Josh Taylor • Feed
avatar
Josh Taylor @joshtaylor.bsky.social

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...

Finally, we are anticipating a potential lobbying surge by the currently excluded platform and I expect the ground war will be at the education level – and will also involve the harnessing of the most famous influencers. We are going to continue using our own channels into the education community to clarify that we do not think this will interfere with their ability to use any of these platforms as an educational tool nor will it prevent kids from being to access educational content in a logged-out state. We all know that this is about monetisation of the millions of under 16’s on these platforms who HAVE accounts today – but may then not at commencement. This will have an impact on attracting certain advertisers that may be targeting the 8-15 demographic.
aug 13, 2025, 7:16 am • 26 9

Replies

avatar
Moi @travellator3.bsky.social

well good. Including YT in the ban is idiotic.

aug 13, 2025, 7:19 am • 0 0 • view
avatar
phoebe @phoebe.computer

I'm mad they're going to make it so i can't use a private browsing tab not to ruin my recs algorithm, yeah youtube has a toggle but its more onerous than the right click browser function

aug 13, 2025, 7:20 am • 0 0 • view
avatar
whirlpool forums archivist @floridamannequin.bsky.social

have we heard much on how forced verification for YouTube might become forced verification for Gmail, given they are joined at the hip? I don’t actually care about a YouTube account, but if I have to give up my drivers licence to continue using my Gmail account I will go postal

aug 13, 2025, 11:32 pm • 1 0 • view
avatar
whirlpool forums archivist @floridamannequin.bsky.social

I acknowledge that everyone fretting over our own individual circumstances is not helpful and that the whole thing is rubbish and bullshit and etc. but the proportion of Australians with what they think is just a YouTube account vs the number with Gmail accounts would be very different…

aug 13, 2025, 11:34 pm • 1 0 • view
avatar
Josh Taylor @joshtaylor.bsky.social

Nothing set in stone yet

aug 13, 2025, 11:47 pm • 1 0 • view
avatar
Josh Taylor @joshtaylor.bsky.social

Also, pretty much confirmation YouTube Kids is likely to be excluded. (And bonus: Snapchat's CEO met with Wells at the end of July in a meeting arranged by Kevin Rudd as US Ambassador)

Regardless of your decision, YouTube Kids is unlikely to fall within the definition of ‘agerestricted social media platform’ as it operates more like a video streaming service, without the same interactive features as YouTube or other forms of social media (e.g. comments and likes). Further, accounts on YouTube Kids are held by the parent or guardian, rather than the child themselves. o YouTube Kids is designed for children 12 and under, which is the target market for The Wiggles content. • While access for Australian children is unlikely to be affected, revenue to creators like the Wiggles could be affected. In particular, while YouTube offers a number of ways for creators to monetise their content, many of these focus on creators’ subscriber numbers. Users can only subscribe if they have an account. o The Wiggles currently have 7.01 million subscribers, however not all would be Australian.
aug 13, 2025, 7:20 am • 14 4 • view
avatar
Reptilescorpio @reptilescorpio.bsky.social

I expect we will see a lot of views does try to get themselves on Kids again then, was a big issue years ago of creators trying to skirt around restrictions

aug 13, 2025, 7:25 am • 0 0 • view
avatar
Leanne Veronica @leanneveronica.bsky.social

Agree YouTube Kids is excluded as it does not fall within the definition of "age-restricted social media platform" - it does not have a significant purpose of enabling online social interaction.

aug 13, 2025, 7:38 am • 0 1 • view
avatar
Josh Taylor @joshtaylor.bsky.social

Yes, I'd asked about it before but hadn't got anything confirming it until now...

aug 13, 2025, 7:42 am • 1 1 • view