Report: Australia Social Media Age Verification Bill Has $50 Million Fines

A report says that the up and coming social media age verification bill in Australia would contain $50 million fines for breaches.

One of the things I have long argued about age verification laws when it comes to pornographic material online is that this is not an end goal for government, but rather, a first step towards greater control of what speech is and is not allowed in different countries. When you don’t understand the topic very well or don’t follow it much, this might not sound like a likely thing. In fact, it’s more than possible for people to believe that this sounds a bit conspiratorial in nature rather than grounded in reality.

For that, my response is often to follow that up with a simple question: what is stopping the government from expanding the law into other areas once they get age verification for pornographic material? Ultimately, the answer to that is, well, nothing really. There might be weak responses such as government not willing to spend political capital on such an endeavour. Another weak response might be that, no, really, pornographic material is the extent of what government wants to target and they have it on good faith that they would never in a million years expand it into other areas.

The reality is that this follows a very familiar maxim that is well known among those who work for government: once you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Age verification laws on anything at all, and it is generally pornographic material that is the first target, is the governments way of getting that hammer. Convincing people that this is to protect the children is the selling point of getting said hammer. After all, who wants minors watching porn all day long? Clearly, a case can be made that maybe the government should have censorship powers over the internet, right?

A big part of the problem here is that what we are talking about is the government censoring otherwise legal speech. That has long been a big fundamental change. Some in the ISP industry know that ISPs in multiple countries already censor websites that deal with CSAM, but this has been a lesser known aspect about the industry. Further, such protected speech is not legally protected speech. That’s why there hasn’t been that much uproar over it, yet these age verification laws get a huge amount of uproar.

As such, my view since the beginning has been that once government is able to start implementing laws that effectively censor legally protected speech, the only natural question government asks next is what other kinds of material does the government censor next? After all, if the lawfulness of the speech in question isn’t a barrier for such censorship powers, nothing really is in the end.

Some might dismiss such concerns as little more than thought exercise, however, reality had other plans for those doubting this. Supporters of age verification laws have fully admitted that age verification laws have little to nothing to do with protecting the children and everything to do with this being merely a step to a full porn ban outright.

Australia, earlier this year, decided to not bother hiding it anymore. They ended up contemplating a plan to expand age verification laws on video games. The Irish Health Minister back in September called for a crackdown on Roblox. Such calls basically confirmed my worst fears that censorship creep wasn’t just inevitable, but there is movement to make that a reality. What’s more, it isn’t just video games that government’s around the world are cracking down on.

Social media is another area that government wants to crack down on. In September, news surfaced that the Australian government was looking at expanding age verification laws to social media. In October, those plans started to formulate specifics in the public where the Australian government wanted to ban anyone under 16 from accessing social media at all.

This concept carries over the huge problems associated with age verification technology. That includes the fact that such technology is not safe, the effectiveness of such technology doesn’t exist, and those entrusted with holding such sensitive personal information can’t be trusted with that information.

To make matters worse, those who rely on social media to communicate over long distances would be threatened with being disconnected. Children do use social media to communicate with family members overseas. That is not exactly groundbreaking news. Yet, that’s the kind of social interaction that the Australian government is seeking to sever anyway. All under a really badly thought out mission to supposedly “protect the children”.

Today, we are learning that more details of the forthcoming social media age verification law have surface on media outlets. From Cath News:

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the legislation would require social media companies to take “reasonable steps” to lock out under 16s.

“This reform is about protecting young people and letting parents know we’ve got their backs,” she said.

The Government announced earlier this month it had settled on 16 as the minimum age for social media access, arguing the laws would protect children from online harm.

The laws will apply to teens under 16 using social media now, meaning they will need to get off the apps, even if their parents give them permission.

Questions remain about how platforms such as X, TikTok and Instagram will accurately determine users’ ages.

The fine for companies who “systematically” breach the laws will be up to $50 million.

The latest technology available to identify age online is “immature but developing”, according to a March 2023 report by the eSafety Commissioner.

So, while there are questions of which services will get censored and which will not, the reality is that age verification laws are expanding to social media whether people like it or not.

At any rate, the argument that age verification laws are exclusively for blocking out pornographic material has been completely obliterated. If age verification laws for pornographic material is passed in countries like Canada, the real question would then become how long it will take before Canada blindly follows Australia and moves ahead with the next phase of government internet censorship moving forward. After all, if the Canadian government can blindly follow the obviously bad link tax laws in Australia even though such laws have been a complete and total failure, what’s stopping Canada from blindly following Australia’s terrible lead and push for censoring social media?

Either way, censorship creep with things like age verification laws are now reality today. The only question is the timelines for when the censorship creep hits. Canada’s age verification laws, last I heard, was in an odd state of limbo for the time being (good!), but if that bill receives royal assent, it’s probably only a matter of time before the social media censorship efforts start getting discussed after.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.