Comment on Australia’s social media ban for kids under 16 just became law. How it will work remains a mystery
Baku@aussie.zone 5 weeks agoI reckon this instance will be considered social media, I don’t really see how it wouldn’t be. I imagine even if you were to move this instance to a server outside of Australia, you both being Australians means you’ll still have to manage ID verification crap
I’m not so stoic, I think this probably will end up affecting all of us here
quokka1@mastodon.au 5 weeks ago
Baku@aussie.zone 5 weeks ago
Just my assumption, couldn’t answer that definitively. I’m guessing that, like GDPR in the EU, it will apply to any and all social media website on the internet, but for practical reasons, can’t really be enforced outside of the legislating authorities’ jurisdiction. I mean, Cuba, for instance, could fine you at any time if they had laws permitting for it, but if you’ve never been, and never intend to go to Cuba, it doesn’t really do very much
Going back to the real world, I’m doubtful foreign websites hosted outside of Australia, by non Australians, would ever be “prosecuted”, it’s just a huge waste of time. Maybe any countries we have close relationships with would do our dirty work for us. I assume that this would apply to any Australian or any Australian company or any Australian server. Just my non professional assumption though, could be totally wrong!
JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I’m guessing that, like GDPR in the EU, it will apply to any and all social media website on the internet, but for practical reasons, can’t really be enforced outside of the legislating authorities’ jurisdiction.
The legislation specifically gives the Act extra-territorial powers to enforce the ban against foreign websites.
Reddit is specifically targetted ; it will definitely include Lemmy.
Nath@aussie.zone 5 weeks ago
The act is online now. Lemmy is clearly defined as social media under Section 13a of the act.
Of course, I have no idea how we’ll comply with the act - there’s obviously no existing field or provision in the Lemmy Code to enter a private identifier as a user to confirm your age. We have a year to figure that out.
It’s also hilarious to imagine international instances complying. Imagine the scenario: Kyrgyzstan has passed a law that states that all its users must provide an ID to use aussie.zone. Are we going to comply with this law? How many of our users are Kyrgyz? That’s what this law appears to call for - asking our friends at lemmy.world (who are hosted in Finland) to comply with an Australian law because some of their users are Australian.
Baku@aussie.zone 5 weeks ago
Called it. Good luck with that. I’ll be turning on a VPN when this comes into effect, or I’ll be jumping ship to that New Zealand instance. The Finnish are nice, but there’s too many yanks on LW and those general purpose instances. Though I’d consider that anarchist instance
quokka1@mastodon.au 5 weeks ago
@Nath lemmy.world need to buck their ideas up