Australia’s Social Media Bill as a Trojan Horse
Last month, shocking news emerged that American political activist Charlie Kirk had been shot and killed by an assassin at Utah Valley University. Social media quickly erupted, with people either condemning or defending him. “FASCIST!” became a war cry from the political left. This incident inspired me to write a short article aimed at clarifying the true meaning of “fascist” — and connect it to a disturbingly fascist bill that is now heading our way.
History buffs around the region would know that Roman fasces was a bundle of rods bound around an axe — it was a hated and brutal symbol. The rods represented citizens bound together, individually weak but collectively under the state’s authority, while the protruding axe warned that defiance would be met with harsh punishment. Carried by ruthless lictors alongside magistrates, the fasces reminded Romans that personal freedom was subordinate to the collective will.
Centuries later, the symbol made somewhat of a comeback. It was featured on the US Mercury Dime and began appearing on numerous flags around the world. Mussolini’s Fascist Party in Italy (founded 1919, ruling 1922–1943) resurrected this imagery to signal state supremacy and unity with private enterprise. Mussolini created a corporatist economy: industries were organized into state-controlled syndicates, and businesses faced legal, financial, or political penalties if they disobeyed. Profit existed, but only within the boundaries set by the state.
Mussolini’s rule was also marked by violence and repression. Political opponents were assaulted, imprisoned, or murdered by Blackshirts. Notable assassinations made clear that dissent could be punished by death. Colonial campaigns in Ethiopia, Libya, and Albania resulted in mass killings and chemical attacks on civilians. Independent press was banned, trade unions crushed, and political freedoms eliminated. Mussolini’s model combined state terror, corporatist control, and suppression of dissent, a cautionary tale for modern societies.
Australia’s Social Media Age-Verification Bill: A Fascist Trojan Horse?
The new “Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 “ sets a minimum age of 16 for social media accounts and forces platforms to take “reasonable steps” to prevent underage accounts. On the surface, it is packaged as child protection — who could argue with protecting teenagers online? But a closer look reveals it is craftily designed as a Trojan horse, laying the groundwork for a proxy license to use the internet.
Platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube etc, face fines of up to $9.4 million if they fail to verify ages.
Parent companies are coerced into enforcing government rules, effectively making them agents of the state, just as Mussolini co-opted businesses. Even adults will have to verify age to avoid penalties, meaning everyone becomes part of a national age-verification system by proxy.
Centralized Ministerial Control
The Minister or eSafety Commissioner can define “age-restricted platforms” and issue compliance guidelines without parliamentary oversight, giving one office extraordinary top-down power over digital access. This centralized control mirrors fascist hierarchies, where key decisions are concentrated in the hands of a few.
Suppression of Freedom via Market Leverage
Access to social media is mediated by private platforms enforcing state rules. Users who refuse verification risk losing access, curtailing anonymous speech, political dissent, and public discourse, echoing Mussolini’s suppression of independent voices.
Reasonable Alternatives: A Loophole for Coercion
The bill cannot require government-issued ID or Digital ID as the only way to prove age. However, platforms can still accept these IDs if they also offer “reasonable alternatives,” such as:
• AI facial scans or other biometric checks
• Credit card verification
• Third-party age verification tokens
The law does not define what counts as a “reasonable alternative”, leaving it to the Minister or eSafety Commissioner to issue guidelines later.
In practice, this means platforms must provide another option besides a driver’s licence, but that alternative may still involve handing over sensitive personal data, such as a face scan. This loophole normalises coercive data collection, a step toward a proxy internet license where participation is contingent on compliance with state-mandated verification methods that can become more intrusive over time, as there seems to be no limit to alterations of the guidelines.
Selective Enforcement and Social Engineering
While the law targets underage social media use, it creates infrastructure capable of broader enforcement, just as Mussolini’s corporatist economy regulated private enterprise to shape society. Once the principle of “state-mandated verification via private companies” is normalised, it is easier to expand control into other digital areas, from messaging to forums — effectively creating a permission-based internet.
The Danger of the Trojan Horse
Politicians packaged this law as a protectionist measure for children, appealing to common sense and morality. But the altered motives — a power grab disguised as virtue — are visible to anyone willing to look beyond the surface.
Centralised authority, coercive enforcement through private companies, and vague rules are a template for digital control. History is a warning. The fasces symbolized state power, Mussolini turned that power into corporate-state enforcement and violence, and today, vaguely worded laws could create a similar structure in Australia’s digital realm: an internet where access is contingent on compliance, privacy is compromised, and dissent via media is suppressed.
Protecting children online is vital, but it should never be a pretext for merging government authority with private enforcement in ways that erode freedom, privacy, and democracy.
Australians must ask: do we want a society where the state and corporations act as gatekeepers or prison guards over the digital public square, or one where freedom and privacy remain intact?
Maybe you could flip a mercury dime, which ironically has the words “liberty” engraved on the opposite side as their symbol of the fasces…
It doesn’t take a genius to recognise that those who fund and provide the means for young people to access the internet should keep an eye on their own kids.
Unless you want to outsource that to the government as well?
Written by John E Middleclass
Chitchat Newspaper. October 2025.