The News

Government knows a lot of kids will get around the ban. What they’ll find on the other side of it isn’t pretty

The benefits from the teen social media ban will be undermined if people are getting around it, the government has been privately warned (Crikey, $). The Albanese goverment has always said it expects some kids to get around the ban. Now, research commissioned by the government but not released shows that 1 in 3 parents are planning on helping their kids get around it. This could “snowball” and become normalised, said the report’s authors, based on interviews they did with teens and parents.

The Sizzle: The teen social media ban is a popular policy, so I’m surprised to see that so many parents will help their kids thwart it. Add to that number kids who find ways around the ban without their parents, and you’re looking at a lot of people getting around the ban.

So what? One thing that is being massively under-appreciated is that: what kids will experience if they get around the ban is a much less friendly space (Crikey, $). Experts and tech companies have told me and warned publicly that kids will be using social media platforms without the youth safety guardrails that currently apply. Or maybe even going to dodgy, non-compliant websites. The problem with circumvention isn’t that the ban won’t work — it’s that kids are being herded to less safe parts of the internet.

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Elon Musk owes roughly $10,000 to a lot of Australian Tesla owners

Some Australian Tesla owners are fuming after pointlessly forking over money for a car and software based on Elon Musk’s lies about self-driving (Electrek). The recent release of “““Full Self-Driving””” Australia is only available for people whose Teslas have the most recent self-driving hardware, HW4, and not the previous HW2 and HW3. This is a problem because Tesla said in 2016 that all of their cars would be able to support self-driving. That was a lie. People who bought vehicles and even pre-ordered software, but Tesla is now only releasing features for the latest HW4 owners.

Now, owners of the older vehicles are joining a class action to sue the company (Electrek) and the company is offering a $5,000 discount on new vehicles for people who bought FSD. Except, as Electrek notes, this isn’t just for older hardware owners, but for anyone with FSD lol. So, plenty of Australians have just given Musk a free loan and rushed to buy his products — and are now being treated like shit.

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Australia’s tech lobby CEO leaves suddenly at an interesting moment

The chief executive of Australia’s tech lobby group has “abruptly” quit (AFR, $). Former Afterpay exec and Labor staffer Damian Kassabgi has resigned from the Tech Council of Australia after just 16 months in the job. In a note, Kassabgi said he wanted “better and healthier balance”. The AFR reports that members were “underwhelmed by his notably lower public profile” than his predecessor and the group’s “seeming lack of policy direction” under his leadership. FYI — TCA represents a bunch of Australian tech companies like Canva, some big global ones like Microsoft, and a few VC firms.

The Sizzle: I have no reason to doubt Kassabgi’s rationale for leaving the job, given that he lives in Byron and commutes a lot. A few people I spoke to today didn’t seem surprised that he was leaving early.

Beyond the palace intrigue, I’ve been closely watching TCA since Atlassian founder Scott Farquhar became its chair. At a time when everyone wants a piece of the tech sector, TCA’s biggest splashes recently have been (sometimes clumsily) arguments for controversial changes like watering down copyright laws or digital embassie..

Critics of the group’s direction have asked why a group supposedly representing Australian tech companies would be pushing so hard for changes that seem to primarily benefit global companies here in Australia? With Kassabgi out, I’m expecting some changes in approach — and maybe finding out how much of this recent push has come from its new chair.

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Leftovers

Australia:

Rest of the world:

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Oh, Also

Japan gets all the cool things

One thing that Google Japan is known for is coming up with various whacky keyboard designs — as a joke, I think. I have only just come across this year’s contribution: a rotary telephone-style keyboard. It also comes with a stand that will end a call when you put your mouse on it (à la a phone handset). Google isn’t selling it, unfortunately, but it has open-sourced its design. Please tell me if you make one.

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Bargains

Electrical & Electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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