(PREVIEW) Social Media Ban | Honest Gov't Ad | + International visitors!
Dear Patrons
I have two important things to share with you!
Firstly, here's the preview of our next Honest Government Ad about the Social Media Ban.
That's right, finally an Australien Governmernt HGA! You've been so patient, Aussie Patrons (and I love you for it)
On Dec 10, our world-first ban on Social Media Ban for under 16s will come into effect. Many people, especially parents, support it (and their concerns are valid), while experts say this isn't the answer. Either way, it's happening. So this HGA's main purpose is to urge folks to look out for our young people over the coming weeks and months.
As always, you're the first to hear it so let me know if you have any feedback. (With the usual reminder than some things will make sense once you can see the visuals)
The video should be out in the next day or two!
Secondly:
if you're in Melbourne next week, come and join us in welcoming Chief Na'moks (Wet'Suwet'En nation) and Gwii Lok'im Gibuu (Gitxsan nation) to Naarm on Thursday 11 Dec!
These are the legends who invited us to the Peace & Unity Summit in northern British Cilumbia back in August. Now they've returned the favour by coming to Australia to meet friends and allies fighting Woodside - one of the partners behind the proposed Ksi Lisims LNG terminal and PRGT pipeline that would cross their ancestral lands. (The topic of our latest HGA)
Na'Moks and his delegation are currently visiting the Burrup peninsula (WA), the location of Woodside's North West Shelf LNG terminal and the sacred Murujuga rock-art. They will be in Naarm next week and this is a chance to meet these legends, hear about their visit to Australia, and form solidarity across the Pacific.
So, SAVE THE DATE and pass it on to others who might want to come:
Thursday 11 Dec at 6:15PM
VICTORIAN TRADES HALL
(This is a free event and places are limited)
I hope to see you there!
In other news:
The legends at Justice For Myanmar won the 2025 Right Livelihood Award! We can now also disclose that we collaborated with Justice Myanmar on our Visit Myanmar HGA last year. (We weren't able to do so at the time, due to safety concerns for JFM folks in Myanmar).
Take care,
Giordano
Comments (9)
I feel like I missed a video so I apologize if my comment is out of context. I worry that a storyline that people are generally missing is that corporations have become super-national political entities. State level control is pretty meaningless in the face of a small percent of people who have a massive stranglehold on resource distribution. Of course Facebook doesn't enforce age limits and of course we all accept it because we hold these multinational entities to a lower standard than we do public officials. We have been trained for decades to see this as the right way to measure accountability. I live in Canada. I feel like my similar colonial origin story makes it easy enough to relate to Australia. As I read this thread I hear our mutually contained narratives talking about the small parts of a bigger problem. Does anyone recall when Dick Cheney basically admitted that empires are 20 years ahead of the common script? That's real. We are deep in a culture of distraction, not Brave New World or 1984, but both at the same time.
As someone who lives in regional Australia with a queer and disabled young person this has been a frequent topic of conversation in my house. They are having access to their support network cut off. It sucks I appreciate that you addressed the lack of care for our whole community in favour of letting billionaires do their thing and just slapping a band-aid on a festering wound
Thank you Rose, it's heartening to know this episode addresses your situation. Thank you so much for supporting our work xo
I now wish that we still had land lines and dial phones. Honestly!
We are seriously talking about doing it in our home, Mark!
Isn’t this a form of holding a social media company to account? Facebook requires users to be at least 13 years old globally, but they don’t enforce this at all. I also don’t believe it’s perfect, but the tone of “it’s not good enough, therefore it’s bad” - rather than “let’s do more and be better” feels very cynical. I did really enjoy when the ad started to talk about how we could do better with stronger regulation and the discussion around it.
Thanks Sean, glad you appreciated that section! I don't think the video says "it's not good enough, therefore it's bad" but rather "this won't address the problem we're trying to solve". Social media companies don't view this as a threat to their model at all.. age assurance allows them to leave their business model largely in tact. And let's the government off the hook for tackling the problem in ways which would achieve real reforms. Also, the ‘it’s not great but it’s something’ angle ignores the ways in which it is actually bad. It's a complex topic to be sure, and peoples' concerns about the harms of social media are absolutely valid. I just think our kids deserve better than this
The HGA is on the money... Oz, the first country to make an absolute dick of itself in the mire. As usual.
Thanks Bryan. We sure are world leaders in some respects