Is GitHub a social network that endangers children? Australia wants to know Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has written to GitHub to ask it to consider if it’s a social network that endangers children. The reason for the cyber-safety regulator’s correspondence is Australia’s imminent requirement that some social media platforms restrict access to Australian residents under 16 years of age, on the …
"However, the platform is not always a safe space, as GitHub allows comments and developers can be brutal to each other."
It would be interesting to know how many under 16s are actively developing code and getting into fights on Github. Compared to the number of children getting into fights in the playground maybe they should ban schools instead.
And please, the words are violence argument is probably part of what got Charlie Kirk assasinated, do we really need to continue with that kind of rhetoric. Isn't it about time that the fire was extinguished. El Reg please dont stoke the Arguetainement fire
Utter nonsense
That's what I thought on seeing this headline yesterday,
But then I looked at https://github.com/Plan-Vert/open-letter (and particularly some of the—rejected—PRs) and I'm now sure that it is not utter nonsense. Anywhere politics creeps in, tempers rise and people say intemperate things and make threats; others find mechanisms to transfer dubious content..
So, while initially this does seem ridiculous, with a little thought questions like this, from non-IT people, shouldn't be rejected out of hand unless you are sure there are no deep park corners of nastiness lurking mostly out of sight. That this reflects badly on us* does not help.
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*Just because 99.99% of IT folks wouldn;t have anything to do with trying to push nasty content to children, doesn't mean the 0.01% (or whatever it is) are not very damaging.
There are millions of sites online where children could encounter nasty material of varying kinds (and some do). They are not included in the Australian or UK 'hit list' because they are out-of-sight-out-of-mind to the blinkered and technically-illiterate overlords of all things mass-communication. And there's the hint: they're focussed on degree of patronage not degree of harm.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: The worst way you could do this is throw it to every individual site and service, with a long and vague list of requirements. If individual sites and services collect IDs (or face-scans), privacy will never be achieved (and it creates 'treasure troves' for hackers).
Without endpoint control, kids will find workarounds (and navigate to any number of those millions of sites that don't or won't comply). The only reasonable way to protect kids online at scale is to gate their access at the endpoint (device, laptop, desktop) and it's not that hard - think similar to provisioning/configuration of business endpoint devices coupled with 'safe search for kids' and e.g. proxy filtering run by Government (for kids) - but there are several possibilities. It covers a heck of a lot more than social media, can be updated in near real-time, can be as broad or granular as desired (a full white-listed approach if needed), can be dovetailed with a parental guidance/reporting system if desired, can present verified high-quality 'educational' sites at the top of search (via tailored search), and so on. When you control the endpoint, you can control what the users (kids) see and do. That approach leaves the adults alone.
In the case of GitHub, if there's a truly offensive page/project there, it can be flagged and filtered out while leaving the rest of GitHub visible. But even in the example you gave, the 'offensive' material was on different sites anyway not GitHub (and I don't like the guy's opinion, but he didn't upload it on GitHub).
Indeed.
But that fact that "f there's a truly offensive page/project there, it can be flagged and filtered out" it true, immediately means the question is not nonsense.
That are answer to the question is "no, almost 100% no", and that "almost" is doing quite a lot of work.
In reply to: "immediately means the question is not nonsense".
That level of harm is similar to what a child might hear in news and current affairs, or overhear on a bus or in a schoolyard. It's nonsense to treat that as endagering children. Parenting didn't just disappear overnight. That seems to be what some people are assuming, that these age-checks and potential blocks are needed to replace parents.
I'm not sure what a dead fascist has to do with any of this, however, on the subject of Github:
I think a bigger problem than it being possible to post nasty comments there, is that a git repo can be used to host pretty much anything, not just code files.
I'm sure Microsoft has people actively working to remove illegal or inappropriate content in repositories, but a git repo can be used (or abused) as a file-sharing platform, ignoring the fact that it is designed to be a source control tool. I'm sure that some people have managed to upload things that are not suitable for anyone, let alone children, because the internet is full of vile people. Whether such a tool can ever be made "safe for children" is a whole other consideration, regardless of whether one might consider it to be "social media" or not.
"I'm not sure what a dead fascist has to do with any of this, however, on the subject of Github:"
If you consider Charlie as a fascist, please define what a fascist is.. I seem to remember that he went to universities giving those with a different opinion a microphone in order that they can debate with him.. Which in my book is about the exact opposite of fascism.
"Please engage with my far right talking points". Nope.
If you don't know why the things that he said were repellant, or, worse still, agree with his sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia, then that is entirely on you.
It remains entirely off-topic, despite the OP's obviously provocative posting, which I can paraphrased as, "be nice, be kind, and don't disagree with my political opinion that has absolutely nothing to do with this article."
I guess you missed the bit where I quite obviously implied that talking about the dead fascist was a complete irrelevance, despite your obvious keen desire to talk about the dead fascist. What was it that first attracted you to the modern-day Horst Wessel? (rhetorical question, I honestly don't care)
"If you don't know why the things that he said were repellant, or, worse still, agree with his sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia, then that is entirely on you."
And I put it to you again: Please provide examples of what you are stating, actual verifiable examples. A couple of YT links would be fine.
Firstly, did you miss the very obvious bit where I said I *didn't* want to engage with the far-right talking points?
Secondly, YT links considered as "evidence" hahahaha.
You, good sir, are a fucking idiot on both counts.
BTW, the onus is not on me to prove or disprove your point, I literally do not give a shit about the far right talking points. Keep your brain-rot to yourself.
First I am not right wing, second I see that you have resorted to using the now deacto left wing extremist method of shutting down conversation when you have no arguement.
Its the same method used by children who don'.t get what they want.
This is why the left is losing all traction. Lies , hate and lack of empathy have now become the principal left wing characteristic.
The problem you now have is that people are no longer putting up with this, the facade has fallen.
Github: "consider if it’s a social network that endangers children". OK ... considering ... and the answer is, 'No!". What rubbish.
I don't have access to all the data that the eSafety Commissioner says she's considering. It would help if the Aus Government published all the data they relied on, given the widespread impact of their legislation, as I have a sneaking suspicion that they're exaggerating ... a lot. Just today, Australia's PM, Communications Minister and high-profile advocates went to the UN and sold Australia's "world leading" social media ban for under-16s, quoting as part justification that social media was causing suicides amongst young people. Emotive examples were given:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-25/united-nations-general-assembly-social-media-ban/105814246
The implication was that there's been an avalanche of suicides. Any death by suicide is tragic but ... and this may well draw crabs but it's important to say ... I can't see the disaster. Here's the actual data so you can see for yourself:
https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/population-groups/young-people/suicide-self-harm-young-people
The trend is relatively flat, *slightly* upward over two decades in the youth brackets but, critically, that gentle trend **predates social media** by a significant margin. The 18-24 age bracket is far higher per capita. The youth figures are similar to elderly (i.e. not on social media) suicides with what looks like the same multi-decadal trend. All of these pale in comparison to Veteran suicides. You can check that yourself as well:
https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/population-groups/older-people
https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/population-groups/adf-members
It's no surprise that emotive arguments are used to justify this kind of invasive policy because (I strongly suspect) it wouldn't stack up on the data alone.
My position remains that, while protecting kids from online harms is a laudable goal, the method chosen by the Aus Government via their OSA (similar to the UK's OSA) is the worst of the possible approaches because it affects far more adults than kids, is damaging to privacy (at a time when improving privacy is critical), is difficult to implement, difficult to monitor, difficult to adjust without being arbitrary, too easily lends itself to 'mission creep', can be targeted at particular sites/services, and lacks 'measures of effectiveness' so it's easy to claim "it's working" at any later date. That's just for starters.
The Aus Government didn't approach this with an open mind at all. There's more to be said and much has been said already. I'll leave more for another post.
In the meantime, there are more pertinent comments here: https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2025/09/19/ofcom_osa_enforcement/
You are making a rational judgement based on facts and what the law is trying to achieve. That is not how the law works.
The question is whether GitHub is a "social network" as defined by the law.
GitHub's homepage says:
"From planning and discussion to code review, GitHub keeps your team’s conversation and context next to your code".
GitHub admits it's providing discussion features. That is one of the main purposes of GitHub - it's so important that GitHub has a whole section about it on its front page. Therefore it is a social network and subject to the law.
You might think that the law is crazy. I agree. However, the only way to fix it is to get the politicians to amend the law. In the meantime, GitHub will have to comply with the law.
> Hands off Facebook, Twitter & co, go after the real villains!
Where does anyone, other than you, say they are keeping their hands off FB, X and co?
You *did* see the list - and the explicit
>> The Commission has said that Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X and YouTube “meet many of the conditions” in the Act. But it’s also written to many other services...
And that list isn't in any way final:
>> The Commission could decide to ask more services to consider their obligations.
So if you think they have missed any, do your duty and email the Commission (then blather about it here)
Sharing code isn't social behaviour?
Encouraging building on other's code isn't social? "Fork on Github..."
Enabling collaboration isn't social? Pull requests, wikis...
Asking for help isn't social? Bug reports, improvement requests or other issues
What is "Social interaction" limited to in your world? If it is anything more than a picture of your cat in a cardboard box, it is - what? Just posted in the expectation that nobody will ever see or react to it? Just pissing into the wind?
(None of the above makes any statement about the Oz reaction to "social media" in any way, shape or form: whatever you, or I, think of the appropriateness, workability, sense, or lack thereof)
"But "GitHub Pages service allows users to create websites based on their repos" - Mission creep?"
It's not mission creep. Generating a 'website' from a GitHub repo just allows users to more easily navigate through your project and collaborate. Think of Sharepoint vs a plain old directory listing.
https://github.com/collections/github-pages-examples
I agree, by that list of definitions they are clearly both caught up in the category of social media. Perhaps not what the legislators were intending but it appears to be what the enacted. Which makes sense given that subscribing to usenet or email groups were how a lot of online social interaction was done in the 90s.
Came here to say the same.
Reading the four criteria the omission of: gMail, Outlook, iMail et al from the list is notable.
Also ElReg Forums/Comments probably also is within scope.
Re. GitLab
I think because this is perceived to require a subscription, it isn’t a place where “kids” would hang out. But if we are going that far I would expect to see “The Dark Web” on the list :)
American companies don't have to. If they don't like the laws of some country they don't have to do business there.
If they want to do business in a country then they must follow its laws, idiotic or otherwise. That's the way things work, the alternative is anarchy. Are you advocating anarchy?
Like I said, if they don't want to follow the laws of a country they don't have to do business there. And it's is most certainly not up to US businesses to dictate what governments countries should vote in.
From the perspective of a citizen fo a non-US country a better government would be one prepared to dump US companies as critical service suppliers and insist that if they want to do business in the country they should have a legal presence there and trade through that.
Too many US companies seem to have decided that the United fruit Company was a good model to follow.
Assaults on free speech like this are an INTERNATIONAL human rights issue.
Is anarchy preferable to nations attacking free speech? FUCK YES. No fucking question.
If that means companies operating in Australia need to move their sites to .onion domains, then they should do that instead of caving to fascism.
FUCK this "But think of the children" garbage.
One of the things missing from this discussion (today) is that these age-checks gather personaly identifying information, either photos/selfies or ID directly. Put aside the clear threat from ID theft for a moment, and consider what government agencies tend to do with private information and the overreach of which they're capable. The real risk is that every user of what the government calls social media, including GitHub, is now revealed, including by way of photo-matching.
So if government wanted to put a backdoor in a few open source projects, they now know who all the contributors are and who to approach. All of the necessary information is there for the taking so no additional effort is required and there's no heightened risk that the government agency will screw up and telegraph what they're doing. When age-checking/identification is done by GitHub (in this case), it works internationally as well as nationally and the government(s) can claim ignorance.
Some of the more bizarre code, mostly C, I have stumbled on would be more than capable of inflicting severe brain damage on the unsuspecting reader. The juvenile mind might suffer from an incurable injury which could entail spending their lives writing defective Windows software for Microsoft.
Perhaps Github needs a film style classification indicating the severity of the adverse mental health risks associated with its repos.
Always struck me that the unacceptable rate of youth suicide which predated even the commodity internet might have been better addressed by policies that made their society and world generally less hostile to their age group. If you really try to perceive today's world through the eyes of an average 19 year old, it's desperately dismal (razor blades and cakes of soap all round.)
See following link for clarification of exclusions
https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/industry-regulation/social-media-age-restrictions/faqs#c-accordion--13725-content
Legislative rules excluding certain types of online services were made by the Minister for Communications following advice from the eSafety Commissioner and consultation with youth groups, parents, carers, the digital industry and civil society groups, as well as experts in child development, mental health and law.
The exclusions apply to:
services that have the sole or primary purpose of messaging, email, voice calling or video calling
services that have the sole or primary purpose of enabling users to play online games with other users
services that have the sole or primary purpose of enabling users to share information about products or services
services that have the sole or primary purpose of enabling users to engage in professional networking or professional development
services that have the sole or primary purpose of supporting the education of users
services that have the sole or primary purpose of supporting the health of users
services that have the sole or significant purpose of facilitating communication between educational institutions and students or student families
services that have the significant purpose of facilitating communication between health care providers and people using those services.
The exclusions you refer to are not new - I've known about them for weeks - though the date seems to have been updated even if the content hasn't. Those exclusions are quite limited. For example, they would seem to include LinkedIn or a University but don't impact social media as we understand it nor GitHub.
Keep in mind that the eSafety Commissioner has said she will enforce "age-checks" on platforms if she thinks they're captured by the legislation regardless of what they might say in their reply.
1) Why do adults have to verify they are an adult instead of kids having to verify they aren't an adult? I actually do understand why but that doesn't make it any less absurd. The answer is that the government doesn't want to crack down on parents failing to look after their kids (ie: they aren't pushing to make parental controls worth using and punishing adults for not using them) and the only way to verify a kid is a kid is to age check everyone otherwise you open the door to lying.
2) Why do I need to give Google either my Government ID, Credit Card Details or a Selfie in order to download and install apps from the Play Store? What does the Play Store have to do with Social Media??? As an example: Today I tried to install the Pizza Hut app and am prevented from doing so until doing either of the 3 previously mentioned things. Am I supposed to just use my phone as a phone and give up on it being a powerful computing device?
3) Whatever happened to the Common Sense advice of never, ever, under any circumstance giving out personal details to any online website that doesn't require them to perform their primary function? Like I can understand giving out such details to my frequently visited doctors clinic but NOT Google, Meta, X, Reddit, less popular websites & services etc.
4) Again, why is the Social Media Ban not restricted to Social Media???
