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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: 
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I have warned about this. Access to online services will soon be locked behind your mygov id.
These plans have been in motion for a long time.
Games are explicitly excluded from this law.
Which is kinda fucking ridiculous, as pointed out in debate, because in-game chat is often some of the most toxic you'll encounter.
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!
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.
"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.
Is lemmy exempt I wonder?
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
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.
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.
Govt service is still bad, still links everyones social media accounts to their ID. The bill will do jackshit anyways, as under 16s will simply move to social media hosted outside of Australia.
So of the top ofnyour head, a VPN will allow you to skirt this law?
I don't use social media beyond lemmy but be fucked if I want to give my I.D to anyone in relation to my online activities
Well, a VPN fakes your country, and the law only applies in Australia. Also, it is an unenforceable law anyways so I doubt it would do much
Yes, but Social Media apps can derive location data through other means, including time zone and language settings, visible WiFi Access Points, not to mention GPS.
The Libs passed the legislation because they're corrupt.
Labor passed it because they're incompetent.
Either way, it's likely that the AustGov will be the gatekeepers of 'onboarding' and re-verification of existing users.
It's a disgrace.
"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
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
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.
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
34 yes 19 no
mark the names of the dumb cunts that yes'd
Most of the Coalition. All of Labor. None of the cross-bench.
Not a surprise that all of Labor voted yes, given their party policy around caucus solidarity. I'd be interested to see a list of people opposed to this bill behind closed doors.
I've really come to despise Labor's policy of not crossing the floor. I get their desire to show a united front, but it really makes it hard for regular folk to track how the party is shifting if we don't ever see who supports what on an individual level.
None of the cross-bench
None of the cross-bench in the Senate. But 4 of the independent MPs.
Cool. I was referring to last night's Senate vote that passed 34-19.