Australia's Planned Social Media Ban Won't Include PSN After All

Yeah, nah, don't worry about it, mate

by · Push Square

Last week, we brought you troubling news from Down Under, where in the far-off land of Australia, an unfortunate precedent is coming to pass: the banning of "social media" (which has since been legally defined) for under 16s. This revolutionary concept is quickly catching on and is apparently "already on the table" for you poms in the UK; sorry about that. And while it may already be too late for unfortunate Aussie teens, we are at least happy to confirm that the ban will not impact their ability to play violent, debaucherous PlayStation games to their heart's content, an issue of vital import to this young-at-heart Aussie scribe.

Thankfully, Australia's little grommets will still be allowed access to the PlayStation Network, as the proposed ban will not apply to "online video games" - despite the PSN's potentially scary messaging capabilities. Services like TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, Instagram and X will be prohibited, but bizarrely, YouTube is allowed due to its educational benefits.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's Labor government introduced the bill yesterday, which enjoys popular support from both major parties and is expected to pass. Albo and the politicians supporting him cite spurious evidence and are flying in the face of the recommendations of the Australian Human Rights Commission, which has "serious reservations". The Commission fears that these proposed laws would "significantly interfere with the rights of children and young people".

There are concerns the move will require all Australians to submit to age and identity verifications to determine who is actually underage, which does seem just a tad authoritarian. The cherry on top? If you have any concerns of your own, the Albanese government has allowed just 24 hours for submissions, starting yesterday!

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News Australia's Planned Social Media Ban to Include PSN

Albo, you've got to be joking, mate

Are you as glad as we are Australia's proposed social media won't extend to "online video games"? Are you concerned these radical Aussie ideas of alleged internet safety could be transmitted to your own country? Let us know in the comment section below, mate.

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About Khayl Adam

Khayl Adam is Push Square's roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the richest, most succulent PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.

Comments 36

Crazy times. I think they're going to have a hard time enforcing that and will wind up turning it into a forbidden fruit, making it more appealing than ever.

Don't worry, Kier Starmer is already convicting people for thought crime in the UK. 1984 is here if we didn't already know it.

Sending my didgeridoo messages to my special little friends now. Ugh!

I wasn't been flippant, I grew up in a deprived area and suffered much abuse growing up. But I see kids like myself on such estates can be easily enticed. It's them I'm thinking about.
Ban kids.

I dunno, does this not just make PSN now groomer city? Like YouTube doesn’t have the ease of access with messaging features so I can understand that being exempt (even if there’s no reason to have an account for general use) but PSN is widely available and now being reported everywhere that it’s exempt. Just enforce child accounts with closed inboxes, it’s not all that difficult. Removing all access is absurd but also things can’t continue as they are, middle ground people!

@nessisonett
Practically impossible to police though, surely?
It sounds great in theory imo, but that's theory.

sorry but i actually think its a good idea

@Michael2008ish Require a bank card to be paired to adult accounts. Not as much of a massive data processing and privacy disaster that the nonsense passport level ID requirements being touted for porn sites are, especially given 99% of accounts are paired to bank cards anyway. If the parent goes ahead anyway and gives their kid an adult account that’s both their right and their problem by that point. State can’t control everything but they can act as a helping hand.

@nessisonett
Good thinking my friend. 1st defence is the state, but ultimately it's down to the parents.

Wow - who would have thunk it?!?! That we should wait until detail comes out, before yelling the sky is falling. I think it's still early days yet, and I suspect whatever legislation that is put up, won't be the final version put into law. If it even makes it that far...

Take the slur "poms" out of this article. It's derogatory and offensive.
Secondly, us Brits living in Britain can't be poms because the word is used as a slur for British Immigrants who migrated to Australia

They could ban that sh1t for everyone on the planet, for all I care.

@Zemo55 Sorry... now I maybe biased... but the term "pom" in modern Australian parlance is not a slur...it is a term of familarity - but distance. It's generally considered good-natured (and not even that cheeky if I'm being honest). I think the term was used in the 50's for british immigrants being flooded into Australia (during the White Australia years) displacing jobs/opportunity... and it's derogiatory term is normally "wh*ng*ng pom". Those days are long gone (I thought).

Edit - to be fair... Australia's population is so diverse now, I suspect most people wouldn't have a clue what "pom" meant, or who it was referring to.

So - it's fine if you think it's a slur. From your perspective it might be... I'm just saying as an Australian, no one actually gives a flying <insert appropriate f word> about slurs when they say "pom". It's almost always used in sporting terms, as a term of competitive-endearment.

But on behalf of Australia... we withdraw any bad/offensive thing that may have been imported or said by anyone from Australia ever (Edit - Not including Neighbours... seriously, you can have that one).

And before anyone arcs up... this is all in jest. [post-script - apart from the Neighbours comment... that was 100% genuine... I promise]

This is the absolute most English thing I’ve read on this site. Well done.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare @Zemo55 Or maybe the article is written for Pomeranians. Fluffy dogs want to know this information too!

@LavenderShroud never trust the fluffy ones... never....

What do they hope to accomplish here other than reintroducing boredom to childhood? Maybe just go all in and ban anyone over the age of 17 from using social media to, get all these crazy old farts back into model trains and ham radios.

@Fartingale it's ok... you will always have your farts.

Nothing to do with protecting children, and 100% to do with ID’ing adults.

If it were about protecting children, it would include games as certain games seem to be riddled with creeps.

Suspicious that it seems to be limited to places where adults share information and ideas that Governments would prefer they didn’t.

Noting Zuckerberg’s admission and regrets that they censored true but inconvenient information on behalf of the US Govt a few years back, and given how we’ve seen the UK Govt behave.

mandatory digital id for all Australians. the first steps into tyranny. next steps for globalists to do: cbdc and social credit. this must be stopped! only 24 hours to form a opposition document and no public hearings. i sent a doccument and did my part. labor trying to quietly push Orwellian measures.

@LavenderShroud Well it should be the least English thing since he's using Australian slang (and is Australian, but he's playing it up here because the article's about Australia) whereas the other writers are English. 😄

16 is how the people running the world act

It may need a bit more thought, but at its core, I think this is a good idea.

@Zemo55 how does a snowflake manage to survive in the Australian heat? We need to study you!

@Matroska unfortunately they all write in American English even though they were taught correct spellings at school.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare bingo don't tell him what we call our new Zealand mates the sheep f....

@BrettAwesome Agreed. While I appreciate the irony of responding to you over the Internet, unknown to one another, I think social media is one of the worst things the Internet brought with it.

There does need to be SOMETHING done about the amount of social media used, and abused, by kids. But i'm not sure an outright ban is the right answer either. That will likely create as many problems as it solves. Law of unintended consequences and all that.

Removed - inappropriate language; user is banned

@Zemo55 It's a jokey word used in a lighthearted way, like yank and limey. Also, remember, a word is only offensive if you find it offensive. Australians use it in a bantery way, I can't imagine a British person in Australia being surrounded by Aussies as they're taunted with "pom" while crying. It's just a little fun jab, and we do the same back. Like how you're cheekier with your friends than you'd be with a stranger.

@riceNpea I know, every time I see "tidbit" and stuff like that... I guess that's the issue with being an internet journalist, you're just embedded so much in American culture.

@Matroska
I don't allow that as an excuse. Journalists are meant to be professional writers, so if I can tell the difference, they certainly should be able to.

I guess it's like any industry, you have the cowboys at the bottom, then the standard, entry-level, know the bare minimum, then the experts and then the masters. If you're constantly mixing Americanisms with English you're at level 2 of that scale and unlikely to go higher.

It is quite disappointing they don't include game's chats, but at least it is something. Hope it comes to Europe soon.

This is just another nail in the coffin of our freedoms being killed off! The world is more and more becoming a nanny state! More and more control by the government's of the world it's fast becoming a world wide dictatorship! Two-tier Keir in the UK is hated by the majority of his citizens!

@BrettAwesome While I think it would be great to get rid of social media, where do you draw the line? Would sites like this have the forums and comments removed? Forums are considered social media too.

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