The News

Does the government want the good or bad news about the teen social media ban first?

Reddit, X and Bluesky will kick teens off their platforms under social media ban beginning tomorrow — but at least one of them isn’t going down without a fight. Reddit will comply with the law but is also preparing to join a constitutional challenge over its inclusion, the AFR reported this morning. We got a peek of their arguments when friend of the Sizzle Josh Taylor got his hands on a letter sent by Reddit about its “legally erroneous inclusion” to eSafety (Guardian Australia). Meanwhile, I wrote that Google’s decision to comply with the ban on YouTube doesn’t mean it’s ruled out a legal challenge (Crikey, $).

Also, the government is going to light up landmarks green and gold and play a video of the Prime Minister in school classrooms nationwide to mark the ban coming into effect tomorrow. _{(i’m not sure it’s completely fair but I will say these efforts aren’t exactly helping dispel the charges of government overreach!)}

The Sizzle: Cards on the table, I don’t think the most extreme predictions of failure will happen tomorrow. I wrote last week that millions of age checks will be done by data analysis, meaning that many, if not most, Australians won’t notice the ban happening. Yes, there will be a lot of noise, a lot of embarrassing failures, etc, but I think after the first hump, this will all fade into the background as people largely move on.

That’s not comforting to me because I’m more worried about the people whose problems won’t be heard. The kids excluded, vulnerable people unable to figure out the systems, etc. I’ll have more to say on this, but I don’t think success for the ban will be measured about how people are affected tomorrow. It’s how it affects people a week, month, year from now.

Further reading: ‘Everyone got paid’: How Wippa’s pro-teen social media ban group cashed in on its success (Crikey, $)

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Samsung is dropping the ball on protecting its users

Samsung is dragging its feet rolling out crucial patches to dangerous Android exploits despite warnings that these are being used to attack people (Forbes). More than a week ago, Google put out a red alert that two exploits are being used for “limited, targeted exploitation” and promised to give source code to manufacturers for a patch shortly after (Forbes). Two days later, it had rolled out an update for all Pixel users (Forbes). But Samsung, which produces a third of all Android devices as its biggest manufacturer, has still not done so. Nor has it released even its November patches yet, I think? Crazy!

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Is Elon eyeing Australia as one of the next Robotaxi destinations?

Tesla’s Robotaxi app has launched in Australia, stoking speculation that we might be one of the next places on the list for the Elon Musk-owned carmaker’s autonomous driving ambitions (The Driven). A reader of great Australian EV outlet The Driven tipped them off to the app now being in the Australian iOS App Store — but the service is still limited to Austin, Texas.

Anecdotally, when I broke the story that Waymo was beginning talks to trial in Australia, I’d heard second-hand from someone in the industry that both Waymo and Tesla were serious about trying to launch something here in 2026. Add this to the evidence column!

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Leftovers

Australia:

Rest of the world:

Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Oh, Also

The new AI benchmark is whether it can make something like the Space Jam website

Yesterday, I shared a blog about how popular AI service Claude was unable to recreate the iconic Space Jam website from 1996. Well, don’t I have egg on my face! Some other guy was able to use Claude with a bit more of a pro set-up to code a replica.

Look, honestly, I’m not super impressed that you can recreate something beautiful. The true test is whether you can come up with something unique that’s as beautiful and distinctive as the 30 year old website for a movie about cartoons playing basketball.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Bargains

Electrical & Electronics

Computing

The End

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