Plus: Turn newsletters into RSS ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

June 18, 2025 | Read online
# Aussies love/don't know what age assurance is, Iran WhatsApp ban and Mastodon's AI plea Plus: Turn newsletters into RSS
Edition 2355
Flickr: kkanouse
Hi all, a quick, special shout-out to Sizzler Dan whose company MagicBrief got bought by Canva (SmartCompany) 👀.
# The News
### Aussies love age assurance tech! They also have NFI what it is
Australians almost unanimously support enforcing the teen social media ban using technologies they mostly don’t know about and assume will have, at worst, no negative consequences for them. Last night, the government released a big survey on age assurance tech (Department of Comms) which I wrote about for Crikey ($) and was also posted about by Sizzler Justin (Mastodon). The takeaway is that while it’s popular to do so in theory but, in practice, Australians have no idea and, therefore, aren’t too worried about all the big problems that have been raised. It’s easy to imagine this could change if people start getting asked for their passport to access TikTok. The bit of the survey that I wanted to share with Sizzlers is this chart: Teens say the major reason they use social media is to connect with friends and family, for hobbies and to do work. In all the chat of the downside risk of social media, there’s not much appreciation for what is being taken away by banning it altogether.
Good we’re getting rid of this
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### When push comes to shove, the global internet feels like a risk to countries
I try to make the Sizzle a haven from everything awful that’s happening, but stories about Iran telling its citizens not to use WhatsApp (AP) and telling its top officials to avoid using anything connected to the internet (Times of Israel) are super interesting. Very different in potential risk, but both show how these global systems and platforms go from being a part of everyday life to a threat vector when your country doesn’t own them. It also shows how even things like WhatsApp’s E2EE aren’t a magic bullet: despite what Meta says about not being able to read messages, even metadata can give you enough information to put you at risk in war.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Mastodon: ‘Pretty please don’t scrape our posts for AI’
Mastodon is asking politely for people to not scrape data from its official server to train AI and to only use its services if they are 16 or older, according to its new terms (TechCrunch). I’m being a bit mean because these rules don’t count for anything without enforcement. The US hoovering up online data to use in its immigration system (Freedom House) is a wake-up call that we should assume anything we put publicly online will be permanently associated with us. While we’re talking fediverse, Threads now has an integrated reverse chronological feed (TechCrunch) but it’s not enough to change the fact that my “Threads could supercharge the fediverse” hope was completely wrong.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
NIB denies using social media to predict health (Information Age) Optus to face $100 million penalty for unconscionable conduct selling products to vulnerable customers (ABC News) Defence's AI Centre hunts value in 1 billion unstructured documents (IT News) Deal-making Canva reports spike in paying users as it nears IPO (AFR, $) Industry reacts to Amazon's $20b Australian data centre spend (Information Age) Conspiracy theorists are building AI chatbots to spread their beliefs (Crikey, $) AI Use at Work Has Nearly Doubled in Two Years (Gallup) Trump is giving TikTok another ban extension (The Verge) Cybersecurity takes a big hit in new Trump executive order (Ars Technica) Apple's Home Hub smart home display leaks in iOS beta code (Apple Insider) The 560-pound Twitter sign met a fiery end in a Nevada desert (Engadget) Bloomberg just released the most embarrassing report about Tesla, Waymo, and self-driving (Electrek) Musk’s xAI Burns Through $1 Billion a Month as Costs Pile Up (Bloomberg, $) Google’s Gemini panicked when playing Pokémon (TechCrunch) “Usually law enforcement is very secretive about them analyzing the phones of suspects. But a forensic lab in #montana is extremely transparent about it… Everyone with Internet access can access those dumps.” (Mastodon) Bots are overwhelming websites with their hunger for AI data (The Register) Resurrecting a dead torrent tracker and finding 3 million peers (Kian Bradley’s blog) What Google Translate Can Tell Us About Vibecoding (Ingrid’s Space) Humanoid robots, astronauts, and huge lines: Photos from China’s pavilion at the World Expo (Rest of World)
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### Turn newsletters into RSS with this cool tool
I am an RSS-head. And I’m terrible with email. (No the irony is not lost on me). I know many paid RSS readers already have this feature, but I wanted to share Kill the Newsletter. It’s a free service that allows you to turn a newsletter into an RSS feed by creating an email address that ingests editions and spits them out into RSS. There’s plenty of uses for this including — oh I don’t know — a certain Australian daily tech newsletter which offers an RSS feed that doesn’t work with the full, paywalled edition. Bon appetit!
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electronics & electrical
Sound Blaster G8 - $195.46 at Creative Sennheiser HD 560S Open-Back Over-Ear Headphones - $199.20 at Sennheiser eBay Topping DX3 Pro+ Headphone DAC AMP - $255 at Addicted to Audio Huawei Watch GT 5 Smartwatch - Denim Blue - $262.54 at Amazon AU Winix Zero 4-Stage Hospital Grade True HEPA Air Purifier - $279 at Amazon AU Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 Headphones - $299 at Addicted to Audio Apple Watch SE (2nd Gen) 40mm Starlight Aluminium Case GPS Sport Band - $329 at JB Hi-Fi Dreame Mova S10 Plus Robot Vacuum Cleaner & Mop - $449.89 at Dreame Official AU via Amazon AU Kogan 70" QLED 4K Tizen Smart TV (with Samsung TV Plus) - T96Q - $729 at Dick Smith Roborock Qrevo S Robot Vacuum with Multifunctional Dock - $849 at Mobileciti eBay DJI Osmo Pocket 3 Creator Combo - $1010.69 at Sydneymobiles eBay
Computing
ZSUS 14" 2160x1440 IPS Portable Monitor - $83.12 at ZSUS Store AliExpress GL.iNet GL-MT3000 (Beryl AX) WiFi 6 Travel Router - $103.35 at GL.iNet Amazon AU Teclast T50 Mini (8.7" 120Hz, 8GB/128GB, Helio G99, 4G, Widevine L1) - $151.26 at Teclast Official AliExpress Western Digital SN740 2TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 2230 SSD - $157.18 at Storage Choice Store AliExpress GL.inet Flint 2 (GL-MT6000) - $186 at GL.inet via Amazon AU Crucial Pro DDR5 64GB (2x32GB) 5600MHz CL46 RAM - $218.65 at Amazon US via AU Apple iPad 11" A16 Wi-Fi 128GB - $484.99 at Costco HP Pavilion Aero 13.3" QHD, AMD Ryzen 5 8640U, 16GB, 512GB Silver - $759.20 at HP eBay Lenovo 14" IdeaPad Slim 5 Laptop: AI QC XPlus 16GB, 512GB SSD Copilot + PC - $947 at Amazon Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 14 OLED AMD Ryzen AI 5-340/24GB/512GB SSD Laptop and 10% back in a gift card - $1098 at Domayne ASUS Zenbook 14 3K OLED Intel Core Ultra 5, 16GB/1TB 14" Laptop UX3405CA-PZ354W - $1599 at JB Hi-Fi Apple MacBook Air M3 Grey at JB Hi-Fi 13" (24GB/512GB) for $1592 15" Grey (24GB/512GB) for $1796 ASUS 14” Zenbook DUO Core Ultra 9 32GB/1TB Dual-Screen AI PC - $2662 at Officeworks
Mobile
Boost Mobile Cashback: 28-Day Prepaid SIM 65GB SIM for $11 95GB SIM for $15 Boost Mobile 290GB Prepaid 12-Month SIM with $50 cashback - $255
# The End
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