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Streaming costs more $ and is less Aussie, anti-terrorism powers not used for terrorism and Silent Hill game banned?

Plus: this might be the world's worst website

Author

Cam Wilson
March 24, 2025

Issue 2297 - Monday 24 March 2025

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The News

Streaming is getting more expensive and featuring fewer Australians

Streaming is at a very interesting price. The rise of streaming video over the past decade — reportedly overtaking TV (Unmade, $)— has coincided with the complete collapse of Australian TV and film, researchers say in a new report (SIGN Research). The reason? The new entrants like Netflix as well as existing players getting into on-demand services like 7NOW et al. are unregulated, meaning they have no local content quotas. Late last year, the government shelved plans to put quotas on streaming services (ABC News). So now Australia is spending more on subsidising less Australian video content that is increasingly being put behind paywalls. Great system 👍️ 

And now, there’s more paywalls and they’re more expensive! Max is launching next week (WhistleOut) with much of the content that was on Binge — and lord knows what that platform’s future since it was sold to sports streaming service DAZN as part of the Foxtel sale (The Guardian Australia) — and then there’s Disney+, Prime Video, Stan and of course Netflix. And, according to one calculation, Australians are paying 44% more for the same streaming services than they were a year ago (Reviews.org). It feels like something has got to give.

Australia hasn’t used its ‘anti-terrorism’ anti-encryption powers on terrorism cases, six years running

In late 2018, the Coalition government and Labor agreed to give law enforcement agencies new powers to ask or force tech companies to break into their software, even if it is encrypted. Then-law enforcement and cyber security minister Angus Taylor said encryption had “directly impacted 200 serious criminal and terrorism-related investigations” that year. Anyway, in the half decade since, the powers have not been used once in terrorism investigations.

The latest report about the powers’ use in 2023-24 showed that AFP for the first time used powers to force a tech company to help them access data (InnovationAus, $), just the second agency to use them after NSW Police. But still no government agency has used the strongest power — forcing a tech company to build a new capability to break into its software — à la the UK’s Apple backdoor fight which is still happening (The Guardian). I have a lot of complex thoughts re: these powers but one thing is unmistakable: they’re not being used for the reasons that politicians said we needed them.

Silent Hill game might be banned from sale because it’s 1964 and the government still controls what can be broadcast over the wireless

It’s 2025 and Australia’s dinky little Classification Board is still banning mainstream, popular video games. This time, the latest instalment in the horror blockbuster Silent Hill series, Silent Hill f, was listed on the board’s website as ‘Refused Classification’ which means that you can be put in jail or fined $275,000 for selling the game (Press Start). The game, according to studio Konami’s own listing, features “ gender discrimination, child abuse, bullying, drug-induced hallucinations, torture and graphic violence” (PC Gamer). It is, of course, sold in the rest of the world but we couldn’t possibly see it because Australia’s current approach to deciding what content people should see was created in 1995, despite the fact that I could Google and see much worse content than that in about 2 clicks. Since these original stories were written, the classification has been taken offline — so I’ve emailed the Department of Communications (which oversees the Board) to find out WTF is going on.

Post-edition update: Looks like this is probably more of a quirk an international classification workflow than a decision by the Classification Board, and that there’s a good chance it will be appealed/overtuned. Glad that I hedged, somewhat, but the broader point about Australia’s bizarre classification system stands.

Lots of big "OMG WTF" style reporting around this one over the weekend but tbh it feels kinda clear what happened? Konami submitted via IARC, which is a free, self-submission tool that gets your classification set up for various regions and storefronts easily.

— Edmond Tran (@edmondtran.bsky.social)2025-03-23T22:42:04.702Z

Leftovers

  • Tesla Model Y new pricing revealed, first Australian deliveries in May (The Driven)

  • Free Audible audiobook/month added to Amazon Music Unlimited subscriptions (TechAU)

  • 'Everyone dies, or worse': The Australians bracing for AI catastrophe (Capital Brief, $)

  • Meta settles UK ‘right to object to ad-tracking’ lawsuit by agreeing not to track plaintiff (TechCrunch)

  • China says facial recognition should not be forced on individuals (ITNews)

  • The Apple Watch may get cameras and Apple Intelligence (Bloomberg, $)

  • Oracle denies breach after hacker claims theft of 6 million data records (Bleeping Computer) 

  • Hungary bans Pride events and plans to use facial recognition to target attenders (The Guardian) 

  • Porn on Spotify Is Infiltrating the Platform’s Top Podcast Charts (Bloomberg, $)

  • Cloudflare is luring web-scraping bots into an ‘AI Labyrinth’ (The Verge)

  • Google confirms it deleted Maps Timeline data for some (The Verge) 

  • OpenAI’s Sora Is Plagued by Sexist, Racist, and Ableist Biases (WIRED, $)

Oh, Also

This might actually be the world’s worst website

Do you want to ruin your Monday? Then I have the website for you. It’s worldsworstwebsite.lol and literally spending 3 minutes spiked my heart rate according to my Apple Watch. The pop-ups, the notices, the scrollbars that don’t do anything… and that’s all before you mention the design. You really don’t have to click on this. PS if you are glutton for punishment, this reminds me of the Redditors competing to make the worst possible (Kotaku).

Bargains

Electrical & Electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.

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