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Australia is introducing age checks for search engines like Google
- NoSalt 1y agoAustralia ... the ultimate "Nanny State".
- LAC-Tech 1y agoAustralia continues its descent into censorship, some what putting a hole in the theory that democracy and freedom of speech are anything more than co-related.
- SlowTao 1y agoThere is a frame of thought that goes like this. With any mass technology that has the ability to do harm, there are only two likely outcomes. Either you let the technology go free in which case the self terminating phase of blow back becomes a reality. Or you have to track is relentlessly/set rules in place that can be enforced, thus you bring about an authoritarian state dystopia. This allows both sides to present an angle of resistance to the opposite. The freedom people will push back against control. The control side will push back against the worst outcomes. I say this as somebody who is very much against this roll out. There is the middle way of rules and regulations but this is dependent on how you can allow some freedom without becoming too restrictive. This is a wild over correction but I am not surprised. This is, yet another typically aussie politician move. Slowly stepping into authoritarian state behind the guise of jingoistic "she will be right" attitude.
- heavyset_go 1y agoThis is just a step towards killing anonymity and free speech online, as well as a hand out to shady government contractors. We are going to have to give our IDs and biometrics to untrusted 3rd parties just because some people don't like the idea of other people's kids using the internet. If these sites are so bad, maybe laws should instead target that problem. For example, make it illegal for social media companies to make their products addictive. Instead, we get insanely invasive half-measures that impede on security, privacy and speech, with the added bonus of politicians whipping people up into moral panics in order to pass them.
- trollbridge 1y agoNewsflash: pretty much every site like Google already knows exactly who you are. We gave up anonymity a long time ago in exchange for "free".
- worthless-trash 1y agoBut will be mandated now.
- heavyset_go 1y agoThat's not an excuse to add unaccountable 3rd parties to the mix that will take videos of your face and pictures of your IDs just to use the internet, and who will subsequently lose control of that data in inevitable breaches. It's also doesn't justify any additional chilling of free speech.
- willvarfar 1y agoGoogle is one of the few free mail+everything+else providers that still lets people sign up and not give any kind of real-world identity. So you can, on a clean phone or laptop or whatever, create a new gmail account without any kind of auth and maintain that persona. In practice this isn't how people are using google services though.
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 1y agoNo it's been impossible without a phone numner for a while now
- herbst 1y agoI made a Google account without even owning a number a few days ago. Afaik only one of my Google accounts has a phone number and pretty sure that's only because AdSense.
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 1y ago
- ingohelpinger 1y agowhen did Australia go full communist?
- anal_reactor 1y agoWhat I love the most about this whole thing is that it's about limiting people's access to porn while evidence that porn is bad for you is dubious at best, while the real problem is big tech using algorithms to feed people's stupidity and addiction on personal basis... which as dystopic as it sounds, has been documented, proven, and accepted as the new normal. And with the new law it gives said big tech access to even more information about the user to target them with garbage even more effectively. What do I say. Every day I'm even more disappointed in people. "So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause."
- aussieguy1234 1y agoI'd rather use a VPN, it's instant and doesn't require me to go through a whole verification process. I think VPNs are the easiest solution when this gets implemented. Easier than going through an age check.
- exodust 1y agoIf you already have a Google account where your location is stated and obvious, why do you think Google won't still demand your "papers please" after these Orwellian Labor party laws attempt to screw us?
- KurSix 1y agoProtecting kids online is absolutely important, but introducing mandatory age checks at the search engine level (especially using methods like facial analysis or credit cards) opens up major privacy and surveillance concerns.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jimbob45 1y agoWhy not simply pass a law to limit company liability in the case that a minor sees something undesirable? Why shouldn’t the onus be on the parents to parent?
- numpad0 1y agoBecause it's not about minors or pornography at all. It's about ending online anonymity, democracy enabled by the Internet, and ultimately to pick out dissidents to eventually disappear them.
- hedora 1y agoAll of these laws (the US has some now) are designed to set up a censorship regime that can control speech or oppress undesirable groups (Project 2025 calls out LGBTQ+, for example). The age verification also will inevitably let the authorities create a list of adults to persecute.
- vkou 1y ago> The age verification also will inevitably let the authorities create a list of adults to persecute. If your government has slid that far down the dystopian shithole scale, why would they care if the person they are persecuting is an adult or a child?
- ta8645 1y agoThey don't. That's just a thin veneer of "legitimacy" so they don't have to admit the real reasons, explicitly.
- hedora 1y agoExactly. Why would a kid looking at wrong-think sign in, only to have their request rejected? I usually don’t comment on downvotes, but geez. They even admit/brag that this is what they’re up to in the US! Also, I don’t get the comments elsewhere on this article that hope Trump will block the policy in Australia, even though he’s pushing for identical stuff here.
- budududuroiu 1y agoIf Australia genuinely wanted to improve the lives of its children, it would first tackle the loopholes in its child support scheme [1]. But then again, as with Chat Control and other such schemes, “save the children” is used to usher in breaking of all citizens’ privacy. I bet Aus is insanely jealous of China’s mandatory ID checks on their superapps [1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/08/single-parents-in-australia-are-owed-37bn-in-child-support-anne-says-no-leader-has-been-brave-enough-to-fix-it https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/08/single-paren...
- chii 1y agoWhenever a measure is instroduced in law to austensibly "protect the children", it's just merely an appeal to emotion and in fact, is not meant to do what is being advertised. It certainly is meant to increase the power of law enforcement, gov't overreach, and intrusion. It is used to add a chilling effect on any sort of dissent. The same could be said for any measures to protect you from "the terrorists".
- johnisgood 1y agoYeah, it has never been about saving the children, or fight terrorism. It has been about control and power. People should read more about Austrian economics / Mises, because despite what their preconceived thoughts may suggest, everyone who thinks this is a bad idea, will like what they will read on Mises' website. Books like "Anatomy of the State" by Rothbard, "Basic Economics" by Sowell, "The Left, The Right, & The State" by L. H. Rockwell, Jr. or "Lessons for the Young Economist" by Bob Murphy are quite nice. Heck, I would even suggest "The Law" by Frédéric Bastiat. You do not have to read books however, you can check blog posts. Website can be found here: https://mises.org https://mises.org. You are looking for "Wire" and "Beginners". Make sure to use the search functionality though, there are a lot of very specific subjects that are "irrelevant" to this case.
- BLKNSLVR 1y agoI was having a similar conversation yesterday, and my stance is that the political grand-standing like this is worse than doing nothing because it gives the populace the sense that something is being done, although very little is likely to change. Resources are being applied far from optimally. Funding that could be useful is being spent on the useless. As such, it's taking things in the wrong direction whilst still costing more than what previously existed and also impinging on other areas of literally everyone else's lives. I believe that acting locally, funding child protection services, providing more boots on the ground, is actual progress (I mean, these organisations are literally called "child protection services", who else better, then?) I've mentioned this a number of times before: my wife is a teacher and therefore has 'mandatory reporting' responsibilities. The frustration is that, with the resources currently available, they're only able to intervene where a child's life is in immediate danger. I'm not sure if the bar could be any lower. I should also make the disclaimer that what I know is second-hand information from my wife, and may be out of date and / or biased due to frustrations due to the misalignment between 'mandatory reporting' and 'what can actually be done'.
- burnt-resistor 1y agoBig Mother is here to collect your metadata, sell it to data brokers, and put its opponents on watchlists.
- ghssds 1y agoWhat about Yandex? If I wanted to see porn, I'd go to Yandex, not Bing or Google, because Yandex is the superior search engine for that kind of thing. If Yandex is unaffected, this age check is useless. What about Marginalia? A small operation like Marginalia, if affected, may not have the ressource to implement age check. Is this some kind of regulation capture scheme? Why don't you just shove a leash up my ass?
- LAC-Tech 1y agoYandex is goated for stuff US companies and their "partners" don't want to show you search results for, esp WRT politics and world events, I assume that Russian dissidents must ironically use google et al for the same reasons.
- BLKNSLVR 1y agoDevil's advocate position: If you can shepherd the majority, or at least a larger percentage, then the leaks can be ignored (until they get too big, at which time then consider changes and tweaks). For the likes of us on HN bypassing these things is a bodily function, however I believe there's a large cohort "out there" for whom it could be a bridge too far. Eg. I doubt too many degrees of separation outside of HN even know of the existence of Marginalia. Having said that, the existence and purpose of a VPN is probably pretty well spread "out there in the world". (ignoring the effectiveness of the topic of this thread).
- Barbing 1y agoI immediately felt this to be a gift to Yandex. Kid searches for porn and can’t find it. Someone at school recommends incognito/logging out. … So they lock down logged out searches? Next someone at school puts them onto SearXNG, Yandex, VPNs, etc. Maybe a percentage of kids will grow up never learning workarounds? Maybe the rest get slightly more tech savvy in a good way… (I’m not pro-11-year-olds watching ultra-depraved snuff but can see occasional bridges to IT know-how. Hope not all workarounds are ultra-appified then.)
- rpdillon 1y agoThanks for the Demolition Man reference. Great movie, and apt!
- simmo9000 1y ago1788-2025 and still going strong...
- cadamsdotcom 1y agoThe sense of impotence in the comments is palpable. What can we - the people - do to make our discontent heard?
- simmo9000 1y agoAustralia has "the vote" for that.
- bigger_cheese 1y agoIn my opinion the most likely way it gets torpedoed is by Trump threatening the Aus Gov over trying to regulate US Tech companies. Feels like Albanese is walking on eggshells at the moment trying to get Trump not to cancel AUKUS, not ramp up tarrifs etc.
- BLKNSLVR 1y agoI think Australia should go back to the French submarine deal and fuck the AUKUS thing out the window. Opinion mostly based on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px9qhDGv300&t=688s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px9qhDGv300&t=688s (and, of course, the US now being essentially a rogue state, and it'll take significant structural change to fix that).
- theshackleford 1y agoThe majority of the Australian population would agree with the introduction of such laws. It is the minority (such as those of us here) who disagree. So the people have been "heard" and they are getting what they want. It's the rest of us who suffer.
- jim-jim-jim 1y agoIs that true? It seems like this was more of a complete non-issue in the last election, suddenly implemented once Labor secured power again. I'm not saying your hypothetical popular support is unrealistic, but I don't think anybody actively voted for this. Living in Australia has been eye opening. I naïvely assumed that mandatory, ranked-choice voting would draw a direct line from popular sentiment to legislative outcome, but that's anything but the case.
- dav43 1y agoAustralian politics is very much in favour of throwing around a lot of Red herrings. Eg get the conversation, media and public focussed on unimportant issues as a way to distract from the fact they are incompetent to deal with big issues. Grew up in NSW for 25 years. Nothing has changed. A few extra toll roads.
- dottjt 1y agoI would refrain from referring to it as incompetence, as I feel that ignores the true nature of the system. The problem is that the Australian political system needs to appease to the centre. That's how parties get into power. As long as that's the case, it doesn't leave a whole lot of room to meaningfully tackle the problems plaguing the country (in particular, housing).
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- axolttl88 1y agoYour point about not tackling the hardest challenges is well made. However the benefit of needing to appeal to the political Centre (a factor of compulsory voting) is that Australia also avoids the crazy swings and debilitating division of left and right that other nations can face.
- dottjt 1y agoCorrect. Though it'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the end. I wonder if the centre will change, or if the centre by design remains the same and the outliers merely grow. I'm not sure how it'll play out.
- RpFLCL 1y agoI think it's telling that this is happening via "policies" instead of laws, because almost nobody cares or wants it. It's also telling that Google and Microsoft aren't in opposition to this new burden, they're giving quiet yet full support. This will *necessarily* entrench the big players through the burden to implement, make it easier to track individuals across different accounts and services, and endanger the privacy and anonymity of all adults in Australia. And I think that's all the goal. If they cared about protecting kids they'd focus on resources and campaigns to educate parents on using parental controls. Then parents could decide if they care to block these things in their homes. It should be up to them. The "you can just log out" loophole, that's just boiling the frog slowly. It would be foolish to think that will stay around.
- heavyset_go 1y agoGoogle et al want it because it finally gives them a way to wall off AI scraping and prove their usage/impression/etc statistics reflect human beings. It's also clear that this data itself is valuable in the first place, and any company ever would love to be handed it for free mandated by law.
- exodust 1y ago> campaigns to educate parents on using parental controls. Exactly this. The other possibility is that Google & Microsoft won't want to hassle people for ID or "papers please" just for liking a post, reviewing a business or sending email. If I were Google, I'd be worried about losing a LOT of customers who simply won't provide invasive personal details which routinely get stolen in Australia from poorly secured "trusted" organisations like Qantas and Optus. People won't want to send their ID to "trusted ID contractors" for simple web services because e-Karen has a final solution. I'll close my Google accounts if they ever deny me access on that basis, and I'll take action against the measures in any way I can to make things as uncomfortable as possible for whatever authoritarian government ushers this garbage in.
- senectus1 1y agoBy the time they get this bullshit up and running my kids will be old enough to no be kids anymore. but regardless I will absolutely be implementing a VPN solution to bypass this.
- ggm 1y agoIn full expectation of being downvoted, I would like to say here that I think the comments below show an astonishing lack of awareness about how most ordinary australians feel about the risks to children online. I believe most australians vox-popped in the street would say they expect the government to do this. I'm not for a minute saying either the current government, or any past government is either competent or capable of implementing protections which actually work. I am solely saying, these intentions will probably be popular with a lot of parents, and very possibly electorally popular as well, and will be unopposed by the opposition, unless they take a "not going far enough" position. The Australian Privacy Commissioner, and the CSIRO made substantive submissions to the government regarding use of trusted third parties and homomorphic encryption. I have some doubt the government is interested in listening, but the fact remains there are technologies which can identify you, do KYC 100 points, and not reveal who you are, or where you are going, to the government who issues the ID. Like many others I've had my google account in continuous use, demonstrated to google through use of things like passkeys and 2FA, for over 20 years. I struggle to think of how most people with a gmail account have not functionally identified themselves to google (most: by no means all)
- trollbridge 1y agoI agree, and most the comments here also show a lack of awareness of how much parents really don't want their kids running across Andrew Tate-esque material online and think it's okay for the government to regulate things in some way so that kids don't just accidentally run across that. And yes, I think barely anyone exists who hasn't functionally identified themselves to Google. And I'd venture nobody exists where Google hasn't already built a shadow profile on them (for ad networks); how exactly do people think they've been using Google for "free" all these years?
- Nasrudith 1y agoThey are aware - they just believe in things like fundamental human rights which make what those idiots want matter about as much as the price of tea in China. And good grief the lack of understanding of the basics of consent is downright appalling! It is literally the same logic as a rapist's defense that their victim was promiscuous so they couldn't have been raped!
- __d 1y agoAnyone who cares will ask their mates at school, who will assist them to set up a VPN and thus circumvent this silliness. Then the same people who've pushed this solution to their perceived problem will start to target VPNs. The real question is whether they then attempt to ban VPNs. The streamers would likely join in on that, which might be sufficient lobbying for the government to accept it? Fortunately, my 12yo was born on 1 Jan 1970, just like their parents.
- NoPicklez 1y agoThis isn't just asking for your age, its going to require verification of that through ID.
- __d 1y agoThere appears to be a variety of mechanisms proposed. I assume some of them, at least, will be able to be fooled one way or another. But if not, a $5/month VM in another country and a VPN tunnel should do the job.
- logicchains 1y agoAustralia requires ID to purchase alcohol yet alcohol usage among under 18s is widespread.
- Padriac 1y agoIt's perfectly legal for under 18 year old Queenslanders to consume alcohol.
- NoPicklez 1y agoMy point being is that it won't be as easy as simply saying you were born in 1970. You will need to use other avenues to circumvent the checks. And yeah, majority of Chinese people use a VPN to get around similar blocks.
- simmo9000 1y agoAnd the Nicotine situation... The "government" sure got a good handle on that.
- jaza 1y agoSounds like Australian kids will just use private / incognito browser windows (aka porn mode) even more than they do already. I fail to see what this new "policy" will achieve, apart from my above point, plus serving as an excuse for Google and pals to subject users to ever more facial recognition and to brazenly collect ever more personal data.
- gonzo41 1y agoThis policy exists because parents won't do parenting anymore. Take away the phones and put a PC in the living room.
- brainwad 1y agoThere's a collective action problem, though. One parent taking away their kid's phone is just isolating them from their friends, which might be a net negative. However, all the kids having their phones taken away would be a net positive.
- bigB 1y agoMy thoughts on this is there is very few things that will stop a sufficiently motivated teenager. I Know this as I have these conversations alot with my kids. They will work around it or go to whatever is out of scope of the blocking. The only thing the Australia Government is great at is political grandstanding, regardless of the party in power.
- nottorp 1y agoHeh, stop thinking of porn and similar stuff that a teenager will find a way to circumvent. It's "normal" sites that are so crippled for minors for fear of liability that you end up telling your kids to just lie they're 24 when signing up.