The Washington Post - USA (2021-10-27)

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27 , 2021. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A

BY MAITE FERNÁNDEZ SIMON

A draft law in Australia seeks
to require social media plat-
forms such as Facebook to seek
parental consent for children
and teens under 16 years old
and to strengthen the protec-
tion of people’s personal infor-
mation — or face hefty fines.
Seventeen million Austra-
lians use social media, but the
existing privacy law “doesn’t
provide specific protections
against the misuse of Austra-
lians’ personal information by
social media and other online
platforms,” according to the
proposed bill.
The draft law sets out an
Online Privacy Code with the

goal of strengthening the pro-

tection of users’ personal data,

further protect children and

vulnerable groups, and e nhance

penalties and enforcement

mechanisms.

This new privacy code, if

adopted, will apply to “organi-

zations providing social media

services,” which would include

social media sites such as Face-

book, dating sites such as Bum-

ble, video-gaming platforms,

videoconferencing services and

online messaging platforms

such as Zoom or WhatsApp,

according to the bill’s explana-

tory paper.

It would also cover “organi-

zations providing data broker-

age services” (for instance,

companies such as Nielsen and

Experian) and “large online

platforms” with at least 2.5 mil-

lion users in the country, which

would apply to companies such

as Apple, Amazon and Google.

(Amazon founder Jeff Bezos

owns The Washington Post.)

For children and vulnerable

groups, the law would require

companies that provide social

media services to “take all rea-

sonable steps to verify the age

of individuals who use the so-

cial media service” and “obtain

parental and guardian express

consent before collecting, using

or disclosing the p ersonal infor-

mation of a child under 16.”

Companies that breach these

stipulations could face fines of

up to $7.5 million.

Australia has adopted a raft

of Internet regulations over the

past year, including laws that

pushed Facebook and Google to

pay for news content and intro-

duced penalties for executives

over the streaming of violent

images.

The negative effects of social

media sites on children and

teens has been in the spotlight

since Frances Haugen, a former

Facebook product manager,

blew the whistle on the compa-

ny’s internal practices. A series

published by the Wall Street

Journal revealed that internal

research by Instagram detailed

the negative effect the social

media platform — which is

owned by Facebook — had on

the body image of teenage girls.

David Coleman, Australia’s

assistant minister to the prime

minister for mental health and

suicide prevention, said in a

statement that the landmark

legislation will lead the world

in its efforts to protect children

from social media platforms.

He pointed to a 2018 survey

conducted in the country

among over 4,000 people be-

tween the ages of 12 and 25 in

which social media platforms

were mentioned as the main

cause behind the decline of

mental health among young

people.

“We’ve been actively calling

for privacy regulation and un-

derstand the importance of en-

suring Australia’s privacy laws

evolve at a comparable pace to

the rate of innovation and new

technology we’re experiencing

today,” Mia Garlick, Facebook’s

director for public policy for

Australia, New Zealand and the

Pacific islands, said in a state-

ment.

“We have supported the de-

velopment of international

codes around young people’s

data, like the UK Age Appropri-

ate Design Code,” she said.

“We’re reviewing the draft bill

and discussion paper released

today, and look forward to

working with the Australian

government on this further.”

[email protected]

Australia proposes parental consent for children under 16 on social media

BY LIZ SLY

Iran appears to have been re-
sponsible for a drone attack last
week on a U.S. outpost in Syria,
suggesting that a new front could
be opening in the low-level con-
flict that has simmered since the
United States pulled out of the
Iran nuclear accord in 2018.
No U.S. casualties were report-
ed in the attack on the isolated
U.S. outpost at Tanf near the
Jordanian and Iraqi borders, ac-
cording to the U.S. military. But
pro-Iranian media trumpeted it
as a “victory”; it would be the first
major attack on U.S. troops in
Syria by Iran.
It also marked the biggest and
most sophisticated strike against
the relatively small U.S. force in
Syria, which was deployed in 2015
to support Kurdish-led forces in
the fight against the Islamic State.
At a news briefing Monday,
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby
refused to directly blame Iran for
the barrage of rockets and explod-
ing drones, which caused consid-
erable damage to the base, ac-
cording to photographs circulat-
ing on social media. He described
it as “a complex, coordinated and
deliberate attack” and noted that
similar attacks have been carried
out by Iranian-allied Shiite mili-
tias against U.S. troops elsewhere.
But news outlets affiliated with
Iran haven’t tried to downplay
the likely involvement of Tehran
and its allied militias. Instead,
they have touted the attack in
commentaries as a major success
and hinted that more strikes
against U.S. troops in Syria will
follow.
They attributed the attack to a
little known group called Allies of
Syria, which earlier this month
issued a statement threatening
“harsh” retaliation for an Israeli
airstrike against an Iranian base
outside the Syrian city of Palmyra
on Oct. 14. The Israeli strike, the
statement said, was launched
from the direction of Ta nf.
The attack on the U.S. outpost
demonstrated “a great deal of
boldness and strength” on the
part of the Allies of Syria that will
change the balance of power in
Syria, said Iran’s Fars News Agen-
cy, which is run by the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps, the
military branch that oversees
Iran’s extensive network of mili-
tias in the region.
The al-Ahed website, affiliated

with Lebanon’s Hezbollah move-

ment, said the attack heralded the

start of “a new phase in the

confrontation” in which Iran and

its allies would seek to liberate

Syria from U.S. troops. It noted

that the American withdrawal

from Afghanistan “happened

only under the pressure of mili-

tary operations and not political

or diplomatic pressure.”

U.S. troops in neighboring Iraq

have come under frequent rocket

attacks over the past four years,

and at least three similar attacks

involving drones have been re-

ported in the past year. The Unit-

ed States has retaliated with air-

strikes against Iranian-allied mi-

litias in both Syria and Iraq, most

recently in February, and it might

respond to this one, too, Kirby

said.

Until recently, the estimated

900 U.S. troops scattered thinly

across a vast swath of northeast-

ern Syria and at t heir lone outpost

farther south at Tanf had been

largely ignored by Iranian troops

and their militia allies backing

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

That began to change over the

summer with a series of largely

unreported rocket a ttacks against

U.S. bases in the Kurdish-

controlled northeast, said Mi-

chael Knights, an analyst at the

Washington Institute for Near

East Policy. He attributed the

shift to a decision by Iran to order

its allies to refrain from attacking

U.S. troops in Iraq to ensure sta-

bility in the run-up to parliamen-

tary elections that were held this

month.

The escalation at the Ta nf gar-

rison is likely tied to the dimming

prospects for a resumption of

negotiations to renew the Iran

nuclear accord, according to Ali

Alfoneh, an Iran expert at the

Arab Gulf States Institute.

So far, Iran’s new hard-line

government has shown no incli-

nation to return to the talks, and

Robert Malley, the U.S. special

representative to Iran, warned

Monday that the effort to per-

suade it to do so has entered a

“critical phase.”

Speaking in a conference call

with reporters after consulta-

tions with allies in Europe and

Arab states in the Persian Gulf, he

described a “shared impatience”

with Iran and said he discussed

with allies “other tools” that

might be used to prevent Iran

from acquiring a nuclear weapon

should Tehran continue to refuse

to resume the talks.

Alfoneh said Iran may be seek-

ing to secure leverage over the

terms under which it returns to

the talks by demonstrating its

destructive capabilities against

U.S. troops in the region. Other

attacks may occur, he said, but

“nothing major because it’s not in

Iran’s interest to escalate too far.”

“This is part of the negotiation.

Iran cannot negotiate without

military pressure because the U.S.

holds all the cards,” he said.

But the Ta nf outpost, where a

small number of U.S. troops are

garrisoned in isolation from the

bulk of the American force far-

ther north, has long been a source

of frustration to Iran as well as the

government in Damascus. Near a

key crossing on the Syrian-Iraqi

border, it cuts off a major trade

route between Iran, Iraq and Syr-

ia, the reports in Iranian-affiliat-

ed news outlets noted.

Iran may also be eyeing a dead-

line for the departure of U.S.

combat troops from Iraq at the

end of December, which could

provide another trigger for re-

newed pressure on U.S. forces in

the region, Knights said.

“Toward the end of the year

when the troops are supposed to

leave Iraq and with the nuclear

agreement not going that well,

we’re going to see the tempera-

ture rise,” he predicted.

[email protected]

Strike on U.S. troops in Syria points to escalation by Iran

STAFF SGT. WILLIAM HOWARD/U.S. ARMY

Green Berets take part in an exercise near the Tanf garrison in April 2020. No casualties were reported in last week’s attack on U.S. troops at Tanf, near the Jordanian and

Iraqi borders. But an increase in tensions by Iran or allied militias could be tied to dimming prospects for a resumption of talks to renew the Iranian nuclear accord.

Pro-Tehran media

h ail attack as ‘victory,’

hint at more to come

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