Let’s ban something for the age group that has for generations shown that outlawing anything makes it more interesting for them.
I mean Aussies really generally good at digging shit out of the ground and making money off it. Electing progressive leaders or forming sensible policies that look further than the next 2 weeks? Not so much.
14
Almacca - 6hr
So it's all going about as well as everyone except the government expected.
"My 13-year-old daughter still has access to all her social media accounts this morning, and she verified her age via facial scanning. I am hoping that they are still working their way through and she will be booted off soon. If not then it's a fail for us." — Alison, NSW
God forbid you take responsibility for it yourself. It sure is a fail for you, Alison.
17
Jumuta @sh.itjust.works - 5hr
this is fucking disgusting:
"We continue to believe there are better solutions to age verification that can be implemented at the primary points of entry, such as the operating system (OS), device, or app-store levels.
this is their true motive, they want ownership of our devices and the software running on them
15
Zagorath - 5hr
At the device level is a much better place to put it. It's a place that could actually work, and it's a place where it's much easier to do it in a privacy-preserving way.
The best solution would be to use parental controls. A lot of operating systems already have something along those lines, but they've tended to not be very good. If the law instead required that OSes supported parental controls where the parent can set the child's age, and then apps and websites have to respect that, via an operating system API (with websites accessing a browser API, with the browser calling the OS's API), that would remove any privacy concerns, because the only "verification" is the parent.
Or there's this option, which preserves privacy along with a more robust age verification. Somebody (preferably the government, rather than a private company) has to do official age verification, once, and that would then get stored by your device and could be reused in a way that can't be traced on different sites. The age verifier can't see which sites you use your verification on. The sites can't learn anything about you other than "yes, this person is old enough".
2
astutemural @midwest.social - 4hr
How about we not legally mandate this bullshit at all? Parental controls and child-friendly accounts are a thing that already exist. I don't want a bunch of pigs spying on my child to determine if their internet activity is 'acceptable'. Fuck that.
7
FreedomAdvocate @lemmy.net.au - 4hr
That’s actually much better than what they’re currently doing. If all you had to do was verify with your phone that you are >16 it would mean that each social media app and then every other site that the government demands do age verification doesn’t need to verify you. It means you only verify once, on your device.
Unfortunately that’s why they’ll never do it - the government wants to ram through a universal government digital ID, and they do it by making laws that make it increasingly hard for all the companies to meet the criteria, so the government can then swoop in and give their “solution”.
Az_1 in australia
Age verification errors see some under-16s retain access to banned social media platforms
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-10/social-media-ban-day-one-teen-access/106126706Nobody could have predicted this.
Let’s ban something for the age group that has for generations shown that outlawing anything makes it more interesting for them.
I mean Aussies really generally good at digging shit out of the ground and making money off it. Electing progressive leaders or forming sensible policies that look further than the next 2 weeks? Not so much.
So it's all going about as well as everyone except the government expected.
God forbid you take responsibility for it yourself. It sure is a fail for you, Alison.
this is fucking disgusting:
this is their true motive, they want ownership of our devices and the software running on them
At the device level is a much better place to put it. It's a place that could actually work, and it's a place where it's much easier to do it in a privacy-preserving way.
The best solution would be to use parental controls. A lot of operating systems already have something along those lines, but they've tended to not be very good. If the law instead required that OSes supported parental controls where the parent can set the child's age, and then apps and websites have to respect that, via an operating system API (with websites accessing a browser API, with the browser calling the OS's API), that would remove any privacy concerns, because the only "verification" is the parent.
Or there's this option, which preserves privacy along with a more robust age verification. Somebody (preferably the government, rather than a private company) has to do official age verification, once, and that would then get stored by your device and could be reused in a way that can't be traced on different sites. The age verifier can't see which sites you use your verification on. The sites can't learn anything about you other than "yes, this person is old enough".
How about we not legally mandate this bullshit at all? Parental controls and child-friendly accounts are a thing that already exist. I don't want a bunch of pigs spying on my child to determine if their internet activity is 'acceptable'. Fuck that.
That’s actually much better than what they’re currently doing. If all you had to do was verify with your phone that you are >16 it would mean that each social media app and then every other site that the government demands do age verification doesn’t need to verify you. It means you only verify once, on your device.
Unfortunately that’s why they’ll never do it - the government wants to ram through a universal government digital ID, and they do it by making laws that make it increasingly hard for all the companies to meet the criteria, so the government can then swoop in and give their “solution”.
Oh no. Anyway...