#Australia #AgeVerification #NannyState #Privacy #Cybersecurity: "The federal government will not force adult websites to bring in age verification following concerns about privacy and the lack of maturity of the technology.

On Wednesday, the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, released the eSafety commissioner’s long-awaited roadmap for age verification for online pornographic material, which has been sitting with the government since March 2023.

The federal government has decided against forcing sites to bring in age verification technology, instead tasking the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, to work with the industry to develop a new code to educate parents on how to access filtering software and limit children’s access to such material or sites that are not appropriate."

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/31/roadmap-for-age-verification-online-pornographic-material-adult-websites-australia-law

#USA #AgeVerification #NannyState #FreeSpeech #Privacy: "By the end of this month, porn will get a lot harder to watch in Texas. Instead of clicking a button or entering a date of birth to access Pornhub and other adult sites, users will need to provide photos of their official government-issued ID or use a third-party service to verify their age. It’s the result of a new law passed earlier this summer intended to prevent kids from seeing porn online. But it’s also part of a broad — and worrying — attempt to age-gate the internet.

Texas may be the biggest state rolling out anti-porn rules, but it’s not the first. In the last year alone, more than half a dozen states have passed similar legislation and even more are looking to follow suit. While these rules are focused on adult content, another raft of laws is aimed at locking down minors’ access to the internet more generally — including banning teens from social media without parental consent.

Republicans and Democrats alike are backing age-gating bills. For some lawmakers, it’s an extension of a yearslong fight against Big Tech — a way to rein in the alleged harmful effects of social networks on youth. For others, it’s part of a much broader culture war. Conservative state houses and school districts have recently altered public school curriculums and banned books predominantly written by and about people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Online child protection bills are a new weapon in the fight.

These parallel movements have created an unprecedented appetite for a new kind of internet. It’s one where parents might have far more control over what minors see online and kids are more shielded from the darker spaces on the internet. It’s also one where adults and young people alike could have trouble reading, watching, or otherwise engaging with constitutionally protected speech and where privacy is hard to find."

https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/29/23849375/kosa-child-safety-free-speech-louisiana-utah-parental-consent

#USA #Texas #AgeVerification #PornHub #NannyState: "Pornhub, along with several other members and activists in the adult industry are suing Texas to block the state’s impending law that would require age verification to view adult content.

The complaint was filed on August 4 in US District Court for the Western District of Texas, and the law will take effect on September 1 unless the court agrees to block it. Governor Greg Abbott passed HB 1181 into law in June.

The plaintiffs, including Pornhub, adult industry advocacy group Free Speech Coalition, and several other site operators and industry members, claim that the law violates both the Constitution of the United States and the federal Communications Decency Act."

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkazpy/pornhub-sues-texas-over-age-verification-law

@JonathanMosen National are also proposing a formal ban which probably means a law change. Aren't National (and ACT) opposed to more unnecessary #RedTape? Schools can already ban or restrict phone use, they don't need a #NannyState law directing it.

@somlu1968 @HarGro @BlumeEvolution einige werden es nicht wahrhaben wollen, bis es zu spät ist - und dann geifern sie, warum denn "die da oben" nix gemacht hätten. Klassische #Nannystate Kundschaft, jeder Furz muss vorgegeben sein, und beschwert wird sich eh. Also insofern: motzen lassen und das Nötige tun!

EU-Nanny plant das Leben – Heute: Verdorbene und weggeworfene Nahrungsmittel https://sciencefiles.org/2023/07/05/eu-nanny-plant-das-leben-heute-verdorbene-und-weggeworfene-nahrungsmittel/ #verdorbeneLebensmittel #COM(2023)420final #Nahrungsmittel #EU-Kommission #NannyState #Direktive #FoodWaste #Abfall #EU

#UK #Privacy #Surveillance #Encryption #NannyState #OnlineSafetyBill #OSB #CyberSecurity: "Apple has criticised powers in the Online Safety Bill that could be used to force encrypted messaging tools like iMessage, WhatsApp and Signal to scan messages for child abuse material.

Its intervention comes as 80 organisations and tech experts have written to Technology Minister Chloe Smith urging a rethink on the powers.

Apple told the BBC the bill should be amended to protect encryption.

The BBC has approached the government for comment.

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) stops anyone but the sender and recipient reading the message."

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66028773

#USA #AgeVerification #Privacy #PoliceState #NannyState: ""Giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for age verification," Deville warned. "In fact, it will put children and your privacy at risk."

While Friedman told CNN that ECP's talks with tech companies to create more effective device-based solutions are only in "early stages," Deville suggested that acceptable device-based solutions already exist and could be leveraged.

"Many devices already offer free and easy-to-use parental control features that can prevent kids from accessing adult content without risking the disclosure of your sensitive data," Deville said.

But critics told CNN that there's one obvious flaw of device-based age verification: Minors could simply access adult content by using an adult's device, especially since families and households frequently share devices."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/pornhub-attacks-states-for-passing-unsafe-age-verification-laws/

#USA #Utah #Privacy #Surveillance #NannyState #FirstAmendment #AgeVerification: "A new Utah law intended to keep kids from accessing pornography and other kinds of “harmful material” online is raising critical questions about the First Amendment rights of young people and the privacy implications of checking IDs at websites’ proverbial doors.

Policymakers who pushed for the law say it will help protect kids from mental health issues and other risks that can arise from viewing certain kinds of material online. But what counts as “harmful,” exactly? The law is aimed at pornography, but it extends to virtually any commercial website with content that does not have “literary, artistic, political or scientific” value for minors and that makes up more than a third of all material on that site. With the law now in effect this month, anyone in Utah can sue violators if a minor accesses content on their website. Nonprofit-run sites, search engines and news-gathering organizations are exempt from liability."

https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/legal-tools/utah-age-verification-law/

#UK #Encryption #Cybersecurity #NannyState #Privacy #DataProtection: "Britain’s tough new plan to police the internet has left politicians in a stand-off with WhatsApp and other popular encrypted messaging services. Deescalating that row will be easier said than done.

The Online Safety Bill, the United Kingdom’s landmark effort to regulate social media giants, gives regulator Ofcom the power to require tech companies to identify child sex abuse material in private messages.

But the proposals have prompted Will Cathcart, boss of the Meta-owned messaging app, whose encrypted service is widely-used in Westminster’s own corridors of power, to claim it would rather be blocked in the U.K. than compromise on privacy."

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-ministers-lock-horns-with-whatsapp-over-threat-to-break-encryption/

#USA #AgeVerification #NannyState #CivilLiberties: "...civil liberties experts said that some of the proposed restrictions on harmful material and social media sites could create age-verification barriers for Americans seeking to freely access online information. If the rules were not overturned, these experts argue, they could radically alter the internet — by changing the online world into a patchwork of walled-off fiefdoms or causing popular platforms to narrow their offerings to avoid triggering the rules.

“It could jam up free speech not only for minors,” but cut off access to online information for adults, said Nadine Strossen, a former national president of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Civil liberties groups said they were considering litigation to try to halt certain new laws."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/30/business/louisiana-kids-age-porn-law.html

#UK #OSB #OnlineSafetyBill #AgeVerification #NannyState: "Wikipedia will not comply with any age checks required under the Online Safety Bill, its foundation says.

Rebecca MacKinnon, of the Wikimedia Foundation, which supports the website, says it would "violate our commitment to collect minimal data about readers and contributors".

A senior figure in Wikimedia UK fears the site could be blocked as a result.

But the government says only services posing the highest risk to children will need age verification."

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65388255

#NannyState #Spoilsports 😠

'Nanny state' is an anti-democracy slogan. It makes people thing the idea of We the People protecting and helping each other is somehow a bad thing.

#democracy #nannystate

Anyone else tried to turn off the emergency alarm test before it happens? Can't find a setting for emergency alarms on my Samsung #nannyState

#USA #AgeVerification #NannyState: "Beyond conversations, Stabile recommends device-level filters that block all websites that are registered RTA, or "Restricted to Adults."(Opens in a new tab) "It signals to filters, whether it's your Apple filter or Net Nanny or something like that, that this site should be blocked," he explained. It doesn't matter if a child tries a VPN or some other workaround — the site will be blocked on that device.

The idea behind these bills "is not wrong," said Evans — no one, especially those in the adult industry, wants children watching their content. These bills, however, create risks, and can cascade into an online privacy and censorship nightmare that hurts sex workers and other internet users.

"If even a few of them [age-verification bills] pass in different contexts, it will be dangerous for everyone in the United States who goes online," Kelley warned, "because we will not be able to access things privately.""

https://mashable.com/article/what-are-age-verification-bills-porn-louisiana-utah

#nannystate #censorship
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/mar/26/agatha-christie-novels-reworked-to-remove-potentially-offensive-language

Michael Gove to ban laughing gas, is he having a laugh? 🤔
#NannyState #Tories

@dcjohnson The true #NannyState censors books and classrooms to prevent them from giving kids unapproved ideas. It also controls women's bodies for them and tries to force all citizens to conform to stereotypical ideas of "biological" gender.

#UK #DigitalRights #OSB #OnlineSafetyBill #NannyState #InternetRegulation: "As Rishi Sunak, the country’s prime minister, counts down the clock ahead of next year’s expected general election, the Online Safety Bill has become a litmus test for what the United Kingdom stands for as it charts its own path after leaving the European Union. But there are serious doubts the legislation can deliver on the U.K.’s twin promises of creating a safer internet and promoting itself as a place to do business — all while upholding freedom of speech."

https://www.politico.eu/article/online-safety-bill-uk-westminster-politics/