Google won’t reveal if it is lobbying Trump about YouTube’s inclusion in Australia’s under-16s ban
Google has told parliament that Australia’s under-16s social media ban will be “extremely difficult to enforce”, but won’t say if it is lobbying the Trump administration about YouTube’s inclusion ahead of Anthony Albanese’s US visit,On Monday, Google and Microsoft appeared before a Senate inquiry on a range of age assurance and verification requirements being applied to social media and other aspects of the internet including search,Google’s senior manager of government affairs and public policy in Australia and New Zealand, Rachel Lord, told the inquiry the under-16s ban – which is expected to include YouTube – will have “unintended consequences” and won’t make children safer,Sign up: AU Breaking News email“The legislation will not only be extremely difficult to enforce, it also does not fulfil its promise of making kids safer online,” Lord told the inquiry,“YouTube has invested heavily in designing age-appropriate products and industry leading content controls and tools that allow parents to make choices for their families.
“Forcing kids to use YouTube without an account removes the very parental controls and safety filters built to protect them across sport, music, creative learning and classrooms.”The company’s director of government affairs and public policy, Stefanee Lovett, was asked whether Google was lobbying the US government on the matter ahead of the prime minister’s planned visit next week.Lovett said her Google colleagues in the US had been alerted about a “range of issues” being dealt with in Australia, but could not say if the Trump administration was being lobbied.“We’ve noted, senator, that the Australian prime minister will be travelling to the US next week, and we’ve talked to some of our colleagues about a range of issues that we’re dealing with in Australia at the moment, so that they understand the position,” she said, in response to the question from the committee’s chair, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young.Lord told the committee the ban, due to come into effect on 10 December, would impact safer access to YouTube’s services.
She also repeated Google’s claim that YouTube was not social media, but “a video-streaming platform that Australians use as a content library and a learning resource”.Lord said features such as no autoplay, break reminders and turning off personalised advertising would not be available to teens accessing YouTube in a logged-out state once the ban on under-16s holding an account is in effect.Guardian Australia reported earlier this month the grounds in which Google could legally challenge the government over YouTube’s inclusion in the under-16s social media ban.Liberal senator Sarah Henderson sought to clarify whether a legal challenge was still planned, but Lord would not answer directly.Sign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksafter newsletter promotion“To be clear, at this point in time, we are continuing to speak and engage constructively with the eSafety commissioner and the government on this issue,” Lord said.
Henderson said the inclusion of YouTube in the ban was a “betrayal” of young people, given the company had previously been given an exemption by the government when the legislation was developed and passed by the parliament last year,She said the Coalition – which campaigned for the broader under-16s social media ban – was receiving a lot of complaints about YouTube’s inclusion,TikTok, Snap, and Meta were also invited to give evidence at the inquiry but did not appear, despite meeting with the communications minister, Anika Wells, on Monday,Hanson-Young said the inquiry would consider compelling the companies to appear,Yahoo, age assurance providers, the eSafety commissioner, the privacy commissioner, and digital rights and youth advocacy groups will appear before the committee on Monday.
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Carmakers chose to cheat to sell cars rather than comply with emissions law, ‘dieselgate’ trial told
Car manufacturers decided they would rather cheat to prioritise “customer convenience” and sell cars than comply with the law on deadly pollutants, the first day of the largest group action trial in English legal history has been told.More than a decade after the original “dieselgate” scandal broke, lawyers representing 1.6 million diesel car owners in the UK argue that manufacturers deliberately installed software to rig emissions tests.They allege the “prohibited defeat devices” could detect when the cars were under test conditions and ensure that harmful NOx emissions were kept within legal limits, duping regulators and drivers.Should the claim be upheld, estimated damages could exceed £6bn
Vodafone outage: thousands of broadband and mobile users report problems
Tens of thousands of Vodafone customers in the UK have reported they could not access services including the internet and making mobile phone calls.Consumers started reporting problems on the website of the outage monitor Downdetector from about 3pm on Monday.By 3.20pm the number of reports of service disruption had risen to more than 135,000. According to a breakdown of the reported incidents, more than two-thirds related to customers who have Vodafone’s internet broadband services to their homes
Equity threatens mass direct action over use of actors’ images in AI content
The performing arts union Equity has threatened mass direct action over tech and entertainment companies’ use of its members’ likenesses, images and voices in AI content without permission.The warning came as the union said growing numbers of its members had made complaints about infringements of their copyright and misuse of their personal data in AI material.Its general secretary, Paul W Fleming, said it planned to coordinate data requests en masse to companies to force them to disclose whether they used members’ data in AI-generated material without consent.Last week the union confirmed its was supporting a Scottish actor who believes her image was used in the creation of the “AI actor” Tilly Norwood, which has been widely condemned by the film industry.Briony Monroe, 28, from East Renfrewshire, said she believed that an image of her face had been used to make the digital character, created by the AI “talent studio” Xicoia, which has denied her claims
AI could make it harder to establish blame for medical failings, experts say
The use of artificial intelligence in healthcare could create a legally complex blame game when it comes to establishing liability for medical failings, experts have warned.The development of AI for clinical use has boomed, with researchers creating a host of tools, from algorithms to help interpret scans to systems that can aid with diagnoses. AI is also being developed to help manage hospitals, from optimising bed capacity to tackling supply chains.But while experts say the technology could bring myriad benefits for healthcare, they say there is also cause for concern, from a lack of testing of the effectiveness of AI tools to questions over who is responsible should a patient have a negative outcome.Prof Derek Angus, of the University of Pittsburgh, said: “There’s definitely going to be instances where there’s the perception that something went wrong and people will look around to blame someone
Beau Greaves stuns Luke Littler in PDC world youth championship thriller
Beau Greaves won a thrilling last-leg decider to shock Luke Littler 6-5 in the semi-finals of the PDC world youth championship in Wigan.Greaves, a three-time WDF women’s world champion who has secured a PDC Tour card for the 2026-27 season, had gone 2-1 up in the semi-final. Littler responded with the next three legs, the PDC world champion competing the day after defeating rival Luke Humphries 6-1 in the World Grand Prix final in Leicester.Doncaster’s Greaves – who has also won the PDC Women’s World Matchplay twice – produced a recovery of her own to level the match at 4-4 and then again at 5-5 to force a last-leg decider. Greaves took out an 80 checkout as Littler slipped to a rare defeat despite a match average of 107
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