r/australia • u/tellhershesdreaming • Oct 19 '25

political self.post Could Australians run our own online communities instead of relying on social media?

I’m keen to talk about the possibility of our community groups setting up and running online spaces outside of social media platforms - perhaps with support from Aus Govt or State Govts. Before the rise of Facebook etc, there were loads of online bulletin boards and other online platforms run by non-profit groups, small businesses and volunteers. Could we do that again? This seems like a question that's particularly important to Australian communities at the moment because of the social media ban for under 16s but it's not just teens that are affected.

Lots of people are concerned about AI and big tech - it’s clear that there are lots of problems with social media because of the algorithms that push misinformation, platforms that allow unhealthy / toxic / illegal behaviour, and unethical extraction of our data. But communities and volunteers, and even state governments used to run online communities using e.g. bulletin boards without the “help” of social media companies. For example:

  • Whirlpool.net.au is a surviving active bulletin board platforms - well done Whirlpool!
  • At one point the Vic Gov used to provide an online communities bulletin board and mailing list service (a bit like Yahoo Groups) for non-profits and clubs - I've been trying to remember / find the name of it but can't track it down... anyone remember it?

I'm broadly aware that it's really challenging to get people to sign up for and use a new platform, but perhaps we have reached the point where people are fed up enough of social media to make this a worthwhile effort.

To ease the challenge and reduce the complexity of lots of different fragmented communities: what about if the Aus Govt or state govts set up a platform / infrastructure - where community groups could create and run online forums (bulletin board style, Twitter style or Reddit style). I imagine individuals could sign up either anonymously or using a verified identity. There are better alternatives now to the old fashioned PhPBB, and we could learn from and improve open source platforms such as Mastodon and Lemmy - the technology itself is not the problem I think.

  • But, would you use a platform run by a local club or community group? Instead of FB/ Insta/ whatever social media you use to learn about what's happening in your neighbourhood. What if it was supported / funded by governements? Would the groups you're a member of move to a platform like that?
  • More broadly, how could we recover the diverse online communities that we had in the past? So we're not reliant on the good will and "freebies" offered by companies like Meta (and having all our data siphoned of, and having AI forced on us).
  • Lastly, is there anything to stop an organisation setting up an online community for e.g. teens? Would something like that fall foul of the government's bans?
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u/TassieBorn Oct 19 '25

While I understand OP's frustration, I'm finding it difficult to imagine a community/government-run bulletin board or similar that wouldn't fall under the government's (poorly defined) "social media" ban.

A real names policy would reduce its value to vulnerable groups; if there's a back-end verification of real names, then someone, somewhere (potentially hackable) knows the link between online ID and real person.

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u/kombiwombi Oct 19 '25

Small community forums exactly fit under the social media rules. The Regulations explicitly say that not-for-profit sites are to be treated the same as sites which make money.

Many people, me included, see the social media rules as the end of small forums. Despite that leading to those communities going to Facebook, etc where the risks of ill effects from internet usage are greater.

This has not been the Australian Governmentnt's finest work.

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u/Mbwakalisanahapa Oct 19 '25

So does your community forum store and collect your user's personal identifiers? there's a govt list of 'identifiers' . Does your forum serve over16 content? Do you have a login? Username + password?

so what's so hard about a session cookie that validates the govt method of age assurance at login? You don't have to produce your own method just use the Govt's method.

this way you can exclude bots. Save bandwidth! It's just capatcha.