Thread

1. nomilk · 1790133002 · focus · HN ↗

   As is common in political shenanigans, the draft bill has a euphemistic label ('algorithmic opt-out') - what it actually does is allow unspecified bureaucrats such as the Minister for Communications to designate any individual piece of content as 'harmful' and have it banished from the internet.

   As an Australian who just wants relatively free access to information (and the ability to freely/easily discuss it), it's frustrating.

   And it's not the first time the Australian government has done this; last year they banned U16 from social media, several weeks later everyone was alerted to Bondi by... social media.. so they could get the heck out of there, but U16... they were left clueless and unable to get updates (news sites ran 30+ minutes behind real-time events and official sites like NSW Police took 70+ minutes to even announce there was a shooter).

   1. jeffybefffy519 · 1790139321 · focus · HN ↗

      How you went from U16 social media ban to the worst terrorist attack in AU history since port arthur therefore social media good is staggering...

      1. nomilk · 1790140455 · focus · HN ↗

         Suppose government had instead banned spare car tires. 99.99% of the time, we wouldn't notice. But during an emergency the effects of such a ban become apparent. Similar with the social media ban.

         Consider the situation for a 15 year-old on or nearby Bondi at the time of the attack. You hear.. fireworks?.. a car backfiring..? and meh, you continue sipping your iced matcha latte.

         Sometimes having the choice to learn/see/hear information matters. Very often (like with a spare tire ban) nobody even notices the ban - but at certain times, it really matters.

         1. andwur · 1790143819 · focus · HN ↗

            Is this not a bias towards the status quo, conflating two entirely distinct problems?

            We have problem A: receiving timely updates for life threatening events has not been implemented, or poorly.

            Then we have problem B: social media companies have monetised engagement, without any guardrails to avoid detrimental effects, and continue to push to maximise this.

            Just because the status quo involves a high speed, low latency, flood of unverified information via social media, which tangentially solves problem A in cherry-picked examples, does not mean it has to always be the case. This same proposed solution is also rife for abuse, in the same way a legitimate early warning can be sent out it can just as easily be used to spread hoax events.

            Would it not make more sense to actually solve problem A, e.g. get the police to pull their finger out and use the emergency broadcast service available in just about every phone on the planet, and treat problem B as its own distinct issue? By conflating the two I don't see how we will ever solve either problem in any effective manner. By doing so we're essentially agreeing to a world where our best case scenario is the narrow intersection of A & B, while the rest of the time we're left with the full outer join of the two problems - bad access to verified emergency updates and a flood of engagement-bait crap on social media.

            To be clear, I do not agree with how this legislation is being put forward nor with how it is proposed to be controlled. This is layman's legislation at its worst for a highly technical subject, and even in a more charitable light I struggle to see it as anything but a distraction and power grab rolled into one, with little likelihood of solving the problem at hand.

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