Setting aside the vast and rock-solid arguments as to why banning social media for those under 16 is a Trojan Horse-style, unenforceable, nonsensical thought bubble put forward by a weak, ignorant, and desperate political class … allow us to ask a few follow-up questions of both the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition who insist this policy will be pushed through before Christmas.

(If you’re going to do something stupid, why not do it in a rush?)

My first question is this, what will the punishment be for those under 16 who manage to reach the black market of digital free speech?

A kid opens a Youtube video to learn the history of the Roman Empire. Call the cops! Oh my gosh, they are sharing cat memes. Where is the eSafety Commissioner?

It seems unlikely that our government has the nerve to jail kids for chatting on social media and it would be politically unworkable for politicians to imprison the kids of the people they need to vote for them in the upcoming election.

We’ll keep your kids safe by banning social media! is not quite the same message as We’ll jail your kids for chatting online!

You cannot issue kids with hefty fines or community service either, so what is the stick at the end of this legislation going to be?

We can be pretty sure that parents will not be jailed either, because that would transform the under-16 ban from bit of so-called government assistance to a threat against parents.

The likely answer is that Albanese plans to fine parents whose kids use social media, turning the under-16 ban into an enormous tax by another name money-making tree. An infinite source of quick cash for a bankrupt Treasury.

It would effectively become a Nanny State app installed on your phone that deducts cash from your bank account every time your kid watches Youtube.

How long will it take those in favour of this measure to realise that they have been had by yet another manipulative and ill-advised knee-jerk policy that preys on the fears of parents?

The biggest and juiciest fines will be issued to social media companies. It fits nicely with Albanese’s tax the rich propaganda that he dishes out close to the election cycle. These companies have made lots of money from a product they created, why shouldn’t the government abscond with huge chunks of that global revenue in the name of child safety?

Ask yourself, why hasn’t the government commented on Donald Trump’s stated intention to pass legislation in the US to make it illegal for social media companies to remove content that constitutes legal speech in America?

Social media companies based in the US will lose their Section 230 Immunity protections if they remove what our government would call misinformation and disinformation.

In other words, speech is about to be issued with the toughest protections in the world to align with America’s First Amendment.

Elon Musk, and his left-leaning peers in Silicon Valley, will no longer be able to comply with any takedown orders or directions from Australia’s eSafety Commission unless that order relates to illegal content such as drug trafficking etc.

This renders any and all domestic legislation intended to reach into the internet and censor foreign companies void.

Not only is our government about to lose the ability to enforce its small-minded, tyrannical ambitions of censorship, it will also not be able to force these companies to implement the necessary software to enforce age restrictions.

There is no mechanism by which Australia can force an American social media company to comply if the American government decides to protect them.

They can send fines and Donald Trump can return their demands with an arsenal of threats directed at our trade, defence, and vital position as a strategic partner.

Are Albanese and Dutton prepared to jeopardise our relationship with America? Let’s hope not.

Another question worth asking is how will it be implemented?

The Guardian managed to point out that no country in the world has successfully enforced an age verification process for social media. We might exempt China, which keeps their population captive under a ruthless social credit system while their government scrubs the internet of content that harms the regime. They use censorship expressly for political means, controlling the minds of citizens from cradle to grave.

Even if social media companies and device manufacturers could be forced into compliance, which they won’t be, how would they technically configure the demand?

As many have pointed out, the obvious choice is to lean on the government’s cherished (and widely hated) Digital ID system.

Government officials promised that Digital ID would be voluntary and now it looks as though the definition of voluntary will be stretched to breaking. If you want to communicate with the outside world, you will first have to pass through the government’s ID gate.

The government will be effectively issuing a licence to speak.

We know for a fact that this kind of power will be abused, even more so because there are no protections built in to stop this abuse from happening.

Remember when we were told Covid check-in data would never ever pinky-promise be used by authorities?

And then it was revealed that police used this data on at least six occasions with Queensland, Western Australia, and Victoria all attempting to access QR-data…

As one MP said during the Covid era: ‘The fastest way to break public confidence and willingness to check-in is to rake the data for secondary purposes we were explicitly told would not happen.’

Given that at least one police force refused to stop dipping into the data until their fingers were legislated out of the digital honey pot, what assurances do we have that our over-enthusiastic censorial government won’t violate digital privacy to hunt down people who say mean things about policy?

None.

I am very nearly prepared to guarantee that within a few years of this legislation being passed, it will be re-purposed as a means to hunt down those who endanger public policy. It will be the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill all over again, slipping through into law without so much as a whisper.

Other countries are trying to replicate Australia’s mistakes. Norway’s Parliament has said they intend to use BankID to implement an age restriction for social media, with BankID being their version of a national Digital ID system.

What about VPNs? The natural workaround for adults (and children) who object to this law (which they never voted on) would be to use one of the many VPN products to disguise their identity as Australian.

Banning VPNs is something the government has wanted to do for ages and this would give them the perfect excuse. You said you wanted us to keep your kids safe, well, we have to ban VPNs to make this legislation work…

It is also worth asking why exemptions for messaging services are being discussed when they were name-dropped as the most harmful of all online applications. In what world does this make sense and what is the reasoning behind it? Messaging services, not social media, are the primary methods by which school-aged bullying takes place. It adds weight to the argument that this policy has nothing to do with child safety.

It is looking more and more like the government is on a crusade against social media since Elon Musk broke the special left-wing relationship between government and Silicon Valley. Heaven forbid young minds be exposed to content that challenges the dogma forced upon them at school. They might wind up voting conservative…

My final question is this, at what cost?

If the government is going to force the implementation of a global first technology, how much is this going to cost the taxpayers and which tech companies whispering in the ears of Canberra politicians are going to make a fortune out of our silence?

I want to know which businesses are profiting from censorship, do you?

Remember, this is not the first time that children have been weaponised for political gain in this country.

Our kids were told they would die unless their parents paid tribute to the Climate Change cult in the form of a carbon tax.

Kids were bullied by health officials who said they would kill their grandparents unless they took the Covid vaccine.

Now our speech, the fundamental right of all citizens, is under threat because the government wants more power. Think of the children, it says. Well, we are. Opposing government censorship is the only way to truly keep our kids safe.