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mining

Multiple Nations Are Turning To Brazil For Rare Earth Minerals, Raising Environmental Concerns 

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Brazil is emerging as an alternative to China’s dominance when it comes to rare earth minerals, leading to a global race to secure the materials that are used for nearly everything. From clean energy resources, smart technology, medical equipment, batteries, lights, and so much more, having access to these minerals is integral for nearly every industry. 

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police

Record Cocaine Bust in Australia Uncovers Buried Drug Caches and Suspected Crime Network

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A record cocaine seizure in Australia has exposed what police described as an elaborate international trafficking operation involving buried drug caches, a suspected foreign supply vessel and an alleged Sydney-based crime network.

Authorities said Monday that investigators recovered 2.7 tons of cocaine from underground bunkers hidden on a semi-rural property in Londonderry, a northwestern suburb of greater Sydney.

The drugs, which police said were packed inside plastic tubs and buried beneath false floors, represent the largest cocaine seizure ever recorded in Australia and the country’s biggest drug bust in nearly two decades, second only to a 4.5-ton MDMA seizure in Melbourne in 2007.

The discovery was made Friday during an operation by a joint organized crime task force, with Australian Federal Police working alongside investigators from multiple states as part of Operation Minjiang, a Queensland-based task force focused on an alleged east coast drug network.

Two men, ages 21 and 25, were arrested at the property after they allegedly tried to flee from officers. Police described them as lower-level participants in a wider importation network linked to the Coconut Cartel syndicate, which authorities said includes former members of a prominent Sydney crime family. Each has been charged with possessing a commercial quantity of an unlawfully imported drug, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. The men were refused bail Saturday and are expected to appear in Penrith Local Court on August 13.

Investigators allege the cocaine was imported through northern Queensland, where a foreign vessel offloaded the shipment before it was moved south to Sydney for distribution. Authorities said the importation was allegedly arranged by a Sydney-based organized crime group.

A vessel suspected of serving as the mother ship in the importation, the MV Wealth, has been detained in the Solomon Islands while authorities continue to examine its alleged role. The vessel is registered in Belize, though investigators said the cocaine’s point of origin remains unclear and may have been loaded anywhere from South America to northeast Asia.

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Australian Federal Police Commander Stephen Jay said investigators are still working to trace the shipment and identify the broader network behind it.

“Investigations into the origin of the drugs remain ongoing, and we will work with our international and domestic law enforcement partners to identify the criminal syndicates.”

Jay said the cocaine could have generated more than Aus$800 million ($560 million) if sold on the street — proceeds that, “won’t make it into the pockets of organized crime.” Police placed the estimated street value at about Aus$816 million and said the amount seized was equivalent to roughly 3 million street-level deals.

“This alleged plot to distribute nearly three tons of cocaine … demonstrates how highly organized and determined these criminal networks are,” Jay said.

“We will work … to identify the criminal syndicates and anyone else involved in facilitating this alleged attempted drug import,” he added.

Jay said the loss would likely reverberate through the criminal network behind the shipment.

“There’ll be some soul-searching, no doubt, about losing Australia’s largest quantity of cocaine,” he said.

Police said six other people linked to the alleged importation had already been arrested and charged with drug-related offenses. One of them, a 31-year-old woman, allegedly lived at a suspected safehouse connected to the operation and was involved in storing the cocaine.

The broader investigation began in May, after Queensland police found 40 kilograms of cocaine in the water near the Midge Point boat ramp following reports of a burned-out flatbed truck. The six people later charged faced varying allegations, including drug possession and dealing with proceeds of crime.

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“We know criminals go to extreme lengths, and often risk their own lives, to smuggle drugs into Australia with no regard to the harm they cause to Australian communities.”

Since Operation Minjiang began in May, authorities have also seized 178 kilograms of cocaine and 142 kilograms of methamphetamine, bringing the total amount of drugs confiscated through the investigation to more than 3 tons.

Queensland Police Acting Chief Superintendent Troy Pukallus said the case grew from local police work into a broader multi-agency investigation.

“What began with the actions of Mackay police … evolved into a sophisticated, multi-agency investigation targeting an organized criminal network,” he said.

The case also highlights the growing role of Pacific Island states as transit points for illicit drug shipments headed toward Australia and New Zealand. Authorities have previously warned that cocaine and methamphetamine are being moved through the region from as far away as South America and Southeast Asia.

“Criminals don’t care about borders, and they exploit our oceans to traffic drugs,” police said in a post on social media.

The record seizure comes amid growing concern about cocaine use and its consequences in Australia. Cocaine-related deaths rose 28% to a record 141 in 2024, according to an annual overdose report released this month by the Penington Institute, a drug-use research organization.

It also follows a series of major cocaine busts in the country. Last September, three dockworkers were arrested after authorities found more than 1,000 pounds of cocaine hidden behind a false wall inside a shipping container at Sydney’s waterfront. That same month, police said they had dismantled a trafficking ring known as “The Commission,” which allegedly brought more than a ton of cocaine into Australia within a few months.

In December 2024, Australian police seized 2.3 tons of cocaine and arrested 13 people after a fishing boat broke down off the Queensland coast.

The Londonderry discovery is also the second major underground drug operation revealed this month. In early June, U.S. authorities said they found a 2,000-foot tunnel connecting border cities in Mexico and California. The tunnel was equipped with electricity, reinforced walls, ventilation and a rail system.

social media ban

UK To Ban Kids From Social Media, Ministers Lobby With US To Avoid Backlash 

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The UK has announced that they will be banning social media for kids under the age of 16. Some of the world’s biggest technology companies, including Meta, YouTube, and Snapchat, have spoken out against this decision, claiming that it will only work to push teenagers to more harmful platforms. The ban was announced by Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday. 

A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said: “As we’ve seen in Australia, bans risk isolating teens from online communities and information, and driving them to unregulated alternatives that lack built-in protections and parental controls.”

YouTube echoed Meta’s sentiment in their own statement: “Blanket bans push kids out of such curated, supervised, beneficial experiences and towards anonymous, less-safe services.”

And Snapchat said: “Because the majority of time spent on Snapchat is in private messaging between friends and family, an outright ban that disconnects teens from those relationships doesn’t make them safer – it may simply push them to less safe platforms.”

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During Starmer’s announcement at a press conference this week, he said that “social media makes children unhappy, it’s making it easier for billies to harass and abuse them, and it could even be harming their mental health.” He then emphasized the argument that the ban was not anti-tech. 

“I do not accept, and I will never accept, that you can’t be both pro tech and AI, and at the same time say we must protect our children,” he said. 

The plan mimics the one enacted earlier this year in Australia, however, it includes both a ban on all main social media platforms, and separate restrictions on online services such as gaming apps such as removing the option to chat with strangers. 

Under this new ban, kids under the age of 16 will not be able to download Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok, X, Facebook, and Instagram. They also will not be able to livestream. Teenagers under the age of 18 will also not be able to use any romantic chatbots designed to simulate sexual relationships. 

“This is not something I do lightly, and I will not present it as cost-free, as if social media has [brought no] benefits to young people, because clearly that is wrong. But the government is always about choices, and it’s clear to me that a total ban is the right choice,” Starmer said.

In Australia, many teenagers have found ways around the bans, which has even led to lawsuits against certain social media platforms for not doing enough to enforce keeping young teens and children off their apps. While this can obviously happen in the UK as well and it is a concern, Starmer stated that it wasn’t the point behind this objective. 

“We don’t say: ‘Oh, look, a teenager managed to get a drink somehow, so let’s not bother banning alcohol sales for children.’ We don’t do that, do we? I just don’t accept that,” he said. 

“Our laws are rules, but they’re also an expression of our values. They shape the social contract, and so this will change the conversations that parents have, and the expectations of children over time.”

“It will make a huge difference. It will make our children safer. It will make our children happier. It will give them more time, more security, full freedom to grow up, more opportunity, and that, at the end of the day, is what this government is about,” he added. 

The other side to this is combating the giant companies that are widely against these bans, which is intertwined with talking to the US government and president and reassuring them that this isn’t a targeted ploy towards US tech companies. 

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UK ministers have been working on a lobbying operation to prevent backlash from the Trump administration. The administration had previously threatened the UK with “a big tariff” if the government does not drop its digital services tax, so they’re moving extra cautiously when it comes to this ban. 

“I honestly think that across world leaders there has always been a recognition that leaders have to take steps to protect children,” Starmer said. “In relation to President Trump, I spoke to him on Saturday, I’ll see him again this afternoon and, yes, of course, we’ll discuss this and many other issues, and lots of other leaders are very interested in it.”

Elon Musk, who owns X and has worked closely with the president, said “this censorship law is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The real goal is to enable the UK government to track everyone.” 

Ministers are working on every detail of this ban and what it will entail. They’ve announced late-night social media curfews for 16-and-17-year-olds. One of the workarounds that teenagers have used in Australia is using virtual private networks (VPNs) to circumvent geographical internet controls, so the UK is looking into regulating those networks as well. 

This move will have a major impact on young people. In the UK, among 13-to-15-year-olds about 90% have a social media account, and have stated that their main resource for getting the news is YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, according to reports from the Guardian. 

The UK’s technology secretary, Liz Kendall, echoed Starmer’s sentiment regarding the importance of protecting children and their mental health and not having such a focus on how teens can work around the bans. 

“I have no doubt children who are currently on social media, for whom it’s an integral part of their lives, will try and get around the ban, and many will succeed,” she said. 

“But we do think we need to draw this line in the sand, give greater clarity to parents and greater protections for children.”

“I’ve never thought that the ban will be a complete silver bullet … It will be as much about resetting expectations and social norms for children who are seven, eight, nine, 10, now that they won’t be going on social media until they’re 16,” she told the BBC.

“This is a huge statement of our values, who we are as a country, and it’s a way of actually bringing our country together,” Starmer said.

Meta, TikTok, YouTube, And Snapchat Not Complying With Child Social Media Ban In Australia 

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In December 2025, Australia enacted a law that banned kids under the age of 16 from having accounts on social media. Now, the continent is considering legal action against platforms Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube over allegations that they’re not making enough of an effort to keep children off of the sites. 

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Experts have stated, according to reports, that Australian courts can decide what steps the platforms can reasonably take in order to meet the requirements of the law. 

Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, released a compliance report that demands 10 platforms remove all Australian account-holders younger than the age of 16. 

With the law enacted, 5 million Australian accounts have been deactivated. However, a significant number of Australian children continued to maintain their accounts or created new accounts and bypassed each platform’s age assurance systems, according to the report. 

Inman Grant said in a statement her office had “significant concerns about the compliance of half of those 10 platforms.” Grant’s office was gathering evidence against five platforms that haven’t taken “reasonable steps” to prevent children from having accounts.

Courts could potentially order fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to comply. eSafety is the power deciding on whether to initiate court action against any of the platforms by the middle of the year. 

Reddit, X (formerly Twitter), Kick, Threads, and Twitch are age-registricted platforms that aren’t under investigation. Communications Minister Anika Wells stated that the five main platforms being looked into are allegedly not complying with the Australian law on purpose. 

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“Social media platforms are choosing to do the absolute bare minimum because they want these laws to fail.”

“This is the world-leading law. We’re the first in the world to do it. Of course they don’t want these laws to work because they want that to be a chilling effect on the dozen countries that have come out since Dec. 10 to follow Australia’s step,” Wells told reporters. 

eSafety has emphasized “poor practices” from these platforms. For example, they all allow unlimited attempts for a user to pass their age assurance methods, and even prompt the user to try to pass the age assurance methods. 

Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, told AP that they were “committed” to complying with Australia’s social media ban. “We’ve also been clear that accurately determining age online is a challenge for the whole industry.”

Snapchat’s parent company, Snap Inc., said that they have locked 450,000 accounts to align with the law and are continuously doing so daily. “Snapchat remains fully committed to implementing reasonable steps under the legislation and supporting its underlying goal of improving online safety for young Australians,” they said in a statement. 

Lisa Given, information sciences expert at RMIT University in Melbourne, stated: 

“If a tech company has said: look, we put in age assurance, we’ve done all these steps. That’s reasonable. Even though the aged assurance technologies are flawed, whose fault is that? Should they be held accountable for a piece of technology that is not 100% and likely not going to be 100% foolproof any time soon?” 

“That’s really the crux of it: what the courts will deem reasonable,” she said.

police

Australia To Further Tighten Gun Laws Following Bondi Beach Hanukkah Mass Shooting 

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Australia’s leaders have promised that they will be taking an immediate overhaul of their already tough gun control laws after a mass shooting that targeted a Hanukkah celebration occurred on Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday. 

At least 15 people died during the attack with 38 being injured and treated at the hospital. Parts of the new measures proposed include a limit on the amount of guns someone can own as well as a review of licenses held over long-periods of time. These additions mark a significant update of Australia’s national firearms agreement which was made in 1996 after a gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania. The initial agreement made nearly 30 years ago essentially banned rapid-fire rifles. 

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated:

“The government is prepared to take whatever action is necessary. Included in that is the need for tougher gun laws.”

Bondi Beach is known for being “an icon of Australia’s cultural life.” Over the weekend, thousands of individuals gathered for the Chanukah by the Sea event to celebrate the beginning of the Jewish holiday with food and festivities. 

Albanese called this attack an “act of anti-semetic terrorism that struck the heart of the nation,” according to AP. 

Police haven’t revealed the names of the two suspected gunmen, but have identified them as a father and son. The 50-year-old father died at the scene while his 24-year-old son is currently in a coma in the hospital. 

One of the 38 victims currently being treated in the hospital is 42-year-old fruit shop owner and father of two Ahmed al Ahmed, who was captured on video tackling and disarming one of the assailants. During the struggle to disarm the shooter, Al Ahmed was shot in the shoulder and underwent surgery on Monday, according to his family who also stated that the hero is an Australian citizen who initially migrated there from Syria in 2006. 

Al Ahmed’s parents also pointed out that their son had a background in the Syrian security forces. 

“My son has always been brave. He helps people. He’s like that,” his mother, Malakeh Hasan al Ahmed, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 

Albanese confirmed that the Australian Security Intelligence Organization investigated the younger suspected gunman back in 2019 for six months. They were examining the mans ties to a Sydney-based Islamic State group cell. 

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“He was examined on the basis of being associated with others and the assessment was made that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence,” Albanese said.

This tragedy marks the deadliest shooting in three decades for Australia since the 1996 massacre. Now, Albanese’s proposals to limit the amount of guns someone can own and review licenses come after authorities discovered the older suspect had held a gun license for a decade and owned six guns legally. 

Federal and state government leaders are also proposing a restriction on gun ownership to Australian citizens. They also are proposing the “additional use of criminal intelligence” when deciding who can get a gun license. 

Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales where Sydney is the state capital, stated that his state’s gun laws would also be changing. “If you’re not a farmer, you’re not involved in agriculture, why do you need these massive weapons that put the public in danger and make life dangerous and difficult for New South Wales Police?”

This recent tragic massacre has highlighted Australia’s past year of anti-semetic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne. Synagogues and cars have been torched, homes and businesses have been vandalized, and Jewish citizens have been attacked in both cities. 

Citizens are questioning whether or not Albanese and his government had done enough to curb the rise in antisemitism, with Jewish leaders expressing major fear and frustration over what could’ve been done to prevent this attack. 

“There’s been a heap of inaction,” said Lawrence Stand, a Sydney man who was present at the shooting.

“I think the federal government has made a number of missteps on antisemitism,” Alex Ryvchin, spokesperson for the Australian Council of Executive Jewry, told reporters. 

“I think when an attack such as what we saw yesterday takes place, the paramount and fundamental duty of the government is the protection of its citizens, so there’s been an immense failure.”

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Australia’s Social Media Ban Will Stunt ‘Young People’s Ability To Access News And Information’

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Australia will be enacting a social media ban for kids under the age of 16 this month. While it seems like the pros of this legislation outweigh the cons, some believe that kids deserve, and have the right to, access to information regarding the news, politics, global events, and more.

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social media ban

Australia Enforces Nationwide Social Media Ban for Users Under 16

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Australia’s attempt to redraw the boundaries of adolescence in the digital age took effect this week, as a sweeping new law barred anyone under 16 from using major social media platforms. Overnight, millions of young Australians found themselves locked out of the online spaces that have functioned as their group chats, hangouts, diaries, and after-school social arenas.

The move, described internationally as a first-of-its-kind experiment, is forcing companies such as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Facebook, Threads, Twitch, Kick and X to begin stripping underage accounts and blocking new ones. Failure to do so could cost platforms up to $49.5m, a figure that has captured the attention of tech firms worldwide.

Even before the official start date, confusion rippled through the rollout. Age-verification systems, most of which use some form of facial analysis, have already shown holes. Some children managed to pass as adults, prompting the federal government to reiterate that no one expects “perfection on day one.”

Still, regulators maintain that the law’s intent must be met. Platforms must demonstrate they are taking “reasonable” steps to keep kids under 16 out.

Every major company except X told regulators by Tuesday that they would comply, though they initially resisted. Snapchat released a statement acknowledging the new law in late November.

“Disconnecting teens from their friends and family doesn’t make them safer — it may push them to less safe, less private messaging apps. We continue to advocate for more privacy-conscious solutions, such as mandating age verification at the device, operating system, or app store level.

Australia’s eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant said her office had recently spoken with X about how it plans to comply. Still, the company has yet to explain its plan to its users. “I’ve always referred to this as the first domino, which is why they pushed back,” she said, referring to social media companies.

In a surprising twist, Bluesky, an emerging competitor to X, announced it would mirror the ban even though eSafety had classified it as “low risk,” due to its comparatively tiny 50,000-person Australian user base.

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For children, the weeks leading up to the ban have been a scramble of contingency planning. Many rushed to complete age checks, swap private phone numbers, or brace themselves for account deletion. Kieran Donovan, co-founder and Australian CEO of the age-assurance provider k-ID, said his service has handled “hundreds of thousands” of checks recently. Among the companies relying on k-ID is Snapchat.

“With one law, we can protect Generation Alpha from being sucked into purgatory by predatory algorithms described by the man who created the feature as ‘behavioral cocaine,’” Communications Minister Anika Wells told the National Press Club.

Families, meanwhile, are deeply divided. One mother said her 15-year-old is “very distressed” after discovering that “all her 14 to 15-year-old friends have been age verified as 18 by Snapchat,” while she alone was tagged as underage. The teen worries that “her friends will keep using Snapchat to talk and organize social events, and she will be left out.”

Some parents have headed in the opposite direction by actively circumventing the law. One father said the ban forced him into an uncomfortable role.

“I’ve shown her how VPNs work and other methods on bypassing age restrictions. I’ve had to set her up with her own adult YouTube account and have assisted her in bypassing TikTok’s age-estimation and will keep doing so each time it asks.”

Others argue the crackdown is overdue. One parent described their daughter as “completely addicted” to social media and said the new rules “provide us with a support framework to keep her off these platforms.”

Two teenagers are suing the Australian government over the ban. One of them, Noah, 15, argues that the ban will rob teenagers of an important educational medium.

“Do you want 15-year-old boys to have no clue about consent? Do you want teenagers who don’t know about the dangers of vaping? Both topics I’ve learned about on social media.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stepped in to defend the sweeping changes over the weekend.

“From the beginning, we’ve acknowledged this process won’t be 100% perfect, but the message this law sends will be 100% clear. Australia sets the legal drinking age at 18 because our society recognizes the ­benefits to the individual and the community of such an approach. The fact that teenagers occasionally find a way to have a drink doesn’t diminish the value of having a clear, national standard.”

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Polls repeatedly show around two-thirds of voters back the 16-plus rule, but political unity has begun to wobble. Opposition figures, including deputy leader Sussan Ley, have recently expressed unease, despite previously allowing the legislation to pass through parliament.

Other countries are watching closely. Malaysia, Denmark, and Norway have all indicated they are preparing similar laws, and the European Union recently passed a resolution supporting comparable restrictions. A spokesperson for the UK government told Reuters it was “closely monitoring Australia’s approach to age restrictions.”

Now that the ban is active, scrutiny of how platforms enforce it will intensify. Inman Grant said that starting Thursday, her office will issue notices requesting detailed updates, including “how many accounts [they’ve] deactivated or removed, what challenges they’re finding, how they’re preventing recidivism and preventing circumvention, whether or not their abuse or reporting abuse and the appeals processes are working as planned.” Albanese has committed to making the resulting data public.

If regulators decide a platform isn’t doing enough, they can take it to court to seek fines. Alongside enforcement, an academic advisory group will undertake an independent, multi-year review to examine the impacts of the ban across childhood development, mental health, and education.

“It will look at the benefits over time, but also the unintended consequences. Everything from are sleeping? Are they interacting, or are they actually getting out on the sports fields? Are they reading books? Are they taking less medication, like antidepressants? Are their NAPLAN scores improving over time?”

At the same time, the office will monitor whether children begin drifting toward “darker areas of the internet,” turning to VPN workarounds, or migrating to lesser-known platforms with minimal oversight.

Such migration is already happening. Ahead of the cutoff, some teens on Snapchat publicly posted their mobile numbers in their bios to keep social circles intact after their accounts disappeared, something Snapchat strongly warned against.

A spokesperson said the company appreciated that under-16s were disappointed but “would strongly encourage any teens using Snapchat not to publicly share their personal contact information.”

The regulatory net may widen again soon. Inman Grant confirmed that she has issued notices to 15 additional companies not originally covered, asking them to assess whether they should now fall within the scope of the ban. Among them are Yope and Lemon8, apps that suddenly climbed the download charts as teens searched for new digital refuges

ai

Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner Warns AI Could Worsen Racism And Sexism 

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Australia’s human rights commissioner, Lorraine Finlay, is warning the risks of artificial intelligence and its impact on racism and sexism during a labor debate over how to respond to the rapidly developing technology. 

According to reports, Finlay stated that in the pursuit of advancing productivity from AI, it’s not worth it when it comes at the expense of discrimination, which is why it’s important for the world to put together proper regulations.

Finlay made the comments after Labor senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah called for Australian data to be “freed” to tech companies to prevent AI from perpetuating overseas biases and gain a greater reflection on Australian life and culture. 

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Ananda-Rajah has stated her opposition to a dedicated AI act but also believes that content creators should be compensated for their work.

Next week the government is set to hold an economic summit where unions and industry figures will raise their concerns over copyright, privacy protections, and productivity gains from AI, reports state. 

Media and art groups all over the world have expressed their concern over the “rampant theft” of intellectual property from big tech companies who use content to train their AI models. Finlay said that a lack of transparency in what data AI is being trained on makes it even harder to identify which biases it could be creating. 

“Algorithmic bias means that bias and unfairness is built into the tools that we’re using, and so the decisions that result will reflect that bias,” she said.

“When you combine algorithmic bias with automation bias – which is where humans are more likely to rely on the decisions of machines and almost replace their own thinking – there’s a real risk that what we’re actually creating is discrimination and bias in a form where it’s so entrenched, we’re perhaps not even aware that it’s occurring.”

The Human Rights Commission has been advocating for an AI act since the technology first began advancing, specifically pushing for a Privacy Act and intensive testing for bias in AI tools. 

Finlay said: “The government should urgently establish new legislative guardrails. Bias testing and causing, ensuring proper human oversight review, you [do] need those variety of different measures in place.”

An Australian study published in May found that there is growing evidence that there is bias in AI tools in Australia in areas such as medicine and job recruitment. The study found that job candidates interviewed by AI recruiters were at risk of being discriminated against if they spoke with an accent or were living with a disability, the Guardian reported. 

“AI must be trained on as much data as possible from as wide a population as possible or it will amplify biases, potentially harming the very people it is meant to serve,” Ananda-Rajah said.

“We need to free our own data in order to train the models so that they better represent us. I’m keen to monetize content creators while freeing the data. I think we can present an alternative to the pillage and plunder overseas.”

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Ananda-Rajah continued to say that the way in which we can overcome any bias or discrimination against certain patients would be “to train these models on as much diverse data from Australia as possible.” 

Finlay added that any release of Australian data should be done in an unbiased way, but we first need proper regulations put in place. 

“Having diverse and representative data is absolutely a good thing … but it’s only one part of the solution,” she said.

“We need to make sure that this technology is put in place in a way that’s fair to everybody and actually recognizes the work and the contributions that humans are making.”

AI expert and former data researcher at an AI company, Judith Bishop, said that “we have to be careful that a system that was initially developed in other contexts is actually applicable for the [Australian] population, that we’re not relying on US models which have been trained on US data.”

Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety commissioner, also expressed her concern over the lack of transparency around the data AI utilizes. 

“The opacity of generative AI development and deployment is deeply problematic,” Inman Grant said. 

“This raises important questions about the extent to which LLMs [large language models] could amplify, even accelerate, harmful biases – including narrow or harmful gender norms and racial prejudices.”

“With the development of these systems concentrated in the hands of a few companies, there’s a real risk that certain bodies of evidence, voices and perspectives could be overshadowed or sidelined in generative outputs.”

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YouTube Should Be Included In Australia’s Social Media Ban For Kids Under 16, Commissioner Says 

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Australia’s online safety chief has stated that YouTube should be included on the list of social media platforms that are banned for kids under the age of 16. The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, is urging the government to include the video-sharing platform to the new regulations which apply to apps like TikTok and Instagram. 

Grant is also recommending that the government update the under-16s social media ban to be more specific, and regulate things like stories, streaks, chatbots, and artificial intelligence which can also pose a major risk to young developing minds. 

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The ban was initially brought to legislation in December 2024, and will come into effect in December 2025. It’s currently unclear how exactly these online platforms will verify users’ ages, and the government has even stated that current confirmation technology is “not guaranteed to be effective.” 

At the time of its initial creation, then communications minister Michelle Rowland alluded that YouTube would be a part of the social media sites included in the ban. The Guardian Australia reported, however, that YouTube’s global chief executive personally lobbied with Rowland to give an exemption to the site which is owned by Google. 

Grant spoke with communications minister Anika Wells, offering advice over including YouTube in the ban and why it’s important:

“Given the known risks of harm on Youtube, the similarity of its functionality to other online services, and without sufficient evidence demonstrating that Youtube predominately provides beneficial experiences for children under 16, providing a specific carve out for Youtube appears to be inconsistent with the purpose of the Act.” 

Rowland said that YouTube was exempt from the ban because the site can be used to give young people access to “education and health support.” Grant said this reasoning is “not consistent with the purpose of the obligation to reduce the risk of harm.”

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Grant is planning to dissect this concern further in her press club speech, and will be referencing a relevant survey involving 2,600 children aged 10 to 15. 

“Alarmingly, around seven in 10 kids said they had encountered harmful content, including exposure to misogynistic or hateful material, dangerous online challenges, violent fight videos, and content promoting disordered eating.”

“Children told us that 75% of this harmful content was most recently encountered on social media. YouTube was the most frequently cited platform in our research, with almost four in 10 children reporting exposure to harmful content there.”

“This also comes as the New York Times reported earlier this month that YouTube surreptitiously rolled back its content moderation processes to keep more harmful content on its platform, even when the content violates the company’s own policies,” Grant will say. 

“Platform after platform are winding back their trust and safety teams and weakening policies designed to minimise harm, making these platforms ever-more perilous for our children.”

Little Penguins In Australia Experiencing High ‘Divorce’ Rates, According To New Study

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Little Penguins (Eudyptula minor) are now known to “divorce” their partners for better mates yearly. Unfortunately, the amount of time they spend trying to find a new mate causes the colony to suffer, according to a new study published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

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LiveScience reported that it’s actually a common misconception that penguins mate for life when their breeding patterns and habits actually vary between the multiple species of penguin on Earth. 

Little penguins specifically often do return to the same mate annually, however, some of them end up leaving their partner in search for a new one. Scientists appropriately are now referring to this as “penguin divorce.”

The study stated that divorce rates among penguins can actually reveal a lot of information referring to the health of the colony. The team behind the research was from Monash University in Australia. They explained that they looked at environmental and social factors in little penguins to gain greater knowledge on their reproductive success across 13 breeding seasons.

They looked at a colony on Phillip Island in Australia made up of 37,000 little penguins. This is the world’s largest colony of penguins. 

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“In good times, they largely stick with their partners, although there’s often a bit of hanky-panky happening on the side,” study co-author Richard Reina, head of the ecophysiology and conservation research group at Monash University in Australia, said in a statement. 

“However, after a poor reproductive season they may try to find a new partner for the next season to increase their breeding success.”

Researchers hypothesize that penguins divorce for a multitude of reasons like failure to reproduce and environmental stress. 

When a lot of penguins divorce during the same season, reproductive rates decrease. Newer couples also have a harder time breeding and producing offspring. As couples spend more time together, their success in having offspring increases. 

“Our results also suggest that monitoring divorce rates could offer a valuable, noninvasive tool for tracking reproductive trends in seabirds, particularly in populations facing fluctuating environmental conditions,” the study authors wrote.