The choice citizens have now is between an 'internet licence' (submit ID's to myriad sites), or an 'internet tax' (VPN).

Super annoying!

Given Australia doesn't even require Age Verification on porn sites (only on social media sites), the incentives hint this was strongly supported by legacy media (90% of Aussie media is owned by two companies, Newscorp and Nine Entertainment).

The internet licence will make it difficult for both authors and readers on alternative media platforms. And it will outright prohibit young people from getting information from non-permitted sources (of course, legacy sources are not affected - incidentally, they're probably more harmful than the prohibited sources). (I've long said, to try to think clearly after watching 'the news' is akin to trying to operate heavy machinery after consuming alcohol).

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verisimi 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> And it will outright prohibit young people from getting information from non-permitted sources (of course, legacy sources are not affected - incidentally, they're probably more harmful than the prohibited sources).

Verification is the stick, AI is the carrot.

More than one answer is a bug - Eric Schmidt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeIIpLqsOe4

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Bender 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

an 'internet licence' (submit ID's to myriad sites), or an 'internet tax' (VPN).

Or learning one of the many non-http ways that people share porn and other things or people sharing among friends on small private or semi-private forums, chat servers or sharing porn in video games as many teens do. Beyond that is paying the slowness tax of tor hidden .onion sites which can be sped up by disabling 3 hops.

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01HNNWZ0MV43FF 4 days ago | parent [-]

That is a tax

	▲	Bender 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		That is a tax For many it would be. I started with FTP and then SFTP so it's muscle memory for me and it's a lot faster than using a browser when used optimally with LFTP+SFTP+mirror, much like rsync but works with chroot SFTP-only. Groups can fully automate sharing their own collections with one another, entirely hands off no pun intended.

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general1465 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Given Australia doesn't even require Age Verification on porn sites (only on social media sites)

Am I only one who sees loophole in creating a social media site, which will be a porn site first? FaceHub or Pornbook.

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Freak_NL 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

FetLife? It exists, and is subject to the same laws and regulations. Any legal site will have to comply to a load of regulations, supplemented by the inscrutable rules laid down by Visa and Mastercard.

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shakna 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not a loop hole. The Minister may declare anything to be a social media site. The law does not restrict what may be considered.

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blitzar 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It's called X.

	▲	nomilk 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		X is one of the prohibited sites for under 16's in Australia (falls under 'social media'), but someone should seriously tell Elon about this, because it may work and would be hilarious.
	▲	01HNNWZ0MV43FF 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		How am I going to find cisgender porn on there though

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lordhumphrey 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The 'internet tax' will not last, either, I fear.

Loads of VPNs are simply, someone other than the local ISP gets your data. Mullvad seems trustworthy, as an exception to this, and who else? And even then, Mullvad faces issues from websites and censorious countries trying to block it and bother its users all the time.

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littlecranky67 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Proton includes a VPN in their office365 competitor Proton Business Suite. While big sites like Netflix don't want you to use VPN, I am sure porn sites are very happy to let you through once your VPN address is not longer in a jurisdiction that requires AV.

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Hizonner 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

... but I don't care if my ISP or the VPN knows I'm watching porn. I just want to actually be able to watch it.

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ghssds 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

What about a VPS and ssh -D ?

	▲	lordhumphrey 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		As the other replies allude to, it worked at one stage. This subjective and lovely history of the Great Firewall of the PRC was posted recently, about the to and fros in the methods of this kind of thing, and is really very good, if you're interested: https://danglingpointer.fun/posts/GFWHistory
	▲	intothemild 4 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Easily blockable. The early days of getting around Netflix was just using a commercial VPN. Then they blocked all those. Then we transitioned to a VPS and hosting our own VPN.. then they blocked all VPS IP ranges. What came next was VPNs that were using other people's home connections (either willingly or otherwise)
	▲	roygbiv2 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Where is your VPN hosted? A lot of sites will block vps hosts.

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classified 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> or an 'internet tax'

As always, the rich get to buy their way out of pretty much everything while the poor get the crap treatment.

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delusional 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> of course, legacy sources are not affected - incidentally, they're probably more harmful than the prohibited sources

What a silly idea. The modern world was built while traditional media existed. The decay and backsliding conicides with modern day social media. How does that point to traditional media being the culprit?

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nomilk 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

In the extremes, both ideas are right. In terms of timeliness, relevance, quality, rigour, variety, discussion and debate the worst content on social media is orders of magnitude worse than the worst content on mainstream media.

But the inverse is also true: the best content on social media is orders of magnitude better than the best content on mainstream media.

An individual should be able to choose what works for them, not have the government disallow swaths of sources.

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Telemakhos 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I don’t understand what “traditional media” means in this context. Before the internet, kids didn’t have access to porn. It just wasn’t there when I was growing up. I’m sure someone out there had 8mm or 16mm porn films, but I as a child had no clue where to find those, and the physical stores selling them were not accessible: I didn’t have transportation to them, and they checked ID at the door. I heard of Playboy through friends at school, but I had zero access to it myself. I don’t think that was unusual.

Today every eight year old can browse Motherless for free with the same tablet he uses to watch whatever slop it is parents let their kids watch instead of educating them. That’s not a difference between “legacy” and “modern” porn but between zero access and full access.

	▲	delusional 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		The parent comment was talking about the other meaning of "media", the "news media". "Traditional media" then means newspapers, radio, and TV. As opposed to "new media" which is idiots yelling at each other on twitter or whatever.

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Aeolun 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The internet licence will make it difficult for both authors and readers on alternative media platforms

Not really? Like the article says, they’ll just go to sites that don’t require age verification.

	▲	nomilk 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Hard to argue that isn't an inconvenience. In other words, the outcome is the same, but thanks to government intervention, everyone's worse off. A good example of where social media can really matter is for say, gay kids in a religious households, where they might not be able to talk to someone in person. Social media makes it easy to create a dummy account and visit forums for advice or reassurance.
	▲	DrillShopper 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Once again showing that the best way to make money in that market is to just break the law.

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aaron695 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]