Mastodawn

Stephen Gentle 5d ago

lol they're going to backflip on YouTube, so now Google is Big Mad, and the Coalition is rubbing their face in it from the sidelines (while not taking a position themselves) and Snapchat and TikTok are all going to be yelling about YouTube and this is all such an obvious mess that was predicted in advance by many people.

And yet the beans will continue to be vigorously inserted.

You can read the eSafety advice to the Minister here: https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/esafety-commissioner-advice-on-draft-online-safety-rules-19-june-2025.pdf

It has weird things in it, like "some messaging services include features and functionality associated with these harms, such as ephemeral content that is only accessible for a short window of time"

You are describing a phonecall.

"recent findings from the Black Dog Institute showed an association between higher daily hours spent using YouTube and greater symptoms of depression, anxiety, and insomnia."

correlation != causation. Deeply unserious stuff here.

"In general, I caution against excluding particular services without conditions in the Rules. A legislative instrument excluding a particular service would be based on a point-in-time assessment of that service."

Yes, that is the entire purpose of a legislative instrument. It is to enable point-in-time assessments to be made by the Minister, and a new legislative instrument to be issued. It means you don't have to go back to Parliament for a new Bill for an Act every five seconds.

But otherwise, sure, feel free to accurately and completely define the behaviour you are trying to regulate such that we can all objective determine if a given service is in scope or out of scope. It will save us a lot of court cases trying to figure out what Parliament meant by "the vibes are off".

eSafety would like the government to list "features and functionality associated with harm".

"Combined with the constantly evolving nature of services and emergence of new features, the articulation of features would also need to be sufficiently broad to enable some flexibility but not so broad as it would be difficult to implement."

I would also like a pony.

Overall though, eSafety would like the government to please do a better job of drafting the legislation. Failing that, please let eSafety have all the power to determine what the law means based on how it feels that day.

More money and power would also be nice.

@daedalus Writing down what they mean could lead to accountability* and people meanly pointing out that you don't know what the hell you're doing.

*OK, to Australian levels

stibbons 5d ago

@daedalus So, uh, the people making the laws don't know how laws work? This is definitely deep computer touching areas.

@stibbons @daedalus Standard operating procedure, really.

s0 Traingirl Era 5d ago

@stibbons @daedalus ordering my $1000 licensed copy of AS/NZS 695002.2 ARE THE TEENS ALLOWED ON YOUCHUBE TODAY (2025)

s0 Traingirl Era 5d ago

@stibbons @daedalus really enjoying how completely they have learned nothing at all from messy legislative humiliations over end-to-end encryption, and continue to demand that the industry deliver please the Magic Bean That Knows If You’re Being Naughty On The Computer Without Asking

s0 Traingirl Era 5d ago

@daedalus I’m sure the minister would never make use of the iMessage/WhatsApp/Messenger/Signal feature that lets you delete that message you sent to the wrong group by accident, because it might harm children

@s0 Sending an SMS to everyone on the voting rolls saying TERFy nonsense six times a day is legitimate political communication, not harmful content, so it's fine.

s0 Traingirl Era 5d ago

@daedalus the vibes fell off and were towed outside of the environment

Emma Davidson 5d ago

@s0 @daedalus best response, you win the internet today

Emma Davidson 5d ago

@s0 @daedalus I used to love it when politicians asked if I was on WhatsApp. All my most amusing interactions with them happened via that channel. Except one person who I conversed with via FOI-able SMS, mostly in meme GIFs.

@daedalus is that type of info routinely published?

@tqft These kinds of things often are. Especially when the department is trying to pressure their Minister into a particular course of action.

Cycling Stu 5d ago

neoluddite 5d ago

@daedalus avocado pips, more like

@daedalus A rake made of nose beans.

@daedalus for sure I thought being loose with what’s in or out of scope would lead to back room lobby deals by major players, which is depressing. I’ve kinda made peace with that and I’m good for dystopian outcomes so let’s have a per user flat tax or maybe subscription plan for selling out the nation at least. Maybe tiering like surveillance capital pro plan with AI

ben moretti 5d ago

@daedalus I saw a very benign ad for TikTok on the tv last night