Australians to face age checks from search engines

what's the alternative? Is it really information or misinformation?

> misinformation

Nothing screams “not living in Soviet Russia” like having a ministry of truth.

We failed to give the kids the skills to think critically (because that's not in the ruling classes best interest), so now, to keep the population under some form of governability, information has to be restricted so people don't end up destroying their own society. Nice.

I agree though, most information is misinformation, even the most popular stuff, Joe Rogan et al.

Education.

I really wish all this time, effort, and money was spent on educating our kids to safely navigate the online world.

It's not like they'll magically figure it out for themselves once they turn 17.

I remember when any anti-Iraq-invasion material was considered "misinformation" in the US. Wonder how it went in Australia, since they were also very involved.

So is being fed propaganda 24/7, the KGB seems to be winning by reading some of these comments.

I don't see kids being banned from reading history books, which would be more like the world you're describing, I see a country which is pretty multicultural and open minded trying it's best to protect itself from the absolute nonsense that circulates online. When I was a kid, I could only watch certain TV shows because my bed time was 7:30-8pm, that's when the "naughty stuff" came on TV. Was that the ministry of truth at work?

Do you have any idea what kids are exposed to now ? I mean the answer is probably, no, you have no idea. But judging by the rot I see my younger friends and family members watch and regurgitate, I can tell you, it's not great.

> “not living in Soviet Russia”

Nothing screams "fear mongering" like comparing with living in Soviet Russia.

Look, we can argue all day. There is no right or wrong answer. I don't fully support the govts initiative but I also don't want Meta/X/Google to have unlimited powers like they do in the US.

Totally agree with this.

yep mutual deligitimation and hasbara are operating in full force. over 80 countries have "cyber troops" - there are so many countries trying to destroy the social fabric of the west. why shouldn't we shield our children who have no way of understanding or protecting themselves from it. plus the fact that the "thought and ideological leaders" of this generation have no thoughts or coherent ideologies is pretty telling.

My recollection of the time is that most citizens that paid attention and a majority of the politicians in the UK and AU were fully aware the "intel" was sketchy and the motivations impure .. the debate was less about the information quality and more about the obligation to partner with the US in the invasion.

The UK PM and the AU PM backed the US position and sent troops in (in the AU case they even sent in advance rangers | commandos | SASR to scout and call targets from ground) but they were both aware the "justification" and WMD claims were BS.

So some government officials were probably in the pocket of Halliburton (i.e., just like the US government) while selling a weak justification to the public.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/halliburton-australia-p...

Can you explain how limiting a regular citizen's freedom constrains Meta/X/Google's power?

Critical thinking lessons are not enough to protect kids.

Such things play a part, of course, however at a nation level the first order consideration would have been ANZUS like defence agreements and a sense that ongoing regional support from the US rested on Australian support for the US, right or wrong.

Been ongoing for a while now: https://roncobb.net/img/cartoons/aus/k5092-on-Tucker_Box-cuu...

> I don't fully support the govts initiative but I also don't want Meta/X/Google to have unlimited powers like they do in the US.

Various large US tech companies played a central role in drafting this initiative. I don't think you're reasoning about this clearly.

How exactly does this curtail their powers?

This. Whether the USA had a mandate to go into Iraq wouldn't have been questioned. Australia jumped in because we always jumps in to whatever bullshit war the USA dreams up. For some reason we see it as an obligation to support our allies in all their wars, even when we think their reasons are ridiculous and even when we know they won't support us in return.

This has lead to serious problems in the case of the Afghan war, where it was clear that this whole conflict had nothing to do with Australia, could not even vaguely be construed as "defence", achieved nothing, cost Australian lives, and was a completely fabricated mess that we got into for really bad reasons (I paraphrase). The SAS war crimes thing was a symptom of our unease at our involvement (imho) - we would not normally question the things that soldiers do in conflict, this was more a way of questioning why we were in the conflict in the first place.

You’re right, I misspoke, kids should be off the phones and internet until a certain age but while they’re offline need to be prepared to deal with the onslaught of rubbish they will face when they’re online. Including AI generated nonsense.

My anecdotal, non-Aussie observation: Yes, doubts over the WMD debacle were shouted down as nutty conspiracy theory. The usual rhetoric was employed, "If such a wide ranging conspiracy were truly afoot, wouldn't someone blow the whistle?"

Afterwards the same people who employed this rhetoric claimed they, "Always knew the claims were false".

There was definite risk of loss of political capital for would be dissenters. Politicians may or may not have had skeptical reservations. It is moot point if they didn't proactively dissent. Similarly, it isn't especially meaningful in the context of this discussion if those who did dissent were locked out of popular media discourse. The overall media environment repeated the claims unquestioningly. Dissent was maligned as conspiracy theory.

Another interesting manifestation were those who claimed that WMDs were found. Clearly the goal posts were shifted here. Between those who were "always suspicious" and those who believe that the standards of WMDs were met, very few people remain who concede that they were hoodwinked by the propaganda narrative. Yet at the same time, it isn't a stretch to observe that a war or series of wars was started based on false premises. No one has been held to account.

The UK PM, Tony Blair, actually pushed the "45 minutes" fabrication. Some of his MPs might have been sceptical, but Blair was very clearly itching to be a wartime PM.

What you describe is more like the debate on continental Europe, which translated in little support (most countries provided help with logistics and minimal "peacekeeping").