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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: 
)
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.
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!
If you think that’s a solid argument or one based in logic, good news. You’d probably make for an ideal liberal senator.
Satire, I thought it was obvious.
~~Welp went over my head, my bad, imma blame it on Poe’s law or something~~ satirical but critical of the bill my point stands.
Yes, @[email protected] was being critical of the Bill. Because it's about as well thought-out as their satirical banning of children on public transport.
All good
(Satire)
Is lemmy exempt I wonder?
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really vague but seemed to so far apply to big platforms like reddit and facebook and X - however my info might be outdated by now.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 And yeah, could be outdated by now
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
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
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.
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
"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
Govt service, or privatised age-assurance face-scanning service wrought with error?
Like I said, it's not clear yet what form it will take.
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.
I'll take that as a no
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.
Faaark, I'm agreeing with Malcolm Roberts!
"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’.
But that's the problem, this bill does absolutely nothing to rectify that. They could try and hold the companies to account (good luck with Elon on Trumps team), or even better, they could snap back to reality and actually look at educating kids how to navigate and use these online spaces.
Do you think that kids at 16, suddenly getting access with no prior experience or knowledge of how the systems work will be better?
There are much worse places than instagram and tiktok, that won't be following any government recommendations. This bill does nothing but enhance the surveillance state, as everyone will be required to verify their identity, what the government is really doing is fighting online anonymity, but please just think of those poor little kids.
I agree with all your criticism of social media, I hate it (this is the only platform I am on) but if they pass this bill, social media will still be round, fucking up the world, just the same.
Debate's kicked off.