There's no point arguing about it. The government and their authoritarian flying-monkeys always favour censorship and they've hit on something they can sell to a gullible public. Whenever you hear people claiming its "all for the kiddies" you can be sure the welfare of the kiddies is least of their concerns. You can be sure that when these new measures fail to achieve the level of censorship they desire, new measures will be already at hand.

Just go and get your VPN and by-pass their authoritarian policies. Not for ever mind you because eventually they'll come after VPNs as well...for the good of the kiddies, mind you.

mhaze gets it. The communists don't care about children; they want to control them earlier. Child-minding factories are now called 'early learning centres' - more correctly early brain-washing centres.

The family has always been feared by the Left. Take the kids away from their mothers and fill their heads with dangerous rubbish. So, they don't actually tear babies from their mothers' arms. They just make it too hard live off one wage. It is no less crucial for a child to be with its mother - full time until the age of 5 - now, than it was when Australia was a decent place to live.

mhaze,

Thanks for going where no one else seemed to dare - not even the author of the article ttbn referenced in his OP.

It's one thing to be concerned about where legislature will go with a particular form of technology, but to claim that censoring us was the primary goal from the outset is next-level crazy. In other words: the government is lying about its intentions, and child safety is a Trojan horse.

But for a claim that serious, and that sinister, you’d expect some evidence. A leak, a memo, a whistleblower, an internal comms strategy.

Anything!

This talking point has been around for years, but I’ve never once seen a case - in any liberal democracy - where a child protection measure was exposed after the fact as being designed for broader, unrelated censorship. Even the UK’s Online Safety Act, arguably the most controversial recent example, was openly debated, criticised, amended, and is now being legally challenged - not a stealth operation.

Same for our eSafety regime. Heavy-handed? Arguably. Misguided? Perhaps. But a covert censorship plot? Not unless you define “plot” as “policy you disagree with.”

The only country where your theory fits cleanly is China - and even then, their censorship is not hidden. They say the quiet part out loud.

So unless you’ve got something more than vibes and suspicion, it seems you’ve confused emotional marketing with actual conspiracy. Politicians will always frame their laws in the most palatable terms. That’s not proof of deceit, it’s PR. And it’s not unique to child protection. “National security” and “economic stability” are used the same way.

There’s a vast difference between:

- A law that’s politically popular but poorly designed,
- A law that overreaches and needs safeguards,
- And a law that’s deliberately sold under false pretences to disguise a censorship agenda.

You’re asserting the third. But all the evidence and lack of precedent suggests the first two.

If you’ve got something concrete, by all means share it. Otherwise, this just sounds like another case of assuming malice where incompetence - or policy disagreement - would suffice.

I remember the Internet Safety Commissioner (I think the Internet Safety Commissioner should be called the Commissioner Against Free Speech in contradiction to perceived Orwellianism's) and the Prime Minister or someone else talking about the "new social media age restrictions" and how they will be implemented. They took great pains to point out that they are against using the new child protection protocols as a ploy to undermine anonynymity. However my experience of Youtube "is" using child protection as an excuse to force users to use odious means to prove their age giving the message "Sign in to confirm your age. This video may be inappropriate for some users". This message seems to predate or predict the legislation. Not sure why.

Maybe this idea has been floating in global Woke Marxist circles for a while.

These extremists with their conspiracies, everything a progressive government does is some how concocted as Orwellian in nature with a hidden agenda. Just let these extreme nut job take over, then you will see how brain washing and social control becomes the order of the day. The Hitler Youth will never be dead with thee guys.

CM

They are certainly not censorsing to save children. Their only interest in children is to get them into brain-washing facilities (aka child care) to shape their minds before the age of 5, when they are not being preyed on by paedophiles, left in dirty nappies, or left alone while an “educator” (as they are now calling child-minders) has a stress break.

Any idea who Troll 1405's “Hitler Youth” are? Can't be us “old farts”.