Australia’s social media ban for kids under 16 just became law. How it will work remains a mystery
The ban won’t take effect for at least 12 months. But key details about it are still missing – including how social media platforms will actually verify users’ age.
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You can't see it, but I have my dubious face on.
It'll be interesting to see the definition of "social media". All I've seen so far is a list of sites/services that will be banned/exempt.
Lemmy doesn't seem to fit into such a law. Lock down a pile of sites running Lemmy, another instance pops up isn't covered by the ban. "Ban Lemmy software, then" I hear you say. Thing is: Lemmy is open source. Someone can fork it, release a new federating service software called TotesNotLemmyLol on their site and get around the ban.
I genuinely can't tell how the government will implement this.
I say this as a dad to a teenager who will be affected by this law, and no - I wouldn't want him unsupervised on Lemmy. He'd be safe enough in Local (you guys are lovely), but it's a dark world out there.
They won't ban the site, they will just fine them for not verifying age (30,000 penalty units, 1 federal penalty unit is $110).
Lemmy does fit the definition outlined in the act, the thing they haven't defined is what the reasonable steps will be to verify age. It will likely only apply to sites hosted or with a presence in Australia. Its not like they can fine an instance in a random country although maybe if it's a jurisdiction that will play ball (maybe 5 eyes countries, maybe close trading partners).
The bill does say what it covers:
Age-restricted social media platform (ARSMP) is defined at proposed section 63C. This section outlines the scope of the proposed obligation to be introduced, while also providing the Minister with flexibility to specify which platforms are or are not covered by the provisions through making legislative rules.
The definition of ARSMP draws on the existing definitions in the Act, in particular electronic service (section 5). This broad definition, with some exclusions, covers:
- a service that allows end‑users to access material using a carriage service
- a service that delivers material to persons having equipment appropriate for receiving that material, where the delivery of the service is by means of a carriage service.
Under proposed section 63C, an ARSMP would be an electronic service which satisfies the following conditions:
- the sole purpose, or a significant purpose, of the service is to enable online social interaction between 2 or more end-users[2]
- the service allows end-users to link to, or interact with, some or all of the other end-users
- the service allows end-users to post material on the service
- such other conditions (if any) as are set out in the legislative rules.
Further, the Explanatory Memorandum (EM) states that, ‘in the first instance’, the Government proposes to make legislative rules to exclude messaging apps, online gaming services and ‘[s]ervices with the primary purpose of supporting the health and education of end-users’ from the definition of ARSMPs
Broad as usual, but basically from my understanding any website thats primary purpose is user to user communication of some form, unless its a messaging, health, or gaming orientated service. Also the minister can directly exclude services as they see fit.
proposed subsections 63C(6) and (7) provide that the Minister may specify that a digital service is out of scope of the definition of ARSMP
How the system is actually going to work seems to be all up to the eSafety Commissioner and this bill seems to just to say, your job is to make this happen with XYZ requirements, and here are the penalties if someone doesn't comply once it's implemented.
Yep: I followed up yesterday when the act had been uploaded. It wasn't online on Thursday when I made that comment. Or if it was online, Google hadn't yet indexed it.
I reckon this instance will be considered social media, I don't really see how it wouldn't be. I imagine even if you were to move this instance to a server outside of Australia, you both being Australians means you'll still have to manage ID verification crap
I'm not so stoic, I think this probably will end up affecting all of us here
The act is online now. Lemmy is clearly defined as social media under Section 13a of the act.
Of course, I have no idea how we'll comply with the act - there's obviously no existing field or provision in the Lemmy Code to enter a private identifier as a user to confirm your age. We have a year to figure that out.
It's also hilarious to imagine international instances complying. Imagine the scenario: Kyrgyzstan has passed a law that states that all its users must provide an ID to use aussie.zone. Are we going to comply with this law? How many of our users are Kyrgyz? That's what this law appears to call for - asking our friends at lemmy.world (who are hosted in Finland) to comply with an Australian law because some of their users are Australian.
@Nath lemmy.world need to buck their ideas up
Called it. Good luck with that. I'll be turning on a VPN when this comes into effect, or I'll be jumping ship to that New Zealand instance. The Finnish are nice, but there's too many yanks on LW and those general purpose instances. Though I'd consider that anarchist instance
Just my assumption, couldn't answer that definitively. I'm guessing that, like GDPR in the EU, it will apply to any and all social media website on the internet, but for practical reasons, can't really be enforced outside of the legislating authorities' jurisdiction. I mean, Cuba, for instance, could fine you at any time if they had laws permitting for it, but if you've never been, and never intend to go to Cuba, it doesn't really do very much
Going back to the real world, I'm doubtful foreign websites hosted outside of Australia, by non Australians, would ever be "prosecuted", it's just a huge waste of time. Maybe any countries we have close relationships with would do our dirty work for us. I assume that this would apply to any Australian or any Australian company or any Australian server. Just my non professional assumption though, could be totally wrong!
I’m guessing that, like GDPR in the EU, it will apply to any and all social media website on the internet, but for practical reasons, can’t really be enforced outside of the legislating authorities’ jurisdiction.
The legislation specifically gives the Act extra-territorial powers to enforce the ban against foreign websites.
Reddit is specifically targetted ; it will definitely include Lemmy.
One possibility is the Brazilian way to do law enforcement: blocking the domain and server IP addresses through ISPs.
Here in Brazil, a Supreme Court minister has ruled on several occasions to block certain websites and services, the most recent being X/Twitter. Along with his decision to block these websites, he also imposed fines on those caught using VPNs to bypass ISP blocking. Although VPN traffic is encrypted and impossible for governments to monitor, somehow this worked because several people were fined. It is likely that Supreme Court agents monitored these networks in order to detect possible Brazilians using them during such blockages. An Australian should expect their government to proceed in a similar fashion.
(Just for clarification, I'm not going into the merits of this, just stating that this is technically possible and that there is a precedent in the government of a country, in aforementioned case, Brazil. Whether this is good or bad will depend on many factors)
