Australia Bans Under 16s from Social Media in Trojan Horse law

The Under 16 Social Media ban/Digital ID bill is being rushed through parliament today. They haven't even tested the age verification system.

They allowed just 24 hours for public submissions and yet received over 15,000 - which look likely to be ignored.

All of Labor and all but a couple of the opposition LNP senators will be supporting the bill.

This law is a deception - calling it an “Under 16 ban” is an absolute lie. The bill is full of framework to implement surveillance, regulate content, track and identify users, and manage behaviour. The bill:

• Forces collection and storage of identity verification data

• Permits sharing of data with "third party" verification services

• Creates centralised identity verification databases linking real identities to online accounts

• Has weak deletion requirements

• Allows government access to verification data

• Gives the Minister power to expand definition through legislative rules

• Requires platforms to track Australian user location

It is nothing to do with protecting kids. Porn and Gambling are not included. Experts have voiced concerns about this actually causing harm to many kids who rely on Social Media.

In addition to how bad the law is, it has the potential to become worse with no oversight.

It will give the unelected eSafety Commissioner power to add "such other conditions" through legislative rules, potentially expanding data collection requirements without new legislation. The bill also includes concerning provisions for expansion:

• Section 63C allows the Minister to specify additional services through rules

• No limitations on what verification methods can be required

• Can be modified without new legislation by bureaucrats

I suspect the incentive for this is just to make sure anyone using SM is identified, not to implement Digital ID more broadly - yet.

This means that unless there are easy workarounds, (like VPNs, which would undermine the bill anyway) many people will simply stop using social media and take their political discussion underground, into private chats and offline. This is terrible for democracy.

As poison as much of Social Media is, this law is much worse. It will shape society in profound ways. Generations of young people will grow up disconnected from the world. They will be disadvantaged, misinformed, and behaviour managed. Or, they will simply go underground.

From a personal security perspective, it will endanger all social media users by keeping incredibly important identification and location data all in one convenient bucket for hackers and rogue governments (I’m including the Australian government in that).

I personally suspect that VPNs will be an easy workaround for this law. When using a VPN connected to a non-authoritarian country, the platforms will assume you are in that country and Age Verification will not apply. So, I expect VPN usage to increase considerably over the coming months.

You should have been using one anyway - at least since the mandatory metadata retention laws were introduced in 2015.

The bill is being rushed through today along with dozens of other bills, with no debate, only a vote, and is expected to pass.

Here’s an important question - why the rush?

Oh and UK folks - this is coming soon.

Read more info on the Bill here: https://x.com/criprights/status/1859494585539625083