and made up relational structure and doesn't work very well most of the time?
Do you have parents
Do you mean the source of trauma that continues to make the world uninhabitable?
This citations needed fan forum should be off limits to everyone in Australia; those under sixteen years of age as well as those over sixteen years of age.
But on your sixteenth birthday, you get 24 hours to go wild
The legislation only applies to big scary sites you hear about with massive audiences that have the potential for narrative shaping. There are exemptions for smaller sites. Probably because they understand that what they're trying to do is only possible if all parties decide "yeah this is a good idea and we can make money" or "oh fuck they've heard of my website, I don't want to get fined."
This is just another step in an assault on "new media" / social media that is being carried out across all five-eyes nations. I feel schizophrenic when I try to explain the extent of what is happening, but Arab Spring was a wake-up call, Trump was a klaxon, Covid rattled them too because it showed just how little power governments and their lackeys have now to narrative shape and maintain social cohesion.
The security state apparatus in some participating nations started embedding themselves in the decision making structures of major platforms, other weaker countries have had to resort to passing speech restriction laws and taking eg. google to court. When that fails, they "Great Firewall of " the problem like USA's constant threat to ban Tiktok and Australia's failed attempts to end piracy and ban 4chan.
There's a quiet little multi-front war going on ~~against~~ for control of the internet right now.
A walled PPB garden.
Olmate 23 year old tradie is going to get an earful about this when he picks up his girlfriend from high school on Monday arvo. She's gonna be asking for his phone to scroll TikTok
Good. Social media is a cancer that’s played a big role in the far-right surging in popularity.
The amendments passed on Friday bolster privacy protections. Platforms would not be allowed to compel users to provide government-issued identity documents including passports or driver’s licenses, nor could they demand digital identification through a government system.
Okay so how will tech companies go about doing this? My best bet is random auditing of every social media profile in the country by "AI" which is actually underpaid workers in the global south.
They will implement it via trusted third party platform service providers like they do every function of government in their quest to turn the citizen into a customer and charge a fee for right to make profit selling access to their people.
Public-Private partnership! 
i would imagine it's gonna be the same "Are you over 18? Y/N" lander page you'd find on most websites with adult content
Good for mental health improvements. Bad for LGBTQ kids. Ugly because they'll work around the age restriction like they already do for alcohol and vapes.
Yay more violent control of children!!! \s
Ehh they’ll still find their way around it with vpns
It’s almost like we should’ve implemented this shit 20+ years ago
this seems Good, to me