Australia

3622 readers

168 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

The Environment, post it to Aussie Environment
Politics, post it to Australian Politics
World News/Events, post it to World News
A question to Australians (from outside) post it to Ask an Australian

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

When posting news articles use the source headline and place your commentary in a separate comment

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

lodion@aussie.zone

Fluid@aussie.zone

bestusername@aussie.zone

eatham@aussie.zone

24 hours left to make a submission to the senate inquiry considering social media age restrictions (www.aph.gov.au)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by zero_gravitas@aussie.zone to c/australia@aussie.zone

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It's worth making whatever kind of submission you can manage for this. The page even specifically notes: "Due to the short timeframe of this inquiry, the committee would appreciate submissions being limited to 1-2 pages."

This bill will affect all users of social media in Australia, and may have a particularly negative effect on Fediverse platforms (like Lemmy and Mastodon) which are operated by individuals or small organisations that may not have the resources to implement age verification.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Nath@aussie.zone 12 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I'm ambivalent. I'd like to protect the kids, but I don't think this will do anything to stop kids from doing whatever the hell they want online. No legislation would have stopped me at that age.

I get what they're trying to do. I worry about what kids do online. I worry about my own kids online. I think the solution is my problem (as the parent) though, not the government's.

[–] DuckyMcDuckface@aussie.zone 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Personally, I agree with the sentiment, my concerns are mostly with implementation. If it actually is based off a blind signature like I've heard some people suggest, I'd be pretty okay with it, but otherwise, I'm not a fan.

[–] zero_gravitas@aussie.zone 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

There are ways to implement age verification that address privacy concerns, for sure. It remains to be seen whether the government chooses to use them, or if they will use this as an excuse to de-anonymise Australian social media users.

In any case, blind signatures (or other cryptographic methods) won't address the issue that Australians will be banned from any social media platform by default, until the developers get around to implementing the required age verification system (whatever that ends up being).

load more comments (1 replies)