this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
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They've set it up so it's a legal mess. The platforms aren't given any mechanism to actually perform verifications (no double blind id system, for example) but are legally on the hook for each and every under-16 on the platforms. A quote in the article suggests it should be the app stores verifying which is even more fucking stupid.
Well, I know how that would go if I were a globe-spanning social media giant. Given that the entirety of the Australian market is roughly the size of New York state (~26 vs ~20 million people), I would say, "Nah mate, we just won't do business in Oz anymore. Bye."
Vanishingly few business make a "New York only" version of their product because it's simply not worth it. Australia already suffers under this problem for a great deal of physical products. Ask any computer nerd about that, when trying to source parts and often video game titles as well. Shipping things to the Antipodes and/or dealing with Antipodean regulations is expensive, for an objectively low number of potential sales.
It would not surprise me to learn if it follows that Australia generates roughly 1.7% of the revenue for Facebook or whoever as, say, India. So in other words, bupkis.
As Muskrat has shown us with Xitter, profits arent everything when your already a billionaire. Sometimes its about burning a pile of money in exchange for influence, control and power.
Platforms love to use this threat... "if you regulate us we'll just withdraw services in your jurisdiction". They never do, and governments shouldn't respond to threats like that in any case. If one or other platform were to restrict services in Aus, it would just increase the potential revenue for some other platform.
Pornhub pulled out of 17 states. You need to buy a hustler magazine now. Australia will just have to buy National Enquirer magazines instead of doom scrolling for their fix.
Sure, but on the flip side I'm fine either way. Watching either a megacorporation or an out of touch nanny-state government get fucked is just about equivalent in my books. We could use a lot more of both, and I don't even live in Australia.
Meta, for instance, wants to cease operations anywhere on the planet? Insert Willy Wonka meme here: No, stop, don't... Bye...
Why?
Probably because the internet isn't an app store
... I didn't say it was.
The quote says that app stores should be responsible for verifying age, but social media is not limited to apps - they're just one of multiple user interfaces for interacting with social networks. So that alone cannot solve the problem.
Sorry for the confusion
Because how would you do that on desktop? Or on a degoogled phone? Or if the download was via an apk from elsewhere?
Because the app store isn't the only way to install an app. It is trivially easy to side load apps and it's well within the technologic skillset of the average 12 year old.
They can also just use a web browser.