Australia Readies Social Media Court Action Citing Teen Ban Breaches (reuters.com) 27
Australia is preparing possible court action against major social media platforms that are failing to enforce the country's social media ban on under-16s. "Three months after the ban came into effect, the eSafety Commissioner said it was probing Meta's Instagram and Facebook, Google's YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok for possible breaches of the law," reports Reuters. From the report: Communications Minister Anika Wells said the government was gathering evidence "so that the eSafety Commissioner can go to the Federal Court and win." "We have spent the summer building that evidence base of all the stories that no doubt you have all heard ... about how kids are getting around that," Wells told reporters in Canberra. The legal threat is a striking change of tone from a government which had hailed tech giants' shows of cooperation when the ban went live in December.
Under the Australian law, platforms must show they are taking reasonable steps to keep out underage users or face fines of up to $34 million per breach, something eSafety would need to pursue in a civil court. The regulator previously said it would only take enforcement action in cases of systemic noncompliance. But in its first comprehensive compliance report since the ban took effect, eSafety said measures taken by the platforms were substandard and it would make a decision about next steps by mid-year. "We are now moving âinto an enforcement stance," said commissioner Julie Inman Grant in a statement.
The regulator reported major compliance gaps, including platforms prompting children who had previously declared ages under 16 to do fresh age checks, allowing repeated attempts at age-assurance tests until a child got a result over 16 and poor pathways for people to report underage accounts. Some platforms did not use age-inference, which estimates age based on someone's online activity, and some only used age-assurance measures like photo-based checks after a user tried to change their age, rather than at sign-up. That made it "likely many Australian children aged under 16 have been able to create accounts on age-restricted social media platforms by simply declaring they are 16 or older", the regulator said. Nearly one-third of parents reported their under-16 child had at least one social media account after the ban took effect, of which two-thirds said the platform had not asked the child's age, it added.
Under the Australian law, platforms must show they are taking reasonable steps to keep out underage users or face fines of up to $34 million per breach, something eSafety would need to pursue in a civil court. The regulator previously said it would only take enforcement action in cases of systemic noncompliance. But in its first comprehensive compliance report since the ban took effect, eSafety said measures taken by the platforms were substandard and it would make a decision about next steps by mid-year. "We are now moving âinto an enforcement stance," said commissioner Julie Inman Grant in a statement.
The regulator reported major compliance gaps, including platforms prompting children who had previously declared ages under 16 to do fresh age checks, allowing repeated attempts at age-assurance tests until a child got a result over 16 and poor pathways for people to report underage accounts. Some platforms did not use age-inference, which estimates age based on someone's online activity, and some only used age-assurance measures like photo-based checks after a user tried to change their age, rather than at sign-up. That made it "likely many Australian children aged under 16 have been able to create accounts on age-restricted social media platforms by simply declaring they are 16 or older", the regulator said. Nearly one-third of parents reported their under-16 child had at least one social media account after the ban took effect, of which two-thirds said the platform had not asked the child's age, it added.
So easy to enforce! (Score:2)
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If that is a requirement, then you may as well remove all laws
Need to ask why it is the adults who are getting upset about the lack of children on social media....
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Need to ask why it is the adults who are getting upset about the lack of children on social media....
I assume you'll become shocked -- shocked, I say! -- when, in a few years, the infrastructure put in place to regulate and restrict dangerous content to people under 16 years of age is repurposed, by an amendment to the law that originally that infrastructure to be implemented, to regulate and restrict content to people under 120 years of age.
If you believe that's unlikely, I suggest learning of what has happened and continues happening in all the States that years ago approved laws to "protect" children fr
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Hell I read the Florida Republicans blocked a law stopping the marriage between cousins. Same group I believe who think marrying a 14 year old is OK too.
It's hilarious to see the same people claiming "Morals come from god" being the most immoral people.
But what can the world expect from a country that shoots its own children in schools.
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Impossible to prevent (Score:3)
Once VPNs exist, it becomes impossible for a law like this to be enforced without enforcing strict age verification around the world, which is impossible given the technological state of many countries in the world (including the United States). It isn't even possible for companies to reliably comply with a law like this by blocking all access from Australia (because VPNs exist).
Once again, dumb legislators who don't understand technology have passed laws demanding something that is technologically infeasible (bans) instead of something that is technologically feasible (providing special accounts for underage people that give parental supervision, blaming the user if the user deliberately goes around that, and encouraging parents to report when their kids make friends with other kids who use fake ages to go around that).
The result, predictably, is that it doesn't work. And everyone who has ever worked in the tech industry is shocked in much the same way that we are shocked when the sun comes up in the morning, despite us demanding that it not come up until noon.
Re:Impossible to prevent (Score:4, Insightful)
The end goal is that nobody can go online and view or interact with anything without a government ID token being transmitted. It's small things like this, or even the stupid California/Colorado law. They seem useless and ineffective, and that's the point. So they'll add more, and more and eventually you'll need a government CA to access anything and bam, you're now China.
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And also don't do any business with Australia anywhere.
You mean, pull social media out of Australia?
Yes please!
For Concerned Parents (Score:2)
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No. Most parents are just too stupid or lazy to actually care.
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Did the Ruble halve again so you need to post twice as much nonsense to compensate?
Hopefully those listed companies die! (Score:2)
While I'm sure most folks like Meta's Instagram and Facebook, Google's YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok, I personally wouldn't mind seeing it all disappear or otherwise under go radical changes. Of the ones mentioned, YouTube could just cut out the forums on the video section and it would just be a video streaming platform and not social media.
The only way to keep teens off the platform is to demand government ID to create an account or otherwise get a third party to do the same thing. I think the majority of a
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The only way to keep teens off the platform is to demand government ID to create an account or otherwise get a third party to do the same thing.
That won't work either. Nothing stops them from using someone else's valid ID. It's like saying just because the drinking age is 18 in Australia that there is no underage drinking. The entire thing is a fool's errand which is appropriate because Julie Inman Grant is a giant fool that has no idea what she is doing. Not to mention Australia's fines are meaningless. Nothing will happen if these companies just ignore them, because Australia has no real authority.
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Did you even read the summary before your kneejerk?
Good. Burn the social media companies (Score:2)
Let's something better rise from the ashes.
Gated communities
User owned content and coop ad revenue
Pay for ad free, data privacy
Social Media could be a force for good. Current iteration was corrupted by and unholy alliance of extreme capitalism, criminals, terrorists, scammers and predators.