Australia is introducing age checks for search engines like Google

Motives and “Protect the Children” Framing

• Many see the policy as less about kids and porn and more about:
  • Building a censorship/surveillance regime and ending online anonymity.
  • Creating infrastructure to identify dissidents and expand “online hate” policing.
• “Save the children” is repeatedly described as emotional cover, similar to anti‑terror laws, for expanding state power and chilling dissent.
• Some argue Australian politics uses such culture-war issues as red herrings to avoid tackling housing, child support, and other structural problems.

Surveillance, Data, and Corporate Incentives

• Strong concern that mandatory age checks will:
  • Produce centralised lists linking real identities to search behavior.
  • Force citizens to hand IDs/biometrics to leaky third-party contractors.
  • Entrench Google/Microsoft by imposing costly compliance smaller search engines can’t meet (regulatory capture).
• Others note big platforms already effectively de‑anonymise most users; opponents reply that mandating this everywhere, via law, is a dangerous escalation.

Effectiveness and Circumvention

• Widespread belief that motivated teens will bypass controls via VPNs, foreign engines (e.g., Yandex), SearXNG, token-sharing, or older friends/strangers.
• Comparisons to alcohol/nicotine ID checks: usage by minors remains common.
• Some foresee an arms race: as kids route around measures, governments may move next to restrict VPNs.

Parental Responsibility vs State Role

• One camp argues: teach and empower parents (parental controls, devices in shared spaces) rather than impose national ID checks.
• Another notes a “collective action problem”: one family banning phones isolates their child unless everyone else does too, so many parents welcome state intervention.

Public Opinion and Democratic Legitimacy

• Several commenters think most Australians, especially parents, support such measures and will reward them electorally.
• Others report surprise at how little specific scrutiny such policies receive despite compulsory voting and proportional systems; they see a sense of political impotence.

Porn Harms vs Civil Liberties

• Some insist ubiquitous, extreme, HD porn is qualitatively different from past eras and harmful to children’s development.
• Others call this overstated or unproven, arguing that even if harms exist, sacrificing broad privacy and anonymous speech is too high a price.