Monday Dec 08, 2025
Verification Nation: Inside Australia’s Great Social Media Lockout
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Australia is launching a world-first "grand experiment" by banning social media for under-16s and mandating age verification for search engines, threatening fines of up to $49.5 million for tech giants that fail to comply. We explore the massive privacy trade-offs as millions of Australians—adults included—face requirements to submit government IDs or undergo biometric face scans just to remain logged into services like Google and Instagram. From teenagers planning to bypass the "digital firewall" with VPNs to critics warning of a permanent expansion of the surveillance state, we investigate whether this policy will save the youth or simply push them into the internet’s darkest corners.
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