This is an excellent response to the "we have to charge for FOI because forren AI bots!" nonsense from the A-G. www.righttoknow.org.au/request/evid...
Technology reporter at the Guardian, in Melbourne, Australia. Tech, infosec, FOI, politics, media 🌈 (he/him) https://linktr.ee/joshtayl0r
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This is an excellent response to the "we have to charge for FOI because forren AI bots!" nonsense from the A-G. www.righttoknow.org.au/request/evid...
I'm Australian and talking about the Australian government
I'm Australian
"foreign actors... criminal gangs" making FOI requests? wtf. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Spoke with Alex Proyas, the director behind The Crow, I Robot and Dark City about his embrace of AI in filmmaking. I suspect his views diverge from many if not most in the industry. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
My analysis of the age assurance tech trial report. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Shameful to exploit a teen girl's death in the News Corp campaign for the social media ban. www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/e...
The federal government wants to charge for making FOI requests. Ridiculous for a government allegedly committed to transparency. www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/freed...
Also worth noting they've actually released the data sets so you can get a better picture of how it is working rather than relying on the spin the report puts on it. ageassurance.com.au/report/#data...
The trial looked at that. ageassurance.com.au/wp-content/u...
Digging in a bit more on the report today. Interesting that Yoti, which is arguably the most mature of the age assurance companies, had a false positive rate (i.e. thinking someone was 16) of 34% for 14yos and 57% for 15yos. ageassurance.com.au/wp-content/u...
Also total @cameronwilson.bsky.social erasure
The age assurance report has a section on media coverage where a few of my stories are quoted. Curiously absent are the stories where I reported on issues around the trial, lol
Genuinely shocked to read this paragraph in The Australian today, as a take on yesterday's racist, anti-immigrant marches.
My sense is that they are of the view that these platforms already know enough about us to know our age so more methods are not required. But obviously that won't be the reality, particularly for smaller ones like this site.
I'm being mostly glib, it's just an example of how inference works, but it's revealing that the minister thinks this is mostly what the big ones will do rather than what the trial mostly focused on (verification, facial age estimation etc). The trial report talked down inference a bit.
Many gay men are going to be told suddenly by Insta they're 13. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
![Well says if you are talking about KPop Demon Hunters social media sites might infer that you are 13 Jumping back to Anika Wells on the Today show a bit earlier, she says a trial has found age assurance can be “private, efficient and effective” and means that social media platforms won’t have an excuse not to have age verification in place when the social media ban for under 16-year-olds comes into effect on 10 December this year. There are three different methods around age verification that exist, says Wells, from showing your drivers licence when you look under 25 at the bottle shop, using face ID to log on to a phone, or where social media companies can see your data and infer your age: If they’re [social media companies] seeing you talk to 65-year-olds about caravanning, they might infer that you are 65. If they see that you’re talking to 13-year[-olds] about KPop Demon Hunters, they might infer that you are 13 … There are many effective ways that platforms can use to assure themselves of age come December.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:aa245ktw34fkioyycpf4lwnh/bafkreiavng6lgsve6xiff7fukgbqmu3f3mmnhwfa2ce2arye777qvywtca@jpeg "Click to view full size")
The age assurance tech trial report has been released. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Report here: ageassurance.com.au/report/
The Australian is against parliamentary inquiries now apparently.
The age assurance tech trial report has been released. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
how something gets greenlit is a question I ask of many of the programs on Sky News
Wild to think that Sky News pre-empted the TV host to government pipeline before Fox News with the Pyne and Marles show
It reminded me of a meme and I couldn't place it and this seemed closest.
It's good he's opened it to the middle of the memoir, I guess.
Out on the town meeting with all our US allies. They're all just out of frame, meeting with me too www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Have asked the minister's office, in any case.
I'm assuming this means we will get the report sometime in the next two weeks.
Spoke about this in my regular newspapers segment on News Breakfast. I don't really get nerves doing TV anymore but it's difficult even after coming out many years ago to talk about what it is like on TV.
All the usual jokes and comments you'd expect. I didn't post any because I figured it was implied and unnecessary
aaaand the Sky News Facebook comments today proving why it took til 2025 for a current or former player to come out. And why I respect him for doing it
It gets worse. The Deloitte report suspected of using AI contains a fake quote and erroneous citations to one of the leading cases on Robodebt. www.afr.com//companies/p...
The trial, mainly run by people in the age assurance industry, is trying to answer the question of if it can be done, not whether it should.
The government opposed the inquiry being set up on the grounds that the age assurance technology trial will be published (at some point). The trial itself doesn't go to the broader issues...
👀
And multiple attempts
Tangential, but I was thinking about this with the whole AI and copyright thing. Governments absolutely pursue individuals for copyright violations (and in Australia allowed sites hosting pirated content to be blocked) but with AI it seems there's a no accountability.
Former West Coast player Mitch Brown becomes first openly bisexual man in AFL history
OpenAI making changes... I feel like the history of tech is basically only making changes to counter foreseeable issues after the worst happens. openai.com/index/helpin...
Worth noting AI chatbots will likely be required to be age-gated in Australia under codes under consideration now. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Spotify will suddenly be in the under16s ban
They're here if you want though heed my warning. archive.org/details/2381...
I've been reading the court docs and it is incredibly upsetting reading. Absolutely awful.
Keeping in mind it was his party that basically made the under 16s ban an issue until the government adopted it and rushed it through before the election.
Alex Antic on opposing the under 16s ban and hate speech laws.
The new telco protections bill people are talking about/reporting on today is actually the old telco protections bill that lapsed because of the election. If anyone cares!
Also I wasn't really across what TikTok live battles are and it's really strange. Going in comps to get your followers to give you more gifts than someone else gets from their followers.
People seeking to have their account ban overturned are super common but it's rare it actually ends up in court. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Chatroulette yes, but its shutdown spawned several clones.
I've seen varying reports whether it was Ometv, or Chatrouletka or Omegle but they're all much the same.
Also interesting that Apple and Google have been brought into it... could end up being the first use of the deplatforming power.
Re this eSafety warning re OmeTV, also worth noting I think it was that app that the two Sydney nurses were on when making comments to an Israeli content creator that led to them getting fired and charged www.esafety.gov.au/newsroom/med...
Not involved with it at all but an illustrator did that, checking the credit on the story...
oh no I understood... the context is worse for sure haha
Bolt today: "Even countries invaded by the Nazis surrendered rather than have their people suffer more." 🫠
They haven't responded yet fwiw
Pls read my replies. bsky.app/profile/josh...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
They answer that in the link. Brit one only applies to specific content not site wide. Our ban is site wide. So it's a reasonable question.
I've been pointing it out on articles a lot but yes I think it'll be a rude shock for many
I've asked Bluesky what their plans are for Australia come December.
I've not really watched South Park since I was a teenager but they're really nailing it in the new season. The whole AI chatbot sycophancy thing making people think they're smart was so good.
Five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza were civilians as of May, according to Israel's own military intelligence. "In Gaza we are talking about a campaign of targeted assassinations, really, rather than battles, and they are carried out with no concern for civilians.”
Legislation states ID can be one form of accepted checking but not the only option. But that's just for social media ban - could be for some of the other codes etc.
Someone was trying to tell me they think it'll all happen so easily on the device level and there's nothing to worry about. I felt like i was banging my head against the wall explaining that's not how the legislation works and the UK is already demonstrating what will happen...
Also X asked eSafety not to apply regulations in a federal court dispute to the company while that litigation was ongoing. Julie Inman Grant said no.
From an FOI I got back yesterday: It seems like one of the legal cases eSafety is involved with against X was kicked off by a refusal to extend time to respond to account for Easter holidays
Looking forward to this come December
We got burned by an AI freelancer and a few missteps of our own. Here's the full disclosure on that. All I can add from my vantage here is that my work has always been subject to rigorous fact checking. It's sometimes a days long, maddening process, but 100% of the time I am grateful in the end.
it feels like the bubble is bursting www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...
It's to the point where I basically wait until a big enough one like today to write a story and catch some of the other ones I've seen.
Using one AI to check the work of the other AI 🙃 www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
I kinda find it difficult to believe Rita knows eight gay men
One supporter of the ban told me on the weekend that the impact on those who rely on social media for connecting to communities like queer kids etc would be an acceptable outcome if it improves mental health etc of all other teens.
Yes, can go both ways.
Not sure, haven't been told that it has.
They can require ID but it can't be the only method so if they don't pass face I can imagine that being the default
wild to me that one of the people running the age assurance tech trial seems to be arguing that facial age estimation tech being off by 7 years is fine. www.theguardian.com/media/2025/a...
I wonder how TPG has gone consolidating all the different ISP systems in the past few years... it seemed like a mess a lot of the time from what I've heard.
I remember when they announced a Priscilla sequel could potentially happen, I was thinking they'd need to do it sooner rather than later... I wonder what they'll do now (plot was around Bernadette being in a hospice I think) www.theguardian.com/film/2025/au...
Looks kinda like the Sydney metro stations
Scoop: another expert has resigned from Australia's teen social media tech trial, as some on its advisory board describe an increasingly acrimonious relationship with the trial's organisers and question the significance of its findings.
The demise of men reading books has, once again, been greatly exaggerated - I've taken a deep dive into the surprisingly chaotic world of reading statistics in Australia. And got some exclusive (?) figures from the HILDA survey! www.theguardian.com/news/2025/au...
I thought it was a totally different actor
Honestly with that hair I did not realise Nathan Fillion was Green Lantern until I watched Superman
I enjoyed telling people in my mentions on the bad site who said "learn to code" that I have a computer science degree.
He wasn't able to coherently answer the question at all, and as my analysis showed, he got it wrong on basic facts.
I made the request on 13 May
In other FOI news, I tried to see if there had been any comms between SBS and EBU about Israel's continued involvement in Eurovision. They used the broadcast content exemption to refuse it. But interesting they said it was all one-sided comms from EBU and SBS didn't reply.
Love 2 FOI
New reporting from @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social, who got hold of internal standards for chatbot behavior at Meta.
I'm not sure exactly what he was trying to ask but it was trying to cram a lot in
PM really has mastered the everyday folk response to completely dodge FM radio host questions.
I know it was a trainwreck interview, but I couldn't get past the point that we need to be like the US when it's not a settled issue in the US at all...
Nothing set in stone yet
In new documents released to the parliament, the eSafety commissioner privately warned there would be a "lobbying surge" from YouTube following their inclusion in the under 16s social media ban, including a "ground war" harnessing the most famous influencers. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Interesting dissent in the Andrew Laming Facebook posts high court judgment from Edelman J. Points out the court interpreting that it only matters how many posts, not how many see the posts to determine contraventions means people may see that as the cost of doing business. jade.io/article/1146...
Melodie 