Thursday, November 14, 2024

First porn, then social media? How age verification tech could cross over

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Hello and welcome to Screenshot, your weekly tech update from national technology reporter Ange Lavoipierre, featuring the best, worst and strangest in tech and online news. Read to the end for an A+ Subreddit recommendation you didn’t know you needed.

How age verification for porn could migrate to social media

“Keeping kids off porn” is the unambiguously noble sales pitch for the government’s new age verification pilot, receiving $6.5 million in this year’s budget. “Keeping kids off porn and social media” is less likely to fit on a badge, but they might be about to give it a try.

When Labor first announced its plan on May 1, the scope was more cautious, promising a technology trial “to protect children from harmful content, like pornography and other age-restricted online services”.

You know, like gambling.

The possibility of extending the scheme to cover social media was also there, captured in the wonderfully broad category of “harmful content”, but it was vague at best.

The federal government’s announcement referred to protecting children “from harmful content, like pornography and other age-restricted online services”.(ABC News: Will Ockenden )

Age verification for porn with a dash of “harmful content” for good measure had also been the Coalition’s line since November.

Six months later, discovering they were now wearing the exact same dress as Labor, the opposition settled on a new wedge: age verification for social media.

“We need to include Instagram, we need to include TikTok, because Australian children are suffering due to the conduct of social media platforms,” said the Coalition’s communications spokesman David Coleman, numerous times, in different ways, over the past fortnight.

Enter stage left, South Australia.

On Monday, Premier Peter Malinausakus announced his government was looking into banning children under 14 from social media, in what would be the first Australian law of its kind.

Gee, though, how on earth would one enforce such a thing?

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