Landmark legislation sees the Australian government committed to the novel step of child protection by banning social media for under sixteens.
What will be interesting for sure is the difference of this approach vs. the porn approach in the southern US. In this case in Australia? Social media companies will tip toe any line they can because there is so much money to be made and they want every dollar.
PornHub? They just blocked access in 17 states instead of even trying to worry about age verification. They’re still getting their users, but now they’re coming over VPN.
https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/pornhub-florida-vpn-google-searches-skyrocket/
And, Pornhub can probably play the waiting game in those states as well. Enough people in those places will probably get pissed off enough eventually to pressure their legislators into walking those laws back. It might just take a year or two. I imagine everyone involved already knows, but the idiots who wrote the laws need to wait for the headlines to cool off a bit before they can backpedal, in order to save face.
I imagine Facebook or someone of similar size could do the same in Aus. All they have to do is refuse to serve anything to Aussie IP addresses except a message that says, “Sorry, we can’t serve your country anymore because of a law passed by [legislator.] Remember, this is all his fault.”
Politicians infamously do not give a flying fuck about the opinions of minors, but if they piss everyone else off too the people responsible will either be out on their ears next election or buried under an avalanche of nasty letters from their 40-and-up constituency.
And, Pornhub can probably play the waiting game in those states as well. Enough people in those places will probably get pissed off enough eventually to pressure their legislators into walking those laws back.
Nobody’s going out to protest this shit. There’s too much stigma around it. Even though I’m sure this frustrates huge swaths of the population, it’s politically shameful.
I imagine Facebook or someone of similar size could do the same in Aus. All they have to do is refuse to serve anything to Aussie IP addresses except a message that says, “Sorry, we can’t serve your country anymore because of a law passed by [legislator.] Remember, this is all his fault.”
Why would they do that though? Large sites like Facebook are the only ones with resources to handle ID verification. They can do it and let their competitors die.
I don’t really have a positive outlook on how this is going to play out. Shy of big money flooding into free speech orgs that can legitimize the fight, or a polarizing leader like Larry Flint, I don’t see this going well.
