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Teen social media ban confusion, UN cell tower 'attack', kill cookie pop-ups

Plus: Using an FOI to prove that traffic light cycles should be shorter

Author

Cam Wilson
September 24, 2025

Edition 2425

Good afternoon!

This is a great edition of the Sizzle so I’ve freed it up. If you like what you see, you can subscribe for the cost of 1.5 coffees a month (or 1.25 if you’re in Sydney and experencing coffeeflation ☹️)

Several friends of the Sizzle (Josh Taylor, Stilgherrian) flagged that there is an auction of “Australia’s Largest Arcade of Retro Amusement Machines” currently underway.

The News

Teen social media ban could include GitHub and Steam (but I’m like 99% sure it won’t)

Tech companies like Reddit, GitHub, Twitch, Steam and Pinterest have been asked by the eSafety Commissioner to say if they’ll be part of the teen social media ban (ABC News). A few weeks back, I reported that Julie Inman Grant had asked “a comprehensive list of tech companies” to use a self-assessment form to see whether they would qualify as a “age restricted social platform” (Crikey, $). Now, thanks to friend of the Sizzle, Ange Lavoipierre, we know who is on the list of 16 companies — and they run some very different platforms. And, to add a fun twist, the decision of which companies come under the ban is probably not even up to the eSafety Commissioner, anyway!

The Sizzle: I’ve seen some people assume that this list is indicative of who will be in the ban. My read is a bit different: The rules for the ban, drafted under Michelle Rowland and now published under Anika Wells, don’t specify which platforms but rather give broad exemptions.

This puts the eSafety Commissioner’s office in a funny position: it’s been given the responsibility of enforcing the rules (i.e. fine companies that don’t comply) but doesn’t know for sure which ones are in scope. Nor does the industry, according to what tech lobby group DIGI’s policy director Dr Jennifer Duxbury’s told a parliamentary inquiry this morning. So, this self-assessment is supposed to help both sides here — walking the companies through whether they will qualify, and then asking them to say if they think they will to the eSafety Commissioner. (In my mind, this self-assessment makes it pretty clear that GitHub won’t be included, for example, and you can try it out for yourself).

Honestly I’d feel the same way about answering some of these questions (Supplied)

The fundamental problem is that the teen social media ban law was designed to give the government the most amount of flexibility. But this leaves everyone else in the dark. Even, it appears, its own regulator. And when you don’t give people simple, clear rules, it places you at risk of scare campaigns and fuckups.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

I have questions about the Secret Service’s thwarting of a supposed cell tower attack on the UN

The Secret Service has thwarted a SIM farm in New York City that it claims threatened US government officials and could’ve disrupted cellular telecommunications while the UN General Assembly was underway (Guardian). Authorities said the seized set-up had 300 SIM servers and more than 100,000 SIM cards within 50-ish kilometres of the UN which, they said, meant they could’ve jammed NYC’s entire network. The Secret Service said the data shows “ties to at least one foreign nation” and known cartel members, but didn’t identify who was threatened, what the threat was or who was involved (Bloomberg, $)

Looks like my NBN set-up TBH (Image: AP)

The Sizzle: Let the record show that I’m sus on this idea that this was a sophisticated threat to the UN. A lot of details seem a bit off: spread out over 50KMs? Vague mentions of criminal and foreign actors? No one actually directly saying this was linked to the UN meeting?

My completely un-educated guess is that this was a scammer SMS spammer (WIRED, $) set up that was spraying out vaguely threatening messages that just caught a government official in its wake… and now this has turned into A Very Big Deal when it’s not really.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

It’s time to kill the ‘do you accept this cookie’ pop-up

Europe might soon defeat the terrible Frankenstein’s monster that it set loose on the world: the ubiquitous “do you accept cookies on this website” pop up (Politico). In 2009, the EU revised its “e-Privacy Directive” law that required websites to ask users for permission before loading cookies. Now, those Brussels bureaucrats are floating the idea of tweaking the rule to stop the endless pop-ups. Suggestions include either dropping requirements to ask for cookies for “technically necessary functions”, or to create a standard that allows a user to set their browser’s preferences once for every website.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Leftovers

Australia:

Rest of the world:

Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Oh, Also

Using a FOI to prove that traffic light cycles should be shorter

Nothing brings me pleasure like seeing someone use Australia’s freedom of information systems — let alone a fellow Sizzler. That’s why I’m sharing Jake Coppinger’s quest to prove that shorter traffic light cycle times are better for everyone. It led him to uncover a secret 2018 test from Transport for NSW that proved this — using documents obtained via a $441 information request — then subsequently ignored! I highly recommend you read it.

Now that’s a sexy graph

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

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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