- PM’s social media bill has online porn problem
- The government has a mind-blowing response when asked about Pornhub
The government’s main reason for imposing age limits on social media is to protect children, says Anthony Albanese.
The proposed new laws carry huge penalties for large technology companies that do not ensure compliance. Fines amounting to tens of millions of dollars for violations.
But if the main goal of these new laws is to protect children when they access the Internet, why doesn’t the government include online pornography sites in the legislative coffer?
The original laws were going to include YouTube before a backlash excluded the video-sharing site.
The laws will apply to companies such as Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter, all of which include the ability to share videos and messages.
But as National Senator Matt Canavan asked in the Senate hearings, what about Pornhub?
The online video-sharing porn site has virtually no protections preventing children from accessing some graphic and quite disturbing video content.
All you have to do is click a button to confirm that you are over 18 years old. No checks or tests are required to confirm your age.
If the Labor Party is really serious about the ultimate goal of protecting Australian children from harmful content online, it’s quite difficult to understand why banning social media sites is important, but allowing free access to Pornhub is all well and good.
The government’s main reason for imposing age limits on social media is to protect children, says Anthony Albanese.
Senator Canavan pressed the ACMA representative leading his Senate committee on why the laws did not restrict or supervise Pornhub.
“We don’t consider Pornhub to be in scope,” he was told. “It’s not seen as a social media platform.”
But that doesn’t make it any less harmful to children. It also doesn’t mean that your current accessibility settings are okay.
Why isn’t the Labor Party doing anything legislatively about this? It boggles the mind.
The contradiction actually exposes the empty nature of the government’s claims that these proposed social media laws are intended to protect the next generation from harm.
It shows that they really don’t take protecting children from harmful content online that seriously.
What’s really happening here is that Labor wants to appease traditional media companies that have problems with big tech organizations like X (formerly known as Twitter) and Meta for other reasons.
Perhaps in the hope that grateful traditional media companies will show their appreciation come the election campaign.
Pornhub has virtually no protections preventing children from accessing some graphic and quite disturbing video content.
National Senator Matt Canavan asked in Senate hearings why it was not extended to Pornhub.
If Labor is really serious about protecting Australian children, it’s hard to see why banning social media sites is important, but allowing free access to Pornhub is all well and good.
Perhaps that is also why the Coalition is supporting the new laws, ensuring they pass parliament early in the new year.
Indeed, Peter Dutton was quick to claim that Labor stole this policy out of its back pocket when it was first announced, echoing sentiments he had previously shared publicly.
The Labor Party is always trying to balance its right and left flank.
Perhaps you don’t want to protect Australian children from harmful pornography (by tightening age restrictions to involve more than clicking a button to confirm you’re over 18) because doing so will cause unrest among sections of the left.
Whatever the reason, for the Labor Party to be so lackadaisical as to rush these social media laws through parliament, rather than widening their scope to more seriously protect children from harmful content like Pornhub, is almost negligent.
Ask any parent what they think is more detrimental to their children’s well-being: easy access to graphic online pornography or easy access to a messaging system that largely mirrors texting, and you’ll know what the answers will be. .
Yet here we are. The Labor Party allowed a whole day for community consultation on its new social media laws, such was its disregard for feedback before moving ahead.
Asked why Pornhub has not been included in the scope of the proposed legislation, Senator Canavan told his Senate committee: “It is very vague and unclear to any reasonable person what is in and what is out.”
In fact it is.