Goddamn tech bros bought the whole fucking world. Boring dystopia.
this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2025
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This is REALLY bad. It'll require your age be verified by your ISP, operating system, email, search engine, and the site you visit. Fines of up to $49.5 million if violated.
If this is real, it is straight-up totalitarian.
My ISP already knows who I am the government doesnt need to do this shit tbh, I'm likely going to retreat from a lot of the internet when it does though
This is fucking disgusting, the end of the internet as we know it
Where are the Zero-knowledge (zk) implementations of this. It's possible in crypto land...
Haven't seen much scrutiny over the "landmark" report released by the government a couple of weeks ago which forms the basis for the practical implementation of this system.
It's not an academic study from a trusted institution or even just an established think tank, but from an organisation that sort of popped up out of nowhere some years ago which appears to provide paid certification services for age assurance companies, while also evidently offering "research" for governments on the viability of implementing these schemes. They'd previously done a similar report for the UK government, which makes me rather cynical about our government's motivations in choosing them. The news reporting on its release was a bit strange as it made it sound like the report was quite sceptical, but you don't need to spend much time looking at it to see it's very much telling the government what it wanted to hear (given they'd already committed to implementing such a scheme).
The companies people will be required to provide their documents/biometrics to also kind of popped up out of nowhere, and these are the sorts of folks behind them: https://bylinetimes.com/2025/07/31/the-online-safety-act-is-forcing-brits-to-hand-over-personal-data-to-unregulated-overseas-corporations-with-questionable-privacy-records/
Haven’t seen much scrutiny
I'm pretty sure we criticised it pretty roundly in this Community (or other Communities on this Instance) back when it came out. But yeah, not much serious pushback from established media.
There was the section on media watch where the government disallowed the media from showing any critical views on it for a time.
Wait what? Have you got a link? It at least a date?
6 days ago. Check YouTube media watch.
Just watched it and yeah, that's an even more depressing picture of how it was covered. The headlines I'd seen were:
"Social media age verification possible but laden with risks, landmark study warns" (ABC)
"Trial of tech that could be used to keep Australian under-16s off social media finds some errors ‘inevitable’" (Guardian)
Those stories at least didn't just parrot the government's spin - trouble is they made the study sound more sceptical/balanced than it is and didn't question its credibility.
The irony for is I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the cause they're pushing for this legislation. I don't think Social Media access to kids is healthy. Hell, I don't think Social Media access to adults is healthy. I remember when the web was read-only for morons. I'd love to go back to those days. Once any idiot could put their drivel online, they did.
I think some sort of online test/license would be a better solution. Show people the sorts of lights and shiny they'll experience online. Teach them about misinformation. Teach them about engagement stats and how sites will do anything to keep you there and not go elsewhere. Teach them about verifying sources and checking websites for whether they are trustworthy. Give them an exam and if they pass, they can have a license to go online. Make everyone go through that and if you can pass it at 15, good luck to you. If you fail it at 50, sorry - the web stays read-only to you until you can get it through your thick skull that there are people out there who lie. Not everything you read is true.
Of course, this would probably be just as unpopular as the approach the government is taking. Eh. I don't have all the answers.
Yep, I'm not against proper age checking as long as it's developed carefully with a secure/private by design mentality, but this government's self-imposed deadline and focus on ticking political boxes will effectively put consumer choice and privacy far below the interests of tech companies and age assurance industry investors. It's looking like a familiar story - outsourcing responsibility for the practical implementation to questionable interests and promising "industry standards" and "safeguards" to protect consumers which are then poorly enforced or not practical to enforce. That'll replicate the fundamental shortcomings of our privacy regulation more broadly which have made poor policies/practices and data breaches so routine.
Which established media? Nine or Murdoch? I think we can assume by their silence that they have a seat at the table and are getting what they want.
A natural follow on from the under 16 social media bans.
I remember when we used to laugh at the restrictions China had on the internet, yet we're happily walking down the same path.
If they want to block normies from porn and social media I don't really give a shit. My fear is they are going to come after the fundamantal technology next: encryption, open source, open computing. eKaren used to work for very Big Tech. Everything about recent moves looks like a huge power grab for big tech and big media to data mine and control us more than ever with the force of government behind them.
They won't be happy with people like me not buying and using their products, blocking their ads etc. The ultimate enshitification approaches. Total corporate control of our lives.
This is what I fear too. I have never been on FB, Bezos can get f*ed, and I'm trying to deGoogle, but I fear they will come after the Fediverse and anything not controlled by Big Tech in the name of "safety".
Thanks everyone for voting for the e-karen.
The eSafety Commissioner was established under a Coalition government and age verification had bipartisan support at the most recent federal election.
What the actual fuck looking at that list. She's set it up so anyone can fucking mine you. Theres insane amounts of redundancy.
the only one i like is the ISP. If you provide your age to your isp, then you don't need anything else.
I’m going through deciding what I can do without… but now you have to hand over ID to use fucking email?
Operating systems are on the list. You're gonna have to go fully offline.
I guess I will be replacing our kids linux desktops with an estasi kommissar approved OS with inbuilt spyware and advertising controlled by her American ex-employer. Who were we trying to protect?
🫡
Edit: For real tho? Do I need to learn how to use Linux or Tails?
No idea. But you should learn how to use Linux anyway, it's great.
This is a house entirely full of adults. I should be able to say - as account holder so a verified adult already - "there are no children accessing this shit" and then my ISP tells everyone to fuck off their age verification
Well ideally you stop this bullshit and actually rely on parents parenting but we'll never do that shit
Agreed, since parental controls already exist. Kids are just a partial smokescreen I think.
Government wants to grandstand about preventing a very visible issue with kids online, but it’s a pretty sweet deal for gaining more surveillance powers. Social media platforms and search engine companies want to slurp up even more sensitive data.
This bullshit makes me so angry. I can dispense with everything else but I can’t do without an email address.
Something also mentioned storage so I’m going to have to find time and disk space to download decades of photos from Dropbox and Flickr.
I haven't seen email mentioned in the legislation. I suppose you could interpret Gmail/Hotmail etc as web sites you make accounts on in order to interact with something public. But that's a stretch and it wouldn't cover all email.
Email would suffer the same issue as Lemmy. Even if you have a perfect way of verifying users that is accurate, you couldn't stop a kid setting up a mail service on their homelab.
I’m trying to work out since it affects search engine signins would it affect Gmail.
Also
Relevant electronic services: covers email, messaging, online chatrooms and dating services, as well as services for playing online games together.
I really hope you’re right because fuck that.
As for messaging (assuming that’s texts) the phone company should already have my age.