Age discrimination is garbage… But this is clearly just Reddit catering to its groomer base.
The social media ban for younger kids in Australia is not a good thing. By requiring anyone who wants to access social platforms to provide government ID, you’re effectively eliminating online anonymity.
Sure, the justification today might be to “protect the kids”. But you’re slowly building the infrastructure of a surveillance state. All it’ll take is for an authoritarian party to win the next election and your privacy and freedom of expression is over.
The only way to protect children and protect our privacy is if the age verification software is publicly auditable and uses zero-knowledge proofs for age attestation. The website you’re accessing must never see anything about you aside from “This user is 16+.” And the age verification platform must never be able to keep a log of which websites you’ve accessed.
But that’s just a compromise. If I had the option to choose, I’d rather there be absolutely no age verification, ever.
EDIT: Fixed grammar.
Think of how many kids we could protect if we just locked up the entire adult population. Don’t you care about children?
This should really be done at the home network level, anything else is similar to someone coming into my own home and telling me how to raise my kids.
Routers have had parental controls for years, all it takes is designating a separate network for kids devices with a whitelist of approved websites.
Hell the government can even curate a list of approved websites for each age group and provide this list accessible in all routers.
Schools could even use these same curated whitelists to only make certain websites avaliable within a school.
Anything else is a governments and corporations overreach and borderline privacy invasive.
That’s pretty sensible. However, most people are not sensible.
Also, most people are only semi-literate. Even more people are technologically illiterate. Most people don’t know what a router is or how to configure it, and they don’t want to. It’s not just ignorance that’s a problem, it’s also the malign refusal to learn, or refusal to believe that one can learn.
Yeah it’s almost like they don’t care for children at all and the point is the invasion of privacy, control, and oppression…
This shit is fucking weird “your honor they won’t let young and impressionable children sign up for our website.”
How is it weird to protest having to get PII on a mostly anonymous website?
It’s weird because they aren’t protesting for privacy even though that’s what they claim. they’re protesting because they want more eyes on their ad platform
It is weird considering they are well aware that reddit has pedophiles actively preying on minors in their “ teen forms”. They rather keep anonymity, have lot traffic than to protect vulnerable people.
The weird part is the government are trying to get the children to stay away, rather than track down the pedophiles.
Part of it is that they’re clearing out the kids so they can advertise to adults. Gotta support the people leeching off gambling addicts. Capitalism as usual.
back in my day we used to browse newgrounds on a school computer and grew up mostly normal lol
Here’s a thought: Did Aussie ban 16 and unders from Lemmy too?
I’m guessing we’re not a “major platform” as the rules define them.
Pretty sure that networks like Lemmy are the primary target facing the heaviest burden.
Theoretically they did. Lemmy not complying isn’t their problem. Lemmy does fit the definition they use.
According to the legal text, under Part 4A, Division 1, 63C, the requirements for a service to count as an age-restricted social media service are:
- the sole purpose, or a significant purpose, of the service is to enable online social interaction between 2 or more end‑users
- 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
Additionally, it’s specified that additional legislative rules can be defined by the minister. So there seems to be exceptions for certain types of services added here:
- services that have the sole or primary purpose of enabling end‑users to communicate by means of messaging, email, voice calling or video calling
- services that have the sole or primary purpose of enabling end‑users to play online games with other end‑users
- services that have the sole or primary purpose of enabling end‑users to share information (such as reviews, technical support or advice) about products or services
- services that have the sole or primary purpose of enabling end‑users to engage in professional networking or professional development
- services that have the sole or primary purpose of supporting the education of end‑users
- services that have the sole or primary purpose of supporting the health of end‑users
- services that have a significant purpose of facilitating communication between educational institutions and students or students’ families
- services that have a significant purpose of facilitating communication between providers of health care and people using those providers’ services
I don’t see an exclusion for small platforms or requirement for the platform to be major. So Lemmy definitely is affected by this too. Australia just can’t enforce it outside their country, so they can only go after Lemmy admins operating out of Australia. And they probably won’t unless someone reports the instance.
This is what’s also does not make sense to me.
If every websites requires a age verification process then would that not affect average people that run their own blogs for example or any other type of website.
What about people that run a wedding photo business and use a website to post and share wedding pictures with clients. Do they now need to implement and manage a age verification process, and what does a person like this do with all this personal data?
This would make the barrier of entry for a random individual way to high yo even start a publicly facing website.
It probably falls under the law. Most things like this don’t define specific sites that fall under it, as that would make it stupid easy to manipulate, bypass, be used as market manipulation, etc.
If you check most Lemmy instance rules, most explicitly require users to be over 16. I always assumed it was so they weren’t required to follow stuff like the US COPPA laws for handling data of users under the age of 14, and whatever the equivalents are internationally.
I’ve also heard one user say that they can’t upload images on their instance as their instance blocked UK IP addresses from doing so to avoid some data law from the UK.
Reddit sucks
Someone shared this with me in discord and the link was deleted.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1po0na6/comment/nubmncn/
Gotta love it
Love what? Ban? Australia loves bans too. And soon they will ban you.
I haven’t had a Reddit account in two years. Unless they learn how to ban my router.
I’m okay with never stepping foot in Australia. They check your devices when you land and I’ve never been okay with that.
If i am honest its good on Australia that they banned minors from major social media because its not minor place to be on these sites . There is a lot of predatory behaviours and creeps on media . Reddit is corrupted because they know that their platform is being accessed by pedophiles who are preying on minors in teen platforms . Children on social media have high chance being groomed and preyed upon. It’s so easy to take a vulnerable child and transform them . As someone who was exploited as 14/15 year old on social media including kik and cyber bullied to point of almost ending my life , i see good this has in protecting more minors . i suggest everyone look up SOSA on youtube because shows reality of exploitation . Yes i understand that maybe people want to remain anonymously and keep their identity a secret but you have think that maybe their a lot of harm in keeping identity a secret because people use and abuse the internet for malicious intent to much . It sucks but this what needs be done to protect vulnerable people .
I grew up as a closeted queer kid in rural Australia, before the internet was widely available. I had zero connection with other queer kids, and no way to develop the language or connections that I needed to help me understand what was going on.
Social media gives that to queer kids. It lets them find their peers and know that they’re not alone. It gives them people to talk to and support them when they’re bullied (which they will be, even without social media).
This “protects” some vulnerable kids by throwing other vulnerable kids under the bus. Whilst at the same time, setting the way for legislation like this https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-11/age-verification-search-engines/105516256, which is what it’s really about.
They will just as likely move on to less moderated and less reputable platforms that don’t care what Australia says.
