Australian Senate, last sitting of the year. No idea when the Social Media Ban debate is kicking off.
If anyone’s keen, feel free to give a live run-down of anything interesting in this thread.
(sorry about all the edits, just trying to get a decent thumbnail: 
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Is lemmy exempt I wonder?
They prolly don’t know it exists. If they do, be prepared to switch instance as I doubt lodion will want to deal with Id checking
I, and at least one other person here sent submissions in specifically mentioning the fediverse.
Mine wasn’t a very technical submission, i tried to focus on the value and potential destruction of that value if safeguards aren’t allowed for nascent social media.
So at least there is a record of it. My worry is all the Muskivites submissions will drown out ones like mine.
It’s not even clear yet what form the ID checking will take. They’ve rushed this through way too fast and without proper consultation. But there does seem to be some sort of a plan that the ID checking would be done by a government service in some manner, rather than users needing to send ID directly to the platform.
Govt service is still bad, still links everyones social media accounts to their ID. The bill will do jackshit anyways, as under 16s will simply move to social media hosted outside of Australia.
So of the top ofnyour head, a VPN will allow you to skirt this law?
I don’t use social media beyond lemmy but be fucked if I want to give my I.D to anyone in relation to my online activities
Well, a VPN fakes your country, and the law only applies in Australia. Also, it is an unenforceable law anyways so I doubt it would do much
“are you over 16” clicks yes well your honour they clearly provided false data so it’s not our farkin’ problem.
because honestly what fucking 16 year old has a proof of age card
Last I saw the suggestions were drivers license or equivalent, face scan, or digital id. They’ve probably walked that back though or will do so because hell nah
Govt service, or privatised age-assurance face-scanning service wrought with error?
Like I said, it’s not clear yet what form it will take.
I’ll take that as a no
The info is still really vague but seemed to so far apply to big platforms like reddit and facebook and X - however my info might be outdated by now.
Then again it could be that the fines for non compliance and verification charges might also apply to smaller platforms with less available funding than the big companies, and push them under.
The info I’ve been reading seems to be inconsistent and sometimes even conflict. And yeah, could be outdated by now
The relevant Minister will be able to give exemptions as needed, but unfortunately there is no threshold for any sort of minimum size requirement or for non-profit community groups. So we would probably, to be completely lawful, need to get chummy with some politicians who can reach out to the Minister and seek an exemption.
(But realistically, we’re probably small enough that nobody would notice.)
it’s seriously annoying as fuck how there’s no exemption for any of these internet regulations based on size, all it it seriously achieves is strengthening corpos and depowering individuals with souls