However! "Less than half (45.88%) of the parents surveyed had used age-based filtering or parental controls to protect their children online. By comparison, 68.75% of children reported that their parents had set parental controls or helped them with setting rules for what they could see online."

I think the difference here is an artifact of how the question was asked of each group. Kids were asked if parents set rules for them, but parents were asked about using technical features, not if they set boundaries with their kids around screen time. #tljr

It does suggest that half of parents aren't using technical controls that already exist. It also drops with age (only 18% of 65-74 use parental controls, 53-55% of 25-34, 34-44) and women use them a 10% more than men: 51% compared to 40%).

Older people tend not to have young kids around so wouldn't need them as much.

Maybe other parents find them annoying or ineffective compared to boundary setting and non-technical measures? #tljr

There is an annoying section here that conflates "identity verification" with age assurance. 68% of adults have a myGov or NSW digital ID or something. 48% have a digital Medicare Card, 46% a digital driver license.

"When asked separately in the survey, however, if they had personally used an age assurance method online, only a quarter (24.08%) of adults confirmed that they had"

Well yeah, because myGov isn't an age assurance thing. It's an identity thing. They are different. #tljr

Anyway "Age emerged as a crucial factor in digital service adoption". 60% of those 25-34 have a digital Medicare Card (I think? It just says Medicare Card, but I think in the context they mean a digital version) and only 23% of those 75+. 57% versus 26% for digital drivers license.

Old people don't have digital ID. #tljr

Women slightly more likely to have digital ID than men (50% v 45%).
Families with kids (57-64%) more than couples (39%) or singles (39%) without kids more likely to have digital Medicare Card.
Same sort of rates (58% with kids, 40% without) for digital driver license.
Slightly more likely for employed (52%) versus not currently working (42-49%).

Important if digital ID becomes the thing you force everyone to have to access Facebook Messenger.

#tljr

Where do people get their news from?

Adults: TV (57%), then social media (44%), domestic/Australian news website or app (38%), search engine (33%), radio or podcast (33%). Print news is dead at 13%.

Children 13-17 use social media (46%), then TV (42%), search engine (28%), radio or podcast (12%), domestic news website or app (10%).

I mean, kids don't watch the news as much as adults. That's not news (ahahahaha). #tljr

The report asserts that "having access to news on social media was important to all respondents" but I'd argue that when ~70% of adults say it's "Not important at all" or "Somewhat important" that means they are mostly ambivalent about having news on the socials.

Only 31% of adults saying its "very important" to have access to news on social media (23% of children 13-17) isn't something I'd advise hanging the entire news media bargaining code negotiations on. Facebook might just call your bluff.

#tljr

Why do kids use social media? To be social! Surprise, surprise.

82% talking to family and friends, 75% looking at stuff related to hobbies, 67% connecting for school or work, 66% "I mostly use messaging apps", 64% creativity and inspiration, 59% connecting with people with similar interests, 54% following celebrities or influencers.

"Keeping up with news and events" is down at 50%. Would they miss it much if it wasn't there? How much are you willing to bet? #tljr

The concerns children have about using social media is very interesting.

58% Strangers contacting me
52% Spending too much time on social media
51% Cyberbullying
49% Not being able to control what shows up on my feed
47% Getting addicted to social media
44% Spending less time on physical activity
44% Spending less time with friends and family in real life
42% Comparing myself to people online
38% Seeing content that's mean for older people
4% Other

Note how mostly it's about the ability to self-manage what they do. Maybe platforms forcing everyone to watch algorithmically placed ads is a problem we should address? #tljr

No one knows who the eSafety Commissioner is.

For adults: "37.15% knew them by name only and 38.94% had not heard of them before the survey."

"By comparison, seven in ten children (71.92%) had not heard of eSafety at all"

The eSafety Commissioner might like to reflect on that a little bit, especially since they were originally the Children’s eSafety Commissioner.

We might also like to consider the difference between "activity" and "effectiveness" in this context. #tljr

"Almost eight in ten adults (78.10%) stated that they were not at all familiar with the [Online Safety Act 2021]".

Not a huge surprise, but keep that in mind whenever people go on about "there should be a law" because maybe there is one already and no one knows about it.

A reminder of how deeply weird I am for knowing anything about this stuff. #tljr

Important stat alert!

"Looking specifically at parents, reports indicated that their child had been exposed to inappropriate online content was consistently higher among:

- women (47.14%) compared to men (39.16%)
- those who resided in regional areas (58.08%) compared to capital cities (39.96%)

Bit of a mismatch in what is considered "inappropriate"? Let's interrogate this a bit. #tljr

The question actually asked "Has your child ever watched or seen any content online that was meant for or rated for someone older than they were?"

That could mean letting a 14 year old watch a movie rated M15+. That's not the same question as "have they seen something inappropriate".

The report editorialises here, and we should look out for people taking that rhetorical sleight-of-hand and running with it. #tljr

88% of parents reported that their child had not experienced cyberbullying, image-based abuse, or extortion.

11% of kids did, which is something that deserves attention, but let us keep things in perspective when we are looking at interventions that will affect *everyone*.

And importantly, don't conflate "watched a movie a bit too young" with "was extorted into sending nude pics of themselves to a pedophile that was, for once, not their uncle Jeff".

#tljr

If a bad thing does happen (that 11%), parents talk to their kids (85%), and maybe the kid's school (60%). Given it might not always be something related to school, it's unsurprising that the school figure would be lower.

Police/eSafety/Other is 26-27%. There's nothing here about why that might be, so we should be careful not to infer too much. #tljr

This may alarm some: "there was broad agreement that YouTube was suitable for younger users, with 85.04% of children and 68.59% of parents indicating it was appropriate for those aged 15 years and under.

In contrast, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Facebook Messenger were considered suitable for slightly older age groups."

I'm sure Google/YouTube will be noting that whenever they're negotiating on this topic. Especially when Tiktok and Snapchat get salty. #tljr

Figure 16 on the age appropriateness of various platforms is interesting and I will include it here.

LinkedIn is seen as less appropriate for kids than Twitter/X and honestly, what sort of weird child would want to voluntarily expose themselves to LinkedIn brainworms? Apart from whoever is the new Caleb Bond, I mean. #tljr

"Understanding related strongly with willingness to engage with age verification systems"

What the report means by "understanding" appears to be whether or not they know the difference between "various age assurance methods, such as age verification, age estimation, age inference, age gating, and identity verification, by analysing their ability to match these methods to their description."

More on that in a moment.

#tljr

"Online age assurance was perceived to be of great importance across all participants, commonly seen as part of a societal obligation to protect children and their development through regulation of age-appropriate content and harm minimisation."

It is interesting to see how the report frames this "harm minimisation" thing. #tljr

"Participants were asked to review an article about the introduction of age assurance technology to bar children from online pornography in Australia."

I am unable to find a citation for the specific article that was used. It does not appear to be included in the report.

"All three groups were alarmed by the statistics presented in the article on the high percentage of children exposed to online pornography, especially in pre-teen years."

It is difficult to interrogate how reliable these statistics might be, or the context in which they were presented. #tljr

People actually have broader concerns. "Participants commented on a wide range of possible harms that children could be exposed to online including exposure to violence, grooming, bullying, harassment, disinformation, discrimination, and scams. Many linked these harms to unmoderated social media content and children having less maturity to make informed decisions."

I note that these issues are not limited to children. Knowing you proved you are an adult with a credit card would be handy if I was a scammer, for example. #tljr

"Participants expressed a need to improve content moderation on social media and limit possible exposure to harmful, violent or mature content with considered impacts on mental health and development for minors."

It is unclear how that will happen when one looks at, for example, the news right at the moment. #tljr

Note that people aren't willing to just go all out to "protect the children".

"There was collective concern across participants about data security and privacy, particularly in relation to online identity verification measures. Participants expressed trepidation to provide personal data online, citing recent data breaches in major banks and telecommunication companies in Australia." #tljr

Here are the descriptions:

Age verification: When a website asks you to show an ID document like your passport or driver’s licence to prove how old you are.
Age estimation: When a website uses a technology to guess how old you are based on things like your face or behaviour.
Age inference: When a website asks you to provide information that you must be a certain age to possess, such as a marriage certificate or credit card, to check how old you are.
Age gating: When a website asks you to enter your date of birth, or asks whether you are 18 years old or above.
Identity verification: When a website asks for proof of who you are, like showing your ID, to confirm your identity. We sometimes refer to this as ‘100 points of ID’.

People were asked to match up the description with the method name. 56% of people got "identity verification" right.

"The least correctly identified age assurance method was age inference (25.35%)."
#tljr

"Analysis of support for age assurance methods revealed mixed backing. While around nine in ten adults expressed support for age assurance to some extent, only 55.84% were very supportive of using age assurance methods."

People agree that it's a nice idea in theory, but when theory meets practice everything falls apart.

I, too, would like to be an omnipotent supermodel, but I am unwilling to go to the gym that much.

#tljr

"While most respondents (75.84% of adults) believed these methods were at least somewhat effective, willingness to use them varied by platform type, with higher acceptance for adult-oriented services (47.91% for dating apps) than general services (28.83% for online shopping)."

Yes, but people don't think they'll have to do the age assurance thing themselves. They think it'll only apply to other people. #tljr

"Importantly, however, the research showed minimal negative impact on intended usage, with 80.29% of adults indicating age assurance methods (presumably if acceptable to users) would either not affect or positively influence their likelihood to use websites, suggesting broad acceptability of these measures across most demographic groups."

I don't think this data suggests that *at all*. I think it suggests that people mostly don't think they'll have to personally show ID to access Facebook.
#tljr

Okay, and now a bit about the research that really bugs me. The question asked was "To what extent are each of the following groups responsible or not responsible or ensuring access to adult content (i.e. pornography / violence) complies with age related guidelines?"

But, there was apparently a hovertext thing that expanded the definition of "adult content (i.e. pornography / violence)" to mean "Adult content and age restricted online services’ can include online pornography and violence, alcohol and gambling, or services that may pose harm to children, including social media.”

Not the same thing at all. Rhetorical sleight-of-hand, in fact. #tljr

Most people think responsibility rests with multiple parties, with most responsibility on individuals themselves (should you access content yourself), parents, the websites themselves before we get to the government.

Though "fully responsible" is an option, and I'd like to ask the people who say ISPs or police should be "fully responsible" for whether or not people access adult content how that would work, exactly?

Do they think Dan Murphy's should be nationalised and cops should do home delivery of gin? Vodka to the Node? #tljr

In the qualitative research "‘parents/carers’ were commonly perceived as predominantly responsible across participants, as they were ‘best placed’ to protect and inform their own children in online safety and able to supervise and manage access to devices"

Consist with other research on such things throughout the years. #tljr

But then we get into "will it work" and "will it make things worse".

"Results also showed that a consistently greater proportion of adults who had their personal information exposed in a data breach perceived age assurance methods to be ineffective (27.43%) compared to those who had not had their information exposed (19.96%). This suggested a general lack of faith in the efficacy of technology to keep users safe online."

Well yeah. There is plenty of hard evidence of why this idea is bad. #tljr

And here we have the data that shows people don't really want to use age assurance themselves. Support is pretty soft overall outside of things to do with sex. I note that "online gaming" doesn't appear to be specifically about gambling, and sales of alcohol aren't called out here either. The focus on sex is… weird.

"Fewer respondents were very willing to use age assurance methods for personal use of social media (33.36%), content streaming services (31.67%), online shopping (28.83%) and messaging apps (28.05%)." #tljr

"Figure 30 showed [sic] that eight in ten adults (80.29%) felt that the use of age assurance methods would not impact them (59.00% reporting a neutral response) or that they would actually be much more likely (8.14%) or more likely (13.15%) to use those websites. By comparison, 19.13% indicated they would be less likely to use these websites if age assurance methods were used."

The question asked was "To what extent would the use of age assurance methods on websites with ‘adult content and age restricted online services’ impact your likelihood to use those websites?"

I suggest that people don't think it'll apply to them, and that's why they're largely not bothered. #tljr