I've not read the article. [a] Similar news topic headers found via DDG are somewhat dated to over 18 months ago. It could be a rehash or something new. However I can guess the main effort will be to play the "our algorithms are now useless to define a school going age group or categorise demographics - thus PII grab for age verification threat" card. Strange ... not really, the loss of the teen advertising market was sure to be a sour note for these companies - years ago they were asked to cooperate by sorting out some aspect of harm via targeting algorithms, they seemingly declined - oh well, sorted now.
In reality these big social media type corps understand rule of law and soon enough I expect the news media won't ever have a need to report on or involve any under 16 content leading to court actionable incidents ... well not from those companies already tagged to keep kiddies off their platform - I imagine if and when more social media type sites and forums will join the list though.
One has only to ask themselves when was the last time news media in Australia broadcast any local social media footage of some 12, 13 .. 15 year old idiot posting themselves stealing a car and going for a wild ride evading the police? Not for a while right. Funny, I think it was only a couple of years ago concerned people were wondering what could be done to stop the twits glorifying their crimes for some short lived fame. Presently I can imagine if any footage of the like were to occur, when the news media approached for the rights to broadcast any such footage from any social media company, at least two capital cities would hear their squeals of alarm.
[a] it's pay-walled - nearly all aussie online news sites want a subscription and thus land in my deny list when I encounter them. :D Precious seconds saved.
AFR articles never seem to deny my access, it may simply be due to flushing cookies that evidence prior visits.
That aside, it's a three month old article and archived back when first published: https://archive.md/cSxkZ
and yes, it's a litany of Meta, Snapchat, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube declarations of acknowledgement of the recent Australian laws, statements of the challenges faced, and an absence of evidence of any substantial effort being made (relatively small numbers of accounts banned, a few hundred thousand versus millions remaining).
Wow that's interesting you don't have a problem loading afr. Maybe it's my ISP. Thanks for the link - it was that news cycle from end of March. [1] [2]
Yes Big Tech was always going to say it wasn't going to work. However if some kids are still there and nothing alarming is making the news, then that's ok too. However if there's a hint there's still harm being done ... fines make big money for govt and lawyers.
* "That isn't the law failing, that isn't Australian parents or Australian kids not complying, that is big tech taking the piss, to be honest," Ms Wells said.*
I've not read the article. [a] Similar news topic headers found via DDG are somewhat dated to over 18 months ago. It could be a rehash or something new. However I can guess the main effort will be to play the "our algorithms are now useless to define a school going age group or categorise demographics - thus PII grab for age verification threat" card. Strange ... not really, the loss of the teen advertising market was sure to be a sour note for these companies - years ago they were asked to cooperate by sorting out some aspect of harm via targeting algorithms, they seemingly declined - oh well, sorted now.
In reality these big social media type corps understand rule of law and soon enough I expect the news media won't ever have a need to report on or involve any under 16 content leading to court actionable incidents ... well not from those companies already tagged to keep kiddies off their platform - I imagine if and when more social media type sites and forums will join the list though.
One has only to ask themselves when was the last time news media in Australia broadcast any local social media footage of some 12, 13 .. 15 year old idiot posting themselves stealing a car and going for a wild ride evading the police? Not for a while right. Funny, I think it was only a couple of years ago concerned people were wondering what could be done to stop the twits glorifying their crimes for some short lived fame. Presently I can imagine if any footage of the like were to occur, when the news media approached for the rights to broadcast any such footage from any social media company, at least two capital cities would hear their squeals of alarm.
[a] it's pay-walled - nearly all aussie online news sites want a subscription and thus land in my deny list when I encounter them. :D Precious seconds saved.
AFR articles never seem to deny my access, it may simply be due to flushing cookies that evidence prior visits.
That aside, it's a three month old article and archived back when first published: https://archive.md/cSxkZ
and yes, it's a litany of Meta, Snapchat, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube declarations of acknowledgement of the recent Australian laws, statements of the challenges faced, and an absence of evidence of any substantial effort being made (relatively small numbers of accounts banned, a few hundred thousand versus millions remaining).
Wow that's interesting you don't have a problem loading afr. Maybe it's my ISP. Thanks for the link - it was that news cycle from end of March. [1] [2]
Yes Big Tech was always going to say it wasn't going to work. However if some kids are still there and nothing alarming is making the news, then that's ok too. However if there's a hint there's still harm being done ... fines make big money for govt and lawyers.
[1] https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australia-investigating-...
[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-31/five-social-media-pla...