I’m pretty sure we’re all across the recent decision to restrict social media to people aged 16+, but has any thought been put into how we’ll respond to this?

I know we have about a year to figure it all out, but I am worried about the future of aussie.zone. @[email protected] @[email protected] do you have the time to implement something? Do you feel comfortable collecting the required information and managing age verification? Are donations sufficient to allow you to pay some other company to do it for you?

Another option is that we may be able to apply for an exemption from the eSafety Commissioner - but is that an actual option? Do either of you have the ability and time to procure the required documentation and write letters to the commissioner, or whatever else is needed?

Perhaps more importantly; what modifications could even be put in place that would be compatible with Lemmy? Will the instance just shut down?

If worse comes to worst, could another option be disabling signups and banning/removing all users, but keeping the instance open as a remote instance accessible solely through other instances?

Forgive me if I am being cynical and jumping the gun, but I am genuinely concerned that a solution won’t be found, or neither of you will have the time/ability to implement one, forcing aussie.zone to come to a close. I really love our little instance, and it would be a major shame to see it go.

Whatever happens, please don’t just leave us in the dark before eventually pulling the plug on AZ with a couple of days notice (or worse: no notice)

  • Lodion 🇦🇺MA
    14·
    4 days ago

    All good questions, that I don’t have any answers to. Plenty of time to figure it out… I’ll probably be looking at the larger players to see where this goes, and what clarifying information the government put out next year.

    • Zagorath
      3·
      2 days ago

      One thought I had was of trying to get an exemption for us. It’s a stretch, but if we all sent letters to our MPs and the relevant Minister explaining what we are and why we’re not really the intended audience (very small. Mostly adults anyway. Doesn’t use an algorithm designed to keep people addicted because it’s an open source community project.), just maybe we could get the Minister to declare an exemption for aussie.zone. It’s an outside chance, but possible—especially if anyone happens to be friendly with some Government MPs already. (I, unfortunately, am not…unless the next election results in a shock Greens majority 😅)

      The only downside I can see of this approach is that it might put us “on the radar” of the government in some sense, though what that would mean in practice is probably nothing, it could be a concern to think about. I would only send such a letter of you wanted that kind of campaign.

      • Aussiemandeus
        2·
        2 days ago

        Yeah I think any exception for us just brings attention to us which is a double edged sword. More users more members etc more scrutiny unfortunately though

        • Zagorath
          2·
          2 days ago

          Partly I think that will depend on whether exceptions are made publicly available via a list of something. (Certainly, it’ll be possible to get them via an RTI, but that’s not nearly the same exposure.) And also partly on how many exceptions are given. If we were one of 4 exceptions that would be very different from if we were one of 400.

    • BakuOPEnglish
      3·
      4 days ago

      Thanks for the response. If I might ask, are you prepared to put something in place if it required modifications to Lemmy code, an additional piece of software to host, or paying another company to do it on your behalf?

      Apologies for the directness, not insinuating you wouldn’t do whatever’s needed to comply out of malice or laziness or anything like that. I remember you mentioning in the past that you’re time poor, so I’m just trying to mentally prepare for whatever’s going to happen.

      Also, if you can’t come to a solution, or it’d be too intense to implement, or cost too much to maintain or whatever, could you commit to us as much of a heads up as possible? I’ve seen a few Lemmy instances shut down with minimal notice (albeit, much smaller than AZ). If it comes to that, it would be really good to have time to organise ourselves and figure out where we’re headed next (this is particularly in the context of the Melbourne daily threads, but does also apply to a lesser extent elsewhere across the instance)