Opinion Mandatory identification in Australia - Thoughts on Australia banning social media for minors under 16 years old

Translation by yours truly, Original article [A] by Danisch

Mandatory identification in Australia​

Several readers wrote to me ...

on the ban on social media access for under-16-year-olds in Australia being nothing but a pretense, and the real goal is identifying everybody, because naturally it requires that you sign in and identify yourself. And because they apparently can't say it that openly or enforce it that directly politically, they hide behind the pretense of an age restriction.

Which reminds me once again that, structurally, there are no formal constitutional rights in Australia.

The question is how they want to implement it. It would mean that they would also need to ban VPNs and logging in in other countries as well.

And what if, for instance, someone from Europe or Asia is visiting Australia? Do they suddenly need to provide identification and change their account? What does the 14 year old daughter do? Is she suddenly no longer allowed to access her account there? And which country's laws are even applicable if the provider is headquartered in Germany?

And what are "social media" in the first place? What if you run your own Mastodon instance? Or a blog? Are you no longer allowed to do that either? Or when you do it for a living? There are 14 year olds earning millions doing that. I'd be interested in what is in the text, even though the law itself isn't passed, but just overcame an obstacle.

It's not that easy finding the legal text because there's countless press reports on it which mention the keywords and - particularly nasty: APNews - always refer to their own articles, but never cite sources.

But - with some searching - I found it: Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024

You don't really gain a lot of information because it's not a complete law, but just a change, an amendment to an existing law, and you would first need to read that one. Apparently that is the Online Safety Act 2021, but I don't yet know what is meant by the sentence

age-restricted social media platform has the meaning given by section 63C.

which is to be added in the definitions, because in this Online Safety Act 2021 I found a section 63, but not a 63C. - Ah, now I got it. Section 63C doesn't exist yet, it's being added with this change.
And in there, paragraph 1 states:

(1) For the purposes of this Act, age-restricted social media platform means:

(a) an electronic service that satisfies the following conditions:

(i) the sole purpose, or a significant purpose, of the service is to enable online social interaction between 2 or more end-users;

(ii) the service allows end-users to link to, or interact with, some or all of the other end-users;

(iii) the service allows end-users to post material on the service;

(iv) such other conditions (if any) as are set out in the legislative rules; or

b) an electronic service specified in the legislative rules; but does not include a service mentioned in subsection (6.

Note 1: Online social interaction does not include (for example) online business interaction.

Note 2: An age-restricted social media platform may be, but is not necessarily, a social media service under section 13.

Note 3: For specification by class, see subsection 13(3) of the Legislation Act202003.

Ha. "Social interaction between 2 or more end-users"; they're banning e-mail for under-16-year-olds. I don't believe that they thought about that. Typical parliament decision.

I think this is the punchline: Online social interaction does not include (for example) online business interaction. What is that supposed to mean? Does not include (for example) .. yeah, what else?

I would have to read it again in detail, but basically, I understand that a 14 year old, for example, is not allowed to have an e-mail friend in Europe - only through snail mail or maybe with the detour of parents and a printer.

I'm looking forward to seeing how long it'll take until they want to do the same thing here [in Germany] too. This is going to be particularly fun because we flooded the country with people of which we don't know their age.

I think the Australians are currently setting up a huge problem. Especially since they don't yet specify how the age verification is supposed to work. They want to give the providers one year of time to figure something out.

E-mail​

Basically, you are no longer allowed to send any e-mail to Australia because, from here, you cannot verify how old the recipient is.

 

[Blewberry Nausea]

No one should have internet access until they are 18. If they want access to unkosher information, they can fucking do it with ham radios and metal Vinyl records like the good old days. In fact rewind everything back to 2004, maybe 1994 just for games.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

And they wonder why Tor will be more popular....

 

[Pee Cola]

I'm old enough to remember when the Australia Card was proposed in the mid 1980s, and there was a whole lot of backlash against it. Though I guess these days people are kinda used to the idea of handing over all their personal information to corporations, so what difference does it make if the government has it too?

Speaking of making fuck all difference, this social media ban for under 16s won't do shit.

 

[Otterly]

When this gets brought in here, because it will, how to we get around it? Is there a step by step anywhere for the average tech illiterate farmer to be able to continue thought criming ?

 

[Chilson]

When this gets brought in here, because it will, how to we get around it? Is there a step by step anywhere for the average tech illiterate farmer to be able to continue thought criming ?

Your in luck. The powers that be are so wholly incompetent and unwilling to actually expend resources/effort for their machinations that they often collapse in on themselves 90% of the time.

This "ban" would require such extensive enforcement that not even prison island could corral enough guards to actually make it legitimate. Its just going to be used as an "additional" crime to legitimize ever more absurd punishments on the enemies of the state (specifically parents of children with internet access).

 

[Pixy]

They passed this law as part of ~20 other bills during a special nighttime session of parliament that ran until midnight. They even curtailed debating on some bills just to make sure they ended before midnight.

And they wonder why Tor will be more popular....

It won't. Zoomers and generation alpha are not technology-literate, let alone the Gen X's drafting this bill. All they know is 'muh VPN's' thanks to social media influencers shilling them all the time.

 

[DumbDude43]

When this gets brought in here, because it will, how to we get around it? Is there a step by step anywhere for the average tech illiterate farmer to be able to continue thought criming ?

for now all you have to do is download tor browser and use that instead of your regular browser

if/when governments start cracking down on that, then we're all kind of doomed

 

[Nero Fiddled]

As much as I think giving kids access to social media is nothing more than abdicating parental responsibility for keeping your kids engaged and entertained, this is just another poorly disguised headline grabber that has little evidence of thought or technical expertise to support it.

All they've done is come up with a utopian idea and thrown it over the wall at the tech companies with a "make it work" instruction, exactly the same as previous governmental attempts to control internet traffic.
When it doesn't work, or the expected "unexpected consequences" appear, "big tech" will be the bad guys.

The next idea will be a law telling car manufacturers to prevent users of their vehicles giving other road users the middle finger... or else.

 

[NoSpiceLife]

When this gets brought in here, because it will, how to we get around it? Is there a step by step anywhere for the average tech illiterate farmer to be able to continue thought criming ?

It's going to be fun, not. By the way, it's almost ready, the framework is being tested by the providers, and the government is tweaking it along the way

https://enablingdigitalidentity.blog.gov.uk/2024/11/25/announcing-the-gamma-0-4-trust-framework

, the bill is in Parliament, Data (Use and Access) Bill. AND one of the UK providers is already linked to an EU provider, to establish a trustworthy, secure, and standardized approach to digital identity.

So in relation to the Australian government assuring the public that it has nothing to do with digitalID, they are total and utter liars.

This shit is going to including scanning your whole account for key words that involve anything Australian/English/Canadian from towns to football clubs, you can bet it'll also include taking into account who you follow. If there is anything, that triggers the algorithm, it'll instantly lock your account and ask you to prove your age.

X and Facebook actually do it all the time (not age related but location/device), if you log in on a device that you haven't logged into before, and when I say 'log in on a device', that includes suddenly using a VPN, Tor, even changing something on your phone, like oh I don't know, the time zone you are in...

The initial thing to do is use the 'where is my IP' websites, do a few, there are different amounts of information that some will produce, from your IP address, to what country you are in, and where in the country you are. Here the results pick up the IP address of your provider, so it might be in the capital city, but you are rural, doesn't matter either way, it's still picking up the country.

There are others, like privacy.net who use an 'analyzer' to tell you what your browser fingerprint knows. So for me (in relation to this situation) it was able to pick up the timezone.

Once you know that you can change what your browser is allowed to know.

I just went and changed the hardware clock on my computer (all devices will leak the timezone, I think even sim cards do too, because they are connected to your phone service provider) and ran the browser fingerprint again, and I'm in a different timezone now.

Using VPNs, even Tor, you will have to make some changes. You need to find out what locations the servers are in, where they bounce around to. If there are locations in your country, you need to enter those locations in a blacklist, otherwise you may find you'll be suddenly locked out and being asked to produce your ID.

There is so so so much more, like captchas reading your browsing history, how do you think ads are targeted to people?

As you can see, for majority of people, they will have no idea why they are triggering it even if they are using a VPN, or making a few other changes. Majority won't bother because they have everything set up on their phones, they pay with their phones, they have their payment apps on their phones, etc., and they'll offer up their ID because convenience.

 

[SCV]

When this gets brought in here, because it will, how to we get around it? Is there a step by step anywhere for the average tech illiterate farmer to be able to continue thought criming ?

Depends entirely on the implementation. On the network side if your ISP is white listing IPs you can connect to then it's joever. If they're just fucking with DNS entries then just changing your DNS server (one setting) and it's all smiles. Then there's the question on how they're doing ID. Is there a digitial ID that all websites in the UK need to check (so KF unaffected)? Is there a portal login per-user for every connection in the UK and the ISP allows things based on your user?

Without seeing it we can't really say how to get around it. Someone already said download the tor browser so you have it. That's good advice but honestly I would be using tor to access the farms all the time if I were in the UK. They're already arresting people for mean comments so raw dogging it and posting to the farms on the clear net seems extremely foolish. They've made it no more complicated that installing and using any other browser. You can even still use kiwifarms.st (but I would bookmark the .onion link just in case).

Do it now: https://dist.torproject.org/torbrowser/14.0.3/tor-browser-windows-x86_64-portable-14.0.3.exe

 

[Nero Fiddled]

Majority won't bother because they have everything set up on their phones, they pay with their phones, they have their payment apps on their phones, etc., and they'll offer up their ID because convenience.

People often give away details simply because they are asked for them.

I am often asked to "confirm" details, that I know a company hasn't actually got, for "security purposes".
When challenged they change to something they do actually have.
If it's a business that I have no interest in using again, I give them made up details which magically passes their "security check".

I have a simple rule, they get to have information about me that I think they need to provide whatever service I need from them, nothing more.

 

[Oulun]

Children once again used to get a foot in the door for the killing of civil liberties. And I have a creeping suspicion the government of Australia is more concerned about teenage boys getting radicalized into being normal rather than tranny drag-queen sissy hypno the like they broadcast on taxpayer funded television.