Fed Govt acts on porn consumption affecting kids, but needs to proceed with caution

At the forefront is the introduction of a range of online measures to address the ease of accessibility to pornography for children and young people and tackling extreme online misogyny, which is fuelling harmful attitudes towards women.

“There should be zero tolerance for harmful content that glorifies violence against Australian women,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

“Young adults should not be coached in disrespect or misogyny by online influencers.”

Albanese said he also understands that parents want to protect their children from harmful material online.

“Social platforms have important social responsibilities and we need them to step up.

“Taken together, these reforms will give Australian families some of the tools they need to navigate the complexity of the digital world.”

The Government is budgeting $6.5 million on its so-called 'porn passport' pilot, which will identify available age assurance products to protect children from online harm, and test their efficacy, including in relation to privacy and security.

The outcomes will inform the existing work of Australia’s eSafety Commissioner under the Online Safety Act – including through the development of industry codes or standards – to reduce children’s exposure to age-inappropriate material.

Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland, said the reality is that digital platforms are influencing our culture and social lives.

“Taking steps to prevent access for minors to age-inappropriate content like pornography is one tool that can help protect young minds from damaging and misogynistic behaviours,” she said.

“The pilot – coupled with work already underway to update our out-dated Classification Scheme – will inform how Governments at all levels can work collaboratively to address these harms.”

While supportive of the pilot, opposition communications spokesman David Coleman said yesterday’s announcement was a “massive backflip” by the Government.

Speaking on Sky News, Coleman said the e-Safety Commissioner recommended this measure in March last year, and the Government announced in November 2023 that they were not going to proceed with it, after the opposition brought legislation to the Parliament at the time to make it happen, which ultimately failed.

“It's good news that the Government is getting behind it [now], it's important that the Government moves quickly and that we move forward on age verification to protect kids,” Coleman said.

He said it's 'baffling' that it has taken until now for the Government to back the trial.

“The research is really disturbing in what it shows about the exposure of kids to pornography and then that feeding into things like the normalisation of violence against women.

“Some of the material that our kids are seeing is just despicable stuff, so why the delay, I really don't know.”

The governments of France, Germany, the UK and some US states are all considering forms of age verification, with apps offered by some companies able to scan a person’s face and guess their age, while other systems ask a person to submit images of their ID.

The technology is fraught with problems, however, which would explain why each of those governments is keeping a close eye on each others’ trials, in an effort to avoid the many pitfalls associated with its implementation.

So far there are only three options – uploading a photo ID with a birthdate, providing a video selfie that software can analyse to estimate the user’s age, or having parents verify their childrens’ ages.

All can be deeply problematic in action.

Age estimation technologies will rely on AI systems, with face-scanning age verification requiring a tremendous amount of kids' data, while deputising parents as gatekeepers will inevitably cause friction within families, and services catering to parental or document-based verification would need to keep sensitive data for long periods of time to ensure continued compliance with any new laws.

The eSafety Commissioner has backed a system that uses an electronic token granted by a trusted private provider, subject to government regulation, once a person’s age is proven.

While many have welcomed the Government’s measures to address easy access to pornography for children and young people, one privacy advocate said “we simply cannot content-moderate and age-verify our way out of systemic misogyny and violence”.

In its research, the Commissioner found that many young people access porn on social media sites rather than porn-specific sites, raising questions about the efficacy of porn-only age restrictions.

On The Age website, Digital Rights Watch’s head of policy Samantha Floreani, cautioned against impulsive digital regulation.

“We simply cannot content-moderate and age-verify our way out of systemic misogyny and violence,” Floreani said.

“Online harms warrant careful policy intervention, but many of the proposals put forward [at yesterday’s national cabinet meeting] are riddled with assumptions, underdeveloped thinking, and seem cobbled together in response to the current political moment."

Floreani said it was less than a year ago that the Government determined that age assurance technology is not sufficiently mature and comes with too many significant privacy and security risks to move forward with the trial.

"Nothing about the maturity or risk has changed, so it is disappointing to see the government change its position on this,” she said.

Along with the porn passport pilot, the Government is set to introduce legislation to ban the creation and non-consensual distribution of deepfake pornography – digitally created and altered sexually explicit material considered a damaging form of abuse against women and girls that can inflict deep harm on victims.

The reforms will make clear that creating and sharing sexually explicit material without consent, using technology like artificial intelligence will be subject to serious criminal penalties.

In addition, a new phase of the Stop it at the Start campaign will launch in mid-June and run until May next year. The new phase will specifically include a counter-influencing campaign in online spaces where violent and misogynistic content thrives, to directly challenge the material in the spaces it’s being viewed.

The campaign is intended to counter the corrosive influence of online content targeted at young adults that condones violence against women.

It will raise awareness about a proliferation of misogynistic influencers and content, and encourage conversations within families about the damaging impact of the material.

Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth said to end violence against women in one generation, boys and young men need to be raised to approach relationships with respect.

“Often it is very hard for parents and caregivers to know what type of environments their young people are experiencing online.

“We need to look at how we empower young people to have those conversations with adults in their life and empower those adults to start those conversations.

“Stop It at the Start has been a hugely successful campaign helping parents and other adult influencers have conversations about respectful relationships.”

Research shows 25 per cent of teenage boys in Australia look up to social media personalities who perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes.

Social media algorithms can undermine gender equality by pushing misogynistic content that normalises sexist attitudes in young people.

“Launching a new phase to specifically counter negative influences particularly in online spaces where misogynistic content thrives is so important to ending this national shame of violence against women,” Rishworth said.

There's also growing concern around the role of violent online pornography in normalising gendered violence.

In response, the Government said it is undertaking long overdue classification reforms with states and territories which will examine options to reduce exposure to violent pornography, informed by engagement with experts and best available evidence about harms.

The Government will also bring forward legislation in early August to outlaw the release of private information online with an intent to cause harm (known as doxxing), and overhaul the Privacy Act to give all Australians, and particularly women who are experiencing domestic and family violence, greater control and transparency over their personal information.