On the 29th of November, 2024, the Australian Labor Party amended the Online Safety Act to ban children younger than 16 years from having social media accounts. I would count myself as one of the many people who fervently oppose the ban for two very good reasons.
One look at the news headlines and you will see a litany of articles featuring children being abused in childcare centres and foster homes. This makes the Albanese government look hypocritical in their accusations of dissenters not caring about the plight of children. The wholesale outsourcing of children’s care all too often ends in tragedy. Yet almost nobody denies childcare is necessary for a host of reasons.
This clandestine amendment blindsided voters. With none of the previous election promises fulfilled it makes you wonder how the ALP won another term. The Albanese ALP like most socialist parties run on emotive ideals. When you simply believe you are morally correct you don’t fact check yourself.
1. It’s dishonest.
People like myself who have worked in the administration of technology systems understand exactly what is happening. It’s the second step in a strategy to force people into supplying irrefutable identity documentation when accessing social media. The reason for this is so that they can process the identification of individuals with without the previous steps or protections. The Albanese government’s own eSafety Commissioner will have a streamlined process in which to silence alternative views. It’s walking like, talking like draconian censorship.
I would be comfortable describing myself as a person with comprehensive understanding of the social media landscape… which harbour conservative versus left wing content. The fact that social media platform are primarily used for conservative debate is no coincidence. If the Albanese government had foresight, they would understand a possible future conservative government could use the same powers to stifle leftist views. Regardless of the efforts of Labor to keep legacy media alive social media is winning the viewer-ship race.
And nobody should be surprised. Anthony Albanese has shown the Australia public he favours the company of a communist dictatorship (pros at cracking down on dissent) rather than our long standing democratic ally the United States, all because he fears their current leader.
2. It’s not going to work.
Most technologists apprised with the underlying technologies of the internet know filtering anything other than you own incoming and outgoing connections is extremely difficult. The very nature of TCP/IP a networking technology designed for military networks is, it will re-route around blockages. Besides that, filtering slows down internet connections. Australia’s internet speeds are already below many third worlds countries so it goes to say, any further slowing will spell a death knell for any political party that causes it.
The key part of the legislation asks us to believe US and Chinese Tech giants are going to kowtow to Albanese when he has nothing much except a loaf of stale bread on the table. I would cite the failed news media bargaining code as a reason why this is just fantasy. We’re a tiny market and Albanese is an uncharismatic timid figure unlikely to get any decision maker's attention.
This has all been left to keep rolling because the Albanese governments communication minister has no technical knowledge whatsoever and has spent her entire career in an ALP bubble. She is nothing more than an ALP party hack from one of their union friendly law firms. It takes a technologist to understand the nature of encrypted VPN and DNS services and how easy they are to deploy. There is nothing stopping thousands of Australians sidestepping any measure they put in place and accessing overseas based services without any ID checks. I’m sure there are people in the ALP wings that know this is a waste of time, but sadly today’s ALP is only about personal enrichment and virtue signalling. Why give up a lucrative contract in advisory services? It’s pays well, I know, I do it.