A company contracted by the government to assess technologies for verifying the ages of online users says it can be done privately, robustly and effectively.
The for profit social media companies profile users and know their demographics in great detail. Kids are obviously watching different content to adults. They are in an equivalent position to a bottleshop employee letting a 12 year old walk out with a carton of premixes and claiming not only that they didn’t know (false) but they want to keep not knowing because it is good for business. The industry only cares about money and has proven they can’t self regulate.
The only question is how to react. Not whether to react.
The social media companies are obviously scare mongering and spreading misinformation to protect their financial interests. We need to balance peoples very reasonable demands for privacy with holding predatory corporate behaviour to account. The most likely outcome will be a requirement to use a third party age verification service subject to Australian privacy laws to verify a new user to a service so that there is no need to provide that informtion to the social media companies. People willingly, enthusiastically give their entire life history to Meta along with all their friends, colleagues and family along with photos that allow biometric fingerprinting of their children for life. Giving them a simple yes/no to the question of if you are legal age based on a trusted third party seems a very reasonable request in comparison.
The for profit social media companies profile users and know their demographics in great detail. Kids are obviously watching different content to adults. They are in an equivalent position to a bottleshop employee letting a 12 year old walk out with a carton of premixes and claiming not only that they didn’t know (false) but they want to keep not knowing because it is good for business. The industry only cares about money and has proven they can’t self regulate.
The only question is how to react. Not whether to react.
The social media companies are obviously scare mongering and spreading misinformation to protect their financial interests. We need to balance peoples very reasonable demands for privacy with holding predatory corporate behaviour to account. The most likely outcome will be a requirement to use a third party age verification service subject to Australian privacy laws to verify a new user to a service so that there is no need to provide that informtion to the social media companies. People willingly, enthusiastically give their entire life history to Meta along with all their friends, colleagues and family along with photos that allow biometric fingerprinting of their children for life. Giving them a simple yes/no to the question of if you are legal age based on a trusted third party seems a very reasonable request in comparison.