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[Spyxos]

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has said the government will impose an as-yet-undefined ban on younger teenagers and children from accessing social media before the next election.

On Tuesday, Albanese announced the plan to introduce legislation into parliament by the end of 2024 to block children from social media and other digital platforms unless they are over a certain age – likely to be between 14 and 16. It will come after the $6.5m trial of age verification or assurance technology funded in May’s budget.

It followed South Australia’s plan, announced Monday, to restrict access to people aged 14 and over, and the Coalition announcing earlier this year it would ban children under 16 from social media within
100 days if it won the next election.

Questions remain about what methods may be used, and whether a ban will be enforceable, or effective.

What are the options for verifying ages?​

On Tuesday, the federal government put out a tender for the age assurance trial but there is little detail of what will be included. Some sites, such as Instagram, already employ limited age verification for some users using ID, but there is not one method used by the industry.
Based on the experience of other countries, there are a few options.
Most proponents suggest Australia should follow the UK’s example. The UK scheme is still in its early stages and only applies to adult sites, not social media.
It outlines five ways companies can verify users’ age, but some would not work for under-16s:

• Allowing banks to confirm a user is over 18.
• Allowing mobile providers to confirm a user is an adult.
• Credit card checks: credit card holders in the UK need to be over 18; the website can check with the issuer that the card is valid.
• Asking site users to upload a photo that is then matched with photo ID.
• Use of facial age estimation technology.

In last year’s roadmap for age verification, the eSafety commissioner recommended a “double-blind tokenised approach”. That is a device-based token where a third-party provider transfers proof-of-age information between sites and age assurance providers, to protect user privacy.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has also advocated verification on the device level – meaning Google and Apple would verify the ages of people wanting to download specific social media apps.

Will it work?​

In the South Australian review, a former chief justice of the high court, Robert French, noted compliance – and enforcing it on companies outside Australia – would be challenging.

Guardian Australia previously reported the UK’s regulator cast doubt on whether facial age estimation would be effective on younger people, but the facial estimation companies disputed this.

Documents uncovered by Guardian Australia include the communications department’s August 2023 survey of the international landscape of age assurance technology, released under FoI.

It said: “No countries have implemented an age verification mandate without issue.”

According to the documents, problems found overseas included:

• UK age verification laws abandoned in 2019 due to “delays, technical difficulties and community concern for privacy”.
• In the US, the report noted the states of Utah and Louisiana, where age verification was brought in, experienced an almost 1,000% and threefold respective increase in the use of virtual private network (VPN) technology to bypass the restrictions.

Estimates briefing documents prepared for the eSafety commissioner late last year – also released under FoI – also stated “no country in the world has solved this problem”.

The commissioner’s notes said any system in Australia would need to be “effective and enforceable”, and cover more than just the sites deemed unsuitable for minors, including search engines.

But French said these hurdles did not mean it was not worth pursuing.

“There will undoubtedly be workarounds by knowledgable child users. However, the perfect should not be the enemy of the good,” French said.

Will there be privacy concerns?​

If the government pursues a method where companies require all users – not just those younger users – to verify their ages before being able to use a platform, it could result in social media companies being forced to collect user identification, which would raise privacy questions.

This is likely a less palatable option, given high-profile cyber-attacks on companies already required to collect ID – Optus and Medibank – that led to the personal information of millions of Australians being exposed.

The government might require the use of its planned digital ID service to reduce the risk, but that has yet to be decided.

Will social media companies comply?​

The South Australian proposal, as well as the Coalition’s, suggests fines could be levied against companies that fail to enforce age restrictions.

The Online Safety Act already empowers the eSafety commissioner to seek fines against companies for failing to comply with notices, but those powers are now being tested in the courts against X.

The outcome, along with the current review of the Online Safety Act, will likely inform whether such laws can be enforced.

Legislation also likely needs to address what happens for new social media companies, or lesser-known platforms younger people may use if they can no longer access the main players. As French said, for platforms with little presence in Australia, this may be hard to enforce.

The Online Safety Act already empowers the commissioner to block websites and remove apps from app stores for failing to comply with orders – as a nuclear option.

Australia plans to ban children from social media. Is checking and enforcing an age block possible?

As the Albanese government pledges a ban, age verification trials in the UK and US show possible hurdles and privacy concerns

www.theguardian.com

 

[Orangee]

I am from the government and I am here to help

 

[winjer]

Slowly, more and more countries are realizing the issues with social media and phones.
Thankfully, more and more countries are taking action to curb this problem.

 

[poppabk]

Let them poison social media and instead ban them from online multiplayer.

 

[kruis]

Once age verification is introduced, anonymity on the internet is dead. The biggest social media platforms will have to check your identity and every other website will probably be forced to use Google/MS/Apple/etc login accounts instead of anonymous accounts that just have email address/password verification.

When all of that has been implemented the government will be able to trace everything you write and do on the intenet to you.

 

[Sgt.Asher]

We are finding a lot of social media is damaging to children, and companies prey on them similar to how tobacco companies once did. I don't have a problem with this.

 

[rm082e]

Once age verification is introduced, anonymity on the internet is dead. The biggest social media platforms will have to check your identity and every other website will probably be forced to use Google/MS/Apple/etc login accounts instead of anonymous accounts that just have email address/password verification.

When all of that has been implemented the government will be able to trace everything you write and do on the intenet to you.

I am a whole lot less worried about the government spying on me than I am entire generations of kids having mental health issues from social media.

 

[SlimySnake]

Good. Schools have already banned smartphones and smartwatches. It's time to tackle social media.

 

[Mistake]

Maybe they can call it the "Parenting is Dead" act. Another problem will be how they define social media.

Good. Schools have already banned smartphones and smartwatches. It's time to tackle social media.

And schools also have filters and blocks on their own internet for kids through a network administrator. Not a good comparison for a country wide ban

 

[Trogdor1123]

Of two minds on this. First of all, I think the parents should decide what is ok for their kids but also most parents to don’t have time to properly police it so it gets out of hand pretty fast. Also, lots of parents are pathetic sacks of trash that want to use it as baby sitter instead of doing the most important thing they will ever do.

 

[SlimySnake]

Maybe they can call it the "Parenting is Dead" act. Another problem will be how they define social media.

And schools also have filters and blocks on their own internet for kids through a network administrator. Not a good comparison for a country wide ban

we have country wide bans for alcohol and smoking. cant just blame the parents for everything.

 

[RagnarokIV]

Good. Brain rot that’s ruined the mental health and broke the brains of a generation.

 

[Saber]

I see that as a positive thing. Internet is not the place for children, school is.

 

[poodaddy]

I've already noticed how absolutely vacuous most of the children in my daughter's school are, and it blows both my mind and her's. She'll be thirteen next month, and she's a surprisingly mature and worldly kid, and she sees with her own eyes the difference between the minds of children that are always looking down at their phone or on social media and the minds of children who don't engage with this nonsense.

I understand the concerns of those who foresee this as a potentially eventual affront to our privacy and our anonymity, and I absolutely echo those concerns, but nothing is black and white. There are some valid concerns there, but this is a good thing for the most part, and I'm absolutely certain of that. I have personally witnessed the slow degradation of the minds of the average modern child, and to say it's disheartening is an understatement. Something must be done, and I applaud Australia for at least trying, and I hope we, (the U.S.), enact similar legislation at some point.

 

[Fake]

Why this take so long? They waited childen to get drepressed or something?

 

[Mistake]

we have country wide bans for alcohol and smoking. cant just blame the parents for everything.

I can when the primary people needed to access these services are parents. It's not like kids are paying for internet or buying their own phones with jobs they don't have

 

[winjer]

Why this take so long? They waited childen to get drepressed or something?

Politicians only take action when the shit hits the fan.
Basically, we had a couple of generations being used as guinea pigs, and the results were pretty bad.

 

[Rat Rage]

Good. I hope other countries follow suit.

 

[SlimySnake]

Politicians only take action when the shit hits the fan.
Basically, we had a couple of generations being used as guinea pigs, and the results were pretty bad.

Around the time Facebook was moving to schools from an exclusively college based app, I was reading a lot of articles on how cyber bullying especially among girls was way up. I just didnt understand it because facebook in college was such a cool app that was almost exclusively used to hit up chicks and connect with friends. It used to be a blast until they opened it up to the normies and almost immediately my aunts and uncles ruined it lol left facebook over 10 years ago and havent been back.

But the influx of kids and especially teenagers is something we shouldve managed a decade ago. college aged kids are far less hostile and more empathetic than teenagers who are mean and havent fully formed the empathy part of their brain. resulting in a lot of toxic interactions that i never had in college on facebook.

I never even bothered using snapchat, instagram, and whatever the hell shit kids moved on to, but the stats speak for themselves. when almost 50% of teenagers on social media say they are depressed there is something really fucking wrong with this generation.

it might be too late for gen z but hopefully our kids can have a normal childhood.

 

[clarky]

Can we just not ban all Australian's from everything regardless of age? We could start with a travel ban and go from there.

 

[West Texas CEO]

Can we get adult children banned next?

 

[SlimySnake]

Can we get adult children banned next?

then who would post on gaf?

 

[dorkimoe]

good. Twitter at this point is a bigger 4chan

 

[West Texas CEO]

then who would post on gaf?

SlimySnake

 

[Rockondevil]

As an Aussie I hate this country sometimes. It’s such a nanny state and becoming less and less about being able to make our own choices.

Smokes are still legal, but we want to ban social media because one makes the government a crap tonne of money and one doesn’t.

I get it’s a problem for some people and there are worse countries for sure, but having a little more freedom wouldn’t hurt here.
Forcing every person over 18 to vote is another thing I detest, but that’s for another time.

 

[bitbydeath]

Doesn’t social media already have these rules in place?
Unless they’re referring to Messenger Kids, which would be a dick move.

 

[NickFire]

I wouldn't support enforcement obligations that require people to verify identities on social media. That would be a bridge too far. But I would support a simple law that prohibits platforms from knowingly giving young children accounts. In my opinion the negatives are sufficient to justify such. Just one man's position. I can certainly understand, and even appreciate, people who would disagree with me over free speech concerns.

 

[HoodWinked]

the aggravating thing I've noticed about this nanny state sort of thing in the west is that somehow they consistently implement it in a way where you only get the downsides with little to no benefit.

when you want the maximum benefits with the least amount of downsides.

 

[rm082e]

Doesn’t social media already have these rules in place?
Unless they’re referring to Messenger Kids, which would be a dick move.

From what I've seen with my kids, the social media companies all require kids to be 13 - and by "require", that means you have to choose your age from a picker. If you choose a number lower than 13, the app gives you a message saying you can't complete the setup for the user account. That's the company covering their butt, just like any age gate on any website.

The difference here would be a requirement that they do some sort of identity verification, most likely with a third party account that has actually made an attempt to verify the age of the person.

Having a wild west approach to the internet is clearly harming kids and teenagers in a significant way. Look at any of the large scale studies on the younger generations: They have less friends than previous generations had. Today's teenagers are having less romantic relationships and (on average) less sex than teens of the past. They're is also a trend in teenagers doing things later and later, like getting their driver's license, getting their first consistent job, starting college/votech, etc. There are much higher rates of anxiety, depression, loneliness, and reliance on medication. All of this makes it that much harder for young people to arrive at functional adulthood.

 

[EverydayBeast]

 

[Fbh]

I'm not against the idea itself but it depends on how it gets enforced.
Call me a conspiracy theorist but these initiatives often feel like governments trying to remove freedoms and what little privacy we still have online with some sympathetic cover argument about protecting the children.

I still think there is more they could do to inform and teach parents, maybe work together with ISPs to create tools which make it easier to block these sites for less tech savy parents, idk.

Doesn’t social media already have these rules in place?
Unless they’re referring to Messenger Kids, which would be a dick move.

A lot of them do requiere users to be 13 or older, but it doesn't really get verified or enforced beyond checking some box during the sign up process.

 

[TTOOLL]

I mean, parents should do it instead, but most are so bad at parenting it's hopeless.

 

[Trelane]

The only way to ban it for one age group is to ban it for all age groups. A total ban for the entire country and even then it won’t work. People will use VPNs. People will find ways to get what they want. Also, setting up yet another database of personal information that will be hacked just like credit scores, personal identification numbers, etc etc, sounds like a bad idea. It’s not a question of if that database will be hacked, it’s when. Nothing is safe online and it’s WAY too late for these governments to try and enforce any safety or limitations at this stage in the game.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Slowly, more and more countries are realizing the issues with social media and phones.
Thankfully, more and more countries are taking action to curb this problem.

This, and there is no need to go OMG GOVERNMENT WILL NOT TELL ME WHAT TO DO. Yes, it will. That's the point of the government, to recognize people coming together and abiding by certain rules will be collectively better off that FFA.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Doesn’t social media already have these rules in place?

Yes, and as every company they try to make those rules as easy to circumvent as possible in order to maintain their huge userbase. Most of the time it's "Please Click here to confirm you are above 13" BS that nobody thinks is working.

I mean, parents should do it instead, but most are so bad at parenting it's hopeless.

It's the State responsibility to protect kids from their parents being stupid. You should not have to suffer because your parents made bad choices, you didn't choose them.

People will use VPNs. People will find ways to get what they want.

Sure, some people will. 80/20 principle - vast majority will just let it go. You can pirate games on PC - do you see everybody pirating games instead of paying for them?

 

[Trelane]

Sure, some people will. 80/20 principle - vast majority will just let it go. You can pirate games on PC - do you see everybody pirating games instead of paying for them?

Using a VPN, of which there are free options, vs pirating a game are two very different things. Installing one is as easy as any other program or app. All it takes once the VPN is installed is clicking a button to connect. Also, VPNs are legal while pirating is not.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Social media is a problem, but these verification methods don't sound very good.

 

[The Cockatrice]

VPNs are legal while pirating is not.

VPN's are more like grey areas than legal, depending how you use them.

 

[Trelane]

VPN's are more like grey areas than legal, depending how you use them.

How are VPNs grey areas? Unless there is a specific law prohibiting its use? Saying that VPNs can be considered illegal based on how you use them would be like saying computers can be illegal based on how you use them.

 

[The Cockatrice]

How are VPNs grey areas? Unless there is a specific law prohibiting its use? Saying that VPNs can be considered illegal based on how you use them would be like saying computers can be illegal based on how you use them.

The legality of VPN was and always is in the air. You can get banned on Steam for using a VPN to access lower region prices of a game for example. There are other cases as well.

 

[Kacho]

I’m all for this. I worry about my kids with social media. I don’t want them freely installing X and seeing people get shot or a bunch of thots whoring themselves out.

 

[Mistake]

The legality of VPN was and always is in the air. You can get banned on Steam for using a VPN to access lower region prices of a game for example. There are other cases as well.

You can also do this when paying for VPNs

 

[Majima Everywhere System]

While this will bring about a new dark age, we are all missing out big time because of cheap thrills that are easily accessible.

I know progress is progress, it always seems this way to the old folks. But the society future generations are buying into leaves very little for those who are not at the top, while making everyone feel like they are there, or have a shot.

 

[OverHeat]

Good! Do the same Canada

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Problem with social media isnt so much the tool itself. All these sites gong back to Myspace or whatever sites before that seemed fine. But what happened is people started using them for ego-boosting, trying to be the most popular and for some trying to make a career out of it. First social media site I did was FB when it was early on when you needed a friend to invite you in. And then Linkedin for careers. Thats it.

But FB long time ago was just about connecting with friends and posting message and family pics.

I dont know when it really started, but also kids with laptops in every class and cellphones allowed just makes it manifest across the schoolgrounds. But I dont know how you get around that unless schools ban tech on premise. It's much harder for kids to get screwy heads if their access is at home instead of staring at the phone and texting while in class.

But I agree with an age minimum of some kind even if vast majority of kids are ok. Too many dopey parents who dont care and treat schools and teachers like babysitters. So if thats the case, then they should be fine with gov setting rules. I'm typically someone who let people run loose and if they are a broke idiot in life that's their problem. BUT when it comes to kids, I'll always support things that help students since I believe education is important for sake of mind and careers. And if you set a foundation it should help students be good adults holistically. If my taxes and new gov rules are going to go somewhere, I want it to strengthen kids mental state so they can handle being an adult as opposed to growing up being a dumbass in class.

Like anything in life, it's always lax at the beginning because it's new. But if people act like numbnuts, that's when gov has to get involved.

 

[daffyduck]

I wouldn't support enforcement obligations that require people to verify identities on social media. That would be a bridge too far. But I would support a simple law that prohibits platforms from knowingly giving young children accounts. In my opinion the negatives are sufficient to justify such. Just one man's position. I can certainly understand, and even appreciate, people who would disagree with me over free speech concerns.

Facebook already asks for ID if they “suspect suspicious activity”. To have the government enforce this, means that an awful lot of people would refuse to participate outright, which may not be a bad thing.

 

[CompleteGlobalSaturation]

Good. Ban it. Tiktok, twitter, Instagram - they're all cancer.

 

[GymWolf]

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Seems like a never ending issue to me. The problem is the left hand never knows what the right is doing. You've got gigantic big tech companies, full of, presumably, middle aged men and women - of the educated or at the very least skilled type, trying to find the pulse of literal kids and 20 somethings.

The end result is neither end uses the technology the way the other side thinks it should/already does, and the end result is the nation state of Tiktok/Facebook/whatever actively and purposefully weaponizes the fervor of parroting idiots who will fight tooth and nail to splay themselves over the chasis of the mind control vehicle they're subscribed to, because THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO TAKE AWAY MUKBANG AND TWERKING VIDS!!!11one

Different flavors of idiot sandwiched together. Like a super oreo. A supereo, if you will.

 

[finalflame]

Australia is king of nanny states, now this, lol.