30 January 2026

Welcome to a relatively quiet week

After the flurry of activity around the government’s hate speech legislation last week, things have settled back into the summer doldrums. There’s still some poking at the teen social media ban, and there’s always news of AI, but not a whole lot else.

Well, except for the Opposition descending into chaos, but that’s outside the scope of this newsletter.

France has joined the rapidly growing list of nations planning to introduce their own social media bans.

And Services Australia gets a slap for not bothering to follow the law for six years.

Thank you to the generous readers who’ve thrown a few dollars into the tip jar in recent weeks. Feel free to join them.

Teen social media ban

Communications minister Anika Wells has refused to release documents relating to what the government knew about the constitutional validity (or not) of the teen social media ban before introducing it.

Wells argues that if the government revealed its internal discussions it could compromise its position in the two High Court challenges to the ban, one by Reddit and one by two teens.

An analysis of this comment might suggest that there was indeed advice that it might not be constitutional, or why would you be worried about releasing it?

In any event, this week Western Australian Senator Fatima Payman told iTnews that she’ll be challenging that refusal in the Senate.

Meanwhile, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has invited Australians to provide feedback on the ban — although she did this in a LinkedIn post, and your humble writer does not do LinkedIn. Why didn’t she use her own website?

Inman Grant was also given a gong in the Australia Day honours list, namely a Public Service Medal. “It is a rare privilege to be in a position where you can help your fellow citizens, do things differently, and drive meaningful, lasting change,” she said.

PREVIEWING THAILAND’S ELECTIONS: In my latest podcast I talk about Thai politics and other news from South-East Asia in The 9pm 57 Varieties of Thai with Erin Cook. Look for The 9pm Edict in your podcast app.

Also in the news

• The security of myGov depends in a large part on the myGov Code Generator app for two-factor authentication, but is it really secure? For years, developer Fraser Tweedale has been trying to get the source code for public review, but the government refuses. Now he’s taking it to the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART), and he’s crowdsourcing the legal fees. At the time of writing he’s a bit over 55% of the way to his target.

• From iTnews, “Services Australia has agreed to document the business rules used by its 40-year-old mainframe-based core system to calculate aged pension entitlements after a series of errant payments”. So that’s good, I guess?

• Meanwhile, Services Australia knowingly broke the law for six years while waiting for a new child support system which never came. The Commonwealth Ombudsman’s report (PDF) has the subtle title Following the law is not optional.

• Data from the Alannah & Madeline Foundation (AMF) suggests that around 80% of parents believe that it’s the government’s job to enforce children’s data protection.

• ABC News has a lengthy feature on what the US deal with TikTok means for Australia.

• NSW Police Force is using AI-powered tools, and tech experts and civil liberties advocates are calling for greater transparency and stronger safeguards. The tools in question are made by Australian intelligence software company Fivecast.

• “Australian journalism is largely ‘invisible’ in AI-generated news summaries from Microsoft Copilot, which overwhelmingly favour US or European media,” reports the Guardian. Here’s the research paper.

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Elsewhere

• The French Parliament has voted to ban social media for under-15s, at least in the lower house. The ban will have to be ratified in the Senate. Such bans are not far away in several other European nations.

• Platformer has a detailed discussion on what a big study of teens says about social media, and what it can’t. Well worth reading.

• AI-generated advertising outperforms human creative, as long as it doesn’t look too artificial, according to new research.

• It’s not just Grok AI and X, of course. “Millions of people around the world are creating and sharing deepfake nudes on the secure messaging app Telegram, a Guardian analysis has shown, as the spread of advanced AI tools industrialises the online abuse of women.”

• Most AI assistants are presented as feminine, and that’s fuelling dangerous stereotypes and abuse.

• An American company sent staff a questionnaire asking what to do about employees who resist using AI. The “correct” answer was: “Let go of detractors, ‘negativos’, AI-resistors, and pass-through middle managers.”

• A cyber attack on servers of the Delta smart alarm system crippled cars across Russia, with drivers unable unlock cars or stop active alarms, or start their engines. There’s even reports of engines jamming while driving.

• The Conversation has an interesting discussion of the social forces behind Chinese app Are You Dead?, something that’s gone viral in recent weeks.

• An app for beating porn addiction has leaked users' masturbation habits ($, but I’m sure you can find a way). This included their age, which was often reported as under 18, their “triggers” for watching porn, and how they felt afterwards. This reminds of the time that a smart sex toy leaked such data.

• From the Lowy Institute’s The Interpreter, China’s cyber forces are impressive, and growing.

Inquiries of note

Nothing new this week.

What’s next?

Parliament returns this coming Tuesday 3 February for three days.

According to the draft legislation program for the Senate, there should be debate on the Copyright Amendment Bill 2025 and the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill.

The House of Representatives program includes the Copyright Amendment Bill 2025 and the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025.

As always, new bills may be introduced at any time according to the needs of the news cycle — sorry, I mean for the good government of the nation.

The following week the House of Reps will sit for four days while there’s some supplementary Senate Estimates hearings.

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