Not really. These bans aren’t about protecting children, they’re about tracking and monitoring adults. You have to prove you’re an adult to get on the site.
Social media is often harmful and a significant problem in the world, but that needs to be addressed by regulating social media itself and outlawing harmful algorithms that serve up content in a manipulative and antagonistic way. Not by compelling social media companies to track people even more.
Most likely the tech companies will hold out until they work out a way they can get paid for it, all the while claiming they’re on the side of user privacy.
Edit: Also, reading between the lines in this article, it seems the expansion of powers they’re talking about is for the eSafety Commissioner to request information from social media companies and third party providers. Presumably this would mean they can access the secure private data users upload to prove their identity. So the government are pretty much explicitly tracking people’s activity at this point - but worse, they’re doing so via private businesses and thereby allowing them to further exploit the data against people’s interests.
The reforms would also give the eSafety commissioner the power to compel social media companies to provide evidence of what they have done to stop under-16s from opening or using an account. The commissioner would be able to demand information and documents, including from third parties, such as age assurance or app store providers.
No they’re not. I don’t have time right now to type up more, but you can check my recent history for more detail. But in short, the law forbids requiring id for verification and forbids anything collected for verification purposes from being used for any other purpose.
So they verify by other means, eg facial recognition. The government has your ID already, so they’re getting access to this additional personal information via private third parties.
and forbids anything collected for verification purposes from being used for any other purpose.
Forbidding something is almost meaningless when you cannot monitor and enforce it. There is virtually no way to prove they aren’t selling data under the table.
Sure, but at that point why have any laws at all? What’s the point of Europe’s GDPR? What’s the point of Australia’s Privacy Act 1988? Why do we bother talking about any data regulation?
good
Not really. These bans aren’t about protecting children, they’re about tracking and monitoring adults. You have to prove you’re an adult to get on the site.
Social media is often harmful and a significant problem in the world, but that needs to be addressed by regulating social media itself and outlawing harmful algorithms that serve up content in a manipulative and antagonistic way. Not by compelling social media companies to track people even more.
Most likely the tech companies will hold out until they work out a way they can get paid for it, all the while claiming they’re on the side of user privacy.
Edit: Also, reading between the lines in this article, it seems the expansion of powers they’re talking about is for the eSafety Commissioner to request information from social media companies and third party providers. Presumably this would mean they can access the secure private data users upload to prove their identity. So the government are pretty much explicitly tracking people’s activity at this point - but worse, they’re doing so via private businesses and thereby allowing them to further exploit the data against people’s interests.
It doesn’t address the core issues with social media, it’s algorithm.
No they’re not. I don’t have time right now to type up more, but you can check my recent history for more detail. But in short, the law forbids requiring id for verification and forbids anything collected for verification purposes from being used for any other purpose.
So they verify by other means, eg facial recognition. The government has your ID already, so they’re getting access to this additional personal information via private third parties.
Forbidding something is almost meaningless when you cannot monitor and enforce it. There is virtually no way to prove they aren’t selling data under the table.
Sure, but at that point why have any laws at all? What’s the point of Europe’s GDPR? What’s the point of Australia’s Privacy Act 1988? Why do we bother talking about any data regulation?
It’s an absurd complaint to have.
If you could please link me to the previous comment you were referring to above, the one you didn’t want to re-type, that would be much appreciated.
The hyperbole from your comment reeks. What you’re saying is absurd.
GDPR and Australia’s Privacy Act are enforced. Companies are restricted from data collection by those laws.
This law requires companies to increase data collection, and potentially requires them to release that data to the government.
You seemingly have no perspective on the direction of these things.