Not something urgent, but the Aussie parliament passed new laws yesterday and it could impact Lemmy.world (in a year)
Not something urgent, but the Aussie parliament passed new laws yesterday and it could impact Lemmy.world (in a year)
Australia's social media ban for children makes headlines around the world, including as far away as Russia, as articles question how it could work and whether similar laws would be introduced elsewhere.
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
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Lemmy is not social media
Reddit is considered a social media under this law.
What makes Lemmy different?
They're not directly equivalent because Lemmy is a service (like HTTP, phpBB, or e-mail protocols), not a singular service provider (like Reddit or Gmail). The law would likely have to be enforced on individual instances.
In a practical sense, lawyers might want to have the compliance mechanism built into the Lemmy project itself... but what do I know, I'm not a lawyer, and lawyers generally know/care fuck all about the technicalities of emerging technologies.
Here's a link to the text of the legislation.
From what I understand they define it very broadly:
(i) the sole purpose, or a significant purpose, of the service is to enable online social interaction between 2 or more end-users;
(ii) the service allows end-users to link to, or interact with, some or all of the other end-users;
(iii) the service allows end-users to post material on the service;
(iv) such other conditions (if any) as are set out in the legislative rules; or (b) an electronic service specified in the legislative rules;
So basically everything Web 2.0 - ish that they haven't given an explicit exception to. Lemmy totally qualifies.
By those definitions any newspaper website with comments is social media. The sole purpose (or main purpose) of a Lemmy instance is to aggregate links, the comments are secondary (just like in newspaper websites). The definition is too vague and if you apply it to the letter it would include 99% of websites, even porn websites have comments these days.
The sole purpose (or main purpose) of a Lemmy instance is to aggregate links
We call them "link posts" and I think they may qualify as posts under this broad definition.
For the purposes of this Act, material is posted on a social media service, relevant electronic service or designated internet service by an end - user if the end - user causes the material to be accessible to, or delivered to, one or more other end - users using the service.
https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/osa2021154/s11.html
The definition is too vague and if you apply it to the letter it would include 99% of websites
I think that is their intention
For the purposes of subparagraph (1)(a)(i), online social interaction includes online interaction that enables end-users to share material for social purposes.
Uh, thanks. Now they just need to define "social purposes".
They seem more concerned with making sure businesses won't have issues.
Note 1: Online social interaction does not include (for example) online business interaction
If retailers though they might have issues just because they let customers post product reviews there would have been a fell funded campaign against the legislation.
That'll definitely hold up in court. Delusional stuff 🤣.
On what grounds will it be struck down? The only constitutional rights recognised by the courts are the right to not have a state religion imposed on you and (as of 1991 or so) freedom of political association.
It's spelled out in literally the first clause. Enabling social interaction. Truly big brain shit.