Social Media Ban or Big Brother Control?

The government, with support of the Liberals, is proposing a ban on children under 16 accessing social media, justifying the measure by claiming it’s "popular." Oh, really? It’s ironic that the same parties that accuse One Nation of populism are now pushing a measure not because it’s workable, but simply because it’s supposedly popular!

A true conservative party, Mr Dutton, would support parents to supervise their own children in their own homes. A true conservative, Mr Dutton, would not be promoting big government replacing parents.

The eGovernment is also trialling age-assurance technology, which uses facial scans of every social media user to confirm they are over 16. If there’s any doubt, the system will cross-check the person’s Digital ID for verification to ensure it matches. In addition to facial scans, the "Assurance AI" will monitor keystrokes, audio patterns and "other measures" to determine the user’s age.

By now you may conclude, as I did, that enforcing a social media age limit of 16 would require verifying everyone’s age using the device camera and their Digital ID—which everyone would be forced to have. So much for Digital ID being voluntary. Even adults will need one to continue using social media.

Even more alarming is the fact that conversations would be monitored for signs of age, yet what happens to the voice prints and keystroke logs this system collects?

To make this work, cameras on devices would need to run constantly to ensure a new user hasn’t hopped on to an existing computer session. This means cameras would always be on, capturing everything - video and audio – that is happening in the room.

This creates a perfect scenario for hackers to access the feed.

In the unlikely event they can actually make this work, children would move to other platforms that are less regulated, less safe and more prone to child exploitation.

One Nation opposes this legislation. The best people to monitor and regulate children’s internet use are parents—not a Big Brother government.

Transcript: https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/social-media-ban-or-big-brother-control/