Image by Thomas Breher from Pixabay
By Jo Nova
What looks, smells, and works like a Trojan horse to force all adults to use a digital ID?
Incredibly, we have only until today (Friday) to put in submissions on this major, world first, social media ban for under 16s. Feel the panic. It’s as if our PM is running out of time to ram through complex legislation before the Donald Trump inauguration? Perhaps he’s hoping Elon is distracted.
The Good News is The Australian Misinformation Bill appears to be dead. Congratulations! The Bad News is the Internet ID bill (posing as a ban on Under 16s using social media) has support from both major parties, even though it is wildly ambitious, vague, dangerous, and the first in the world. The government can’t answer questions on how this will be managed. Instead, the people who have screwed everything up, say “Trust us” we will work out the details later. (Thanks @Craig Kelly)
The laws, supposedly, will pass next week, but then there will be a 12 month “consultation” to work out what will be banned. Since when do we pass the laws and consult later?
Everyone knows this is just an excuse to make adults upload passports, drivers licenses, facial recognition or use some new form of government ID token in order to use X or any of the social media platforms.
As Theo says on X:
Funny I found out through SOCIAL MEDIA that I had less than 24 hours to make a submission.
The government would like to parent your children for you. The government say they are helping parents, but parents can already ban social media or smart phones, or get apps to help limit or monitor their children’s behaviour. This legislation treats Australian parents like they are children themselves. It will remove parent’s choices.
What about kids in the Australian outback who live far from friends? Too bad if they feel suicidal because their account and online friends are about to be nixed by the government. If only farmers were smart enough to manage their own kids, eh?
What does “Social Media” mean? Whatever the Government wants…
Somehow, thanks to the angels in Parliament, students will still be able to see government funded propaganda at school, the mainstream news, and Google Classroom, but they won’t be allowed to seek out other views on X, Instagram, TikTok, Linked In, Facebook or Youtube. [Apparently, kiddie versions without news feeds, like Youtube kids, and “messaging services” like WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger would be exempt, or maybe “SnapChat”– according to the ABC]. But that’s the point. Google is a political player, as is X, but one of them is banned, and one endorsed. The Conservatives are fools for falling for this.
The definition of “social media” is so broad any platform that allows user interactions (ie. comments) could potentially fall under this ban. (Does that mean blogs like this one?) The responsibility for ensuring all commenters are over 16 would fall on the platform. No one seems able to explain how that works in a global internet. What if Australians use VPN’s (will they ban them too) and what if say, American children genuinely want to read an Australian site, and ask questions? Fines are up to $50 million or jail time.
This could be particularly burdensome or onerous for small bloggers and sites to comply with. Not to mention that readers may not want to speak up if they know their comment is tracked, or their information may be hacked. That’ll put a dampner on things.
The Liberal Party (supposedly conservative) are supporting this legislation. Bizarrely.
It’s the start of your social credit score
In the name of saving children from bullying on Facebook, we’re going to risk giving them a totalitarian dystopia.
Mandatory ID makes dissent so much more difficult, and that’s the point.
Would you like be a whistleblower or government critic? Just put your face on the camera please. It will be so much easier for the government to track and collate all your comments, and probably guess how you vote.
When hackers steal the data, employers, the CCP, insurance companies, and marketing teams will be happy to buy the details for the right price.
Not so many people will be able to retweet or “like” something risky, so great thoughts and wicked jokes will disappear like a drop of rain in a desert. Unliked, and unshared, and mostly unheard.
Read the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 [Provisions] here (or PDF here). Or just search X for all the views on the social media ban. (While you still can).
So much is unknown. Voice your concerns today!
Social media ban or big brother control? The government, with support of the Liberals, is proposing a ban on children under 16 accessing social media, justifying the measure by claiming it’s “popular.” Oh, really? It’s ironic that the same parties that accuse One Nation of… pic.twitter.com/QbyLYdyEfi
— Malcolm Roberts 🇦🇺 (@MRobertsQLD) November 20, 2024
The goal is always the same: They want control of the media.
The lamestream news already answers to government regulators, and multinational conglomerate investors. But since Elon Musk bought Twitter there is freedom on social media. It’s a disaster for crony capitalists and career socialists.
The Twitter files showed that the CIA was able to get social media giants to shadowban or block the voices they didn’t like. Forced internet ID is just another way to stop free-speech on the internet, especially on X for allowing The People to speak their minds.
Anthony Albanese’s excuse for doing this is so that parents who feel they need to ban their own children don’t have to stand up to teenage peer pressure, they can blame the government instead. We all care about our children, but there must be a better way than a blanket ban which forces every Australian to use ID online.
Instead we could be teaching young children what bullying looks like and how to deal with it. A skill they will need for the rest of their lives, especially against The Government.
Please put in a short submission. It would help if you could also email your local Liberal representative and senator to ask them how they can possibly justify this. There is still time to stop this. If you feel strongly, let Liberal Party members know you will go out of your way to help small independent parties win votes on this free speech issue. Perhaps you could even hand out minor party flyers or How To Vote cards?