this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2025
13 points (100.0% liked)

Australia

4489 readers
92 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
lodion@aussie.zone
bestusername@aussie.zone
eatham@aussie.zone
Nath@aussie.zone
13
Age verification fun (aussie.zone)
submitted 1 month ago by shirro@aussie.zone to c/australia@aussie.zone
17 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Anyone want to share dramas with age verification for kids accounts?

top 17 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] shirro@aussie.zone 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

So first one was having to tell some yank company all my kids ages and gender (wtf?) to access their Disney+ profiles despite me being the adult who runs the account and having set appropriate limits like G and PG for them. Why the fuck does disney have to know a kid or a dog or a cat is watching if I pay the money. (However this started we all know Disney wants it for future targeted advertising and everyone in on this bandwagon for ulterior motives now)

Now my 17 year old (practically 18) needed to install an app in google play on his phone. Google play insisted on age verification. It wouldn't accept his visa card. It wouldn't accept his drivers license and then it shat itself but looks like he is verified now but now now it won't let him install apps. It's still happy to advertise to him though.

[–] quokka1@mastodon.au 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

@shirro I can see me having fun in a while. I deliberately gave big G an incorrect birth year for my son so as to get him access to something. Can't remember what. And now that's all in Family Link.
I'm expecting the internet police to come knocking.

[–] shirro@aussie.zone 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I gave a fake age years ago, only by a year to get around some bullshit. Had to correct that when I verified :-(

He is a good kid. He doesn't give a shit about crap like social media. I just wanted to install an open source email client for our self hosted family email and I had to get it via f-droid because its apparently for 18+ on google play. Like he is old enough to download and compile it from source. What is this bullshit? It let him have Signal though that was a while back. The younger kids are all on family link - but 17?

[–] MisterFrog@aussie.zone 1 points 4 weeks ago

They don't need to know, they want to know to make more profit, and daring you to unsubscribe.

We live in the Wild-West age of the internet where companies get away with anything they like

[–] MidsizedSedan@lemmy.world 11 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I went to my moms place for dinner. See baby bro just watching YouTube shorts on moms phone. This rule will change nothing.

[–] No1@aussie.zone 8 points 4 weeks ago

Parents are gonna have so many phones.

One personal, one for work, one for each child lol.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Has age verification started rolling out? I haven't had to do it anywhere yet.

Then again, my Reddit account is one of my younger social media accounts, and it's 13. And if you assume a 2-year-old is not creating a Reddit account, it's pretty easy to prove that I'm over 16.

[–] shirro@aussie.zone 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Perhaps some companies are trying to get ahead of the game. It they can demonstrate they are ahead of things it might be a bargaining point.

The google one was kind of weird because I wouldn't consider the app in question an adult only app, the account had aged to 18 from probably 5 or so years ago. And it is my first time seeing the option to verify age with a picture or government id like they have in the UK now.

Disney wasn't an age verification in the sense of the Australia/UK laws and I am fairly sure it was a demographics update to gather more marketing information for the option of a future advertising rollout. Just general enshitification.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago

Perhaps some companies are trying to get ahead of the game. It they can demonstrate they are ahead of things it might be a bargaining point.

Oh you sweet summer child... This is surveillance capitalism taking the opportunity to positively ID as many users as possible, while they can. Some time in the next year or so, after the dangers are proven, restrictions will be put in place, but with the current intentionally-vague free-for-all they can capture your child's religion and blood type, and ask you to upload every ID you own, because the majority will do it without question, so they will. They are never deleting anything, ever.

[–] treleanor@aus.social 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

@Zagorath @shirro If they ask for gender, will they accept other answers? Nonbinary? Intersex?

[–] shirro@aussie.zone 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

What pissed me off with the Disney one was them putting it on my kid's profiles instead of sending me an email. From memory they did give a non-binary/intersex/prefer not to say sort of option but there is no winning choice because no matter what you supply it has the potential to be used as an algorithmic input in future and deliver overly narrow content. I don't think they should requesting that information. When the yearly subscription runs out they are gone along with the rest.

[–] treleanor@aus.social 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

@shirro Yes, you’re right. They shouldn’t be asking that. Just more information fed to them.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yo ho, me hearties, yo ho!

[–] shirro@aussie.zone 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Jellyfin doesn't know shit about my kids' age, gender or political beliefs and that is the way we like it.

[–] lodion@aussie.zone 7 points 1 month ago

It works without Internet too...

[–] Salvo@aussie.zone 1 points 4 weeks ago

The fact that you are using Jellyfin does infer your political beliefs.

Even Plex users are likely to be politically different to Jellyfin users.

[–] melbaboutown@aussie.zone 1 points 1 month ago

🫩