Hi Lemmy.World Admins and Support Staff,
I like this place a lot and wanted to give you a heads up pollies down under passed some new laws.
The govt wants a ban on social media for everyone under 16. This week was the last sitting week of parliament and a few bills were passed by both houses and are set to become law. (See link).
I’m not after any immediate reaction or actions, but looking to bring it to your attention for you to discuss (edit:internally) how you would react. I haven’t seen the legislation and don’t know how this is meant to be mechanized and it seems pretty hard to do.
Some other tech giants have already made statements as this appears to be a worldwide first.
Edit: I might have a look at the laws text and put some details here as a comment
-AnAustralianPhotographer
I’d be pretty confident the Australian Government isn’t just gonna let Facebook update the Ts and Cs to say no one under 16 and call it a day. They are expected to actually try to enforce it.
Lemmy can at least argue under 16s aren’t enticed to come here, no matter how much we offer free (as in speech, but also as in beer) stuff.
Facebook: “We get to scan photo IDs now? Perfect!”
The law specifically mentions government IDs in the legislation . If(edit:i’d) have to check, but Im confident they’re specifically excluded.
The article says they can’t require them, but can offer it as one option so long as there are others.
Right Lol LinkedIn makes you do that
What “Lemmy” will be arguing this and where, though?
If you have a company, that’s easy for a government to go after. Lemmy is software built and run for free by randoms on the internet. They might try to go after the devs if any of them reside in Australia, but they’d have a very hard time stopping it. We’ve seen that sort of effort fail before, when China and India tried to ban Bitcoin. We see it in North Korea even now, where people still access banned networks and content all the time.
Most Lemmy admins are just trying to do their best. If the Aussie government publishes realistic guidelines for small services then many instances will probably make an effort to follow them. How enforceable it is is not the point.
“Lemmy” as a thought experiment, not Lemmy with a lawyer in court. Devs wouldn’t be affected, it would apply to the people running the service (I.e instance admins)