Last fall, heavily influenced by Jonathan Haidt’s extremely problematic book, Australia announced that it was banning social media for everyone under the age of 16. This was already a horrifically …
The law will make platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram liable for fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to prevent children younger than 16 from holding accounts.
It sounds like, from my quick skim, that their criteria would also apply to the Threadiverse, as I don’t see any sort of userbase size or revenue restrictions on their definition of its scope. Here’s the bill text:
(1) For the purposes of this Act, age-restricted social media platform means:
(a) an electronic service that satisfies the following conditions:
(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;but does not include a service mentioned in subsection (6).
Note 1: Online social interaction does not include (for example) online business interaction.
Note 2: An age-restricted social media platform may be, but is not necessarily, a social media service under section 13.19
Note 3: For specification by class, see subsection 13(3) of the Legislation Act 2003.
Subsection (6):
(6) An electronic service is not an age-restricted social media
platform if:
(a) none of the material on the service is accessible to, or
delivered to, one or more end-users in Australia; or
(b) the service is specified in the legislative rules.
I’m sure that there will be more discussion on this that will probably clarify it.
For the moment, I’m pretty confident based on past case law that the US legal system won’t consider a US-based Threadiverse instance that isn’t actively doing something like advertising to users specifically in Australia or selling products to Australia to be within the legal jurisdiction of Australia, as it won’t be doing business in Australia, so the US legal system will not enforce Australian law against it. Australia might block a node but shouldn’t be able to fine someone, so blacklisting Australian IP addresses or the like probably isn’t necessary. One notable issue: I don’t know off the top of my head whether instances accepting donations from Australian users could be affected.
I don’t know what the EU’s position on Internet jurisdiction is.
That might be a much more substantial problem for Australia-based instances, like — to name one that comes to mind — aussie.zone.
As well as:
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/28/g-s1-36142/australia-social-media-ban-children
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Safety_Amendment
It sounds like, from my quick skim, that their criteria would also apply to the Threadiverse, as I don’t see any sort of userbase size or revenue restrictions on their definition of its scope. Here’s the bill text:
Subsection (6):
I’m sure that there will be more discussion on this that will probably clarify it.
For the moment, I’m pretty confident based on past case law that the US legal system won’t consider a US-based Threadiverse instance that isn’t actively doing something like advertising to users specifically in Australia or selling products to Australia to be within the legal jurisdiction of Australia, as it won’t be doing business in Australia, so the US legal system will not enforce Australian law against it. Australia might block a node but shouldn’t be able to fine someone, so blacklisting Australian IP addresses or the like probably isn’t necessary. One notable issue: I don’t know off the top of my head whether instances accepting donations from Australian users could be affected.
I don’t know what the EU’s position on Internet jurisdiction is.
That might be a much more substantial problem for Australia-based instances, like — to name one that comes to mind — aussie.zone.