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alexiamaddox.bsky.social

@alexiamaddox.bsky.social

Sociologist of technology. Interested in digital frontiers (AI, immersive environments, web3 and internet futures). Research methods, community studies and sociotechnical transformations are her bedrock.

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Josh Taylor @joshtaylor.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

These are the various trials:

It is, of course, for the evaluation design phase to specify the exact approaches to testing, but from
experience of undertaking testing elsewhere, it is anticipated that the following description of how the
tests are likely to be deployed for each technology are as follows:
a) Age verification methods - Ensure that users are accurately verified as being above or below a
required age threshold using valid identity documents or other verification methods. This will
involve document verification testing using a dataset of 4,000+ legitimate, fake, and altered identity
documents (e.g., passports, driver's licenses) from various regions, nationally and internationally.
The documents are presented to the UX gateway for participant age assurance providers evaluate
whether the system correctly accepts valid documents and rejects fraudulent or tampered ones.
There will also be tests with documents that are worn, slightly damaged or poorly scanned to
assess how tolerant the system is to imperfect inputs. The Project Team will perform security
testing to identify vulnerabilities that could allow users to bypass verification, including biometric
comparisons and deep fake and video injection presentation attack.
b) Age estimation methods - Test the system’s ability to estimate a user's age based on biological or
behavioural features that vary with age. The Project Team’s existing test datasets will be
augmented with additional images of users of varying ages, ethnicities and genders which reflect
the full diversity of the Australian population (27.6% of whom were born overseas), including highquality and lower-quality images (e.g., different lighting conditions, angles and facial expressions).
The images will be uploaded and the systems checked to see how accurately it estimates age,
comparing the results with the actual ages and perform tests with both static photos and real-time
camera feeds. The Project Team will also explore voice, hand geometry or typing speed analysis,
tes…

d) Parental Consent Technology – The Project will examine whether parental consent systems
accurately verify a parent or guardian’s identity and relationship to the child before granting access
to services. This includes simulating different parent-child relationships, testing various identity
verification methods (e.g., credit card verification, email, document upload). The Project Team will
also test for cases like foster parents, legal guardians, or step-parents to ensure the system
accommodates complex family structures. This will include simulated requests for access from
children of different ages and assess how the system handles multiple requests, including revoking
Document Sensitivity: Public

Page 42 of 52 D6.1 - Project Plan
consent and there will be attempts to simulate potential fraudulent behaviour, such as children
trying to impersonate parents, or bad-actors seeking to groom children through offers of fraudulent
parental consent. Ensure the system is resistant to such efforts.
e) Parental Control Technology – The Project Team will test how effectively parental control
technologies can limit access to content or services based on a child’s age and how parents can
monitor or restrict activity. This involves creating test user accounts for different age groups and
test access to restricted services (e.g. age-restricted content or apps) and examine if content is
appropriately filtered or blocked based on user profiles. The Team will test different levels of
parental controls, from time restrictions to content categories and evaluate how easy it is for
parents to configure these settings. The Team will examine how intuitive the parental control
interface is for setting restrictions, monitoring activity and receiving notifications, ensuring parents
can reasonably easily modify settings without the need for technical expertise. This includes
simulated attempts by children to bypass parental controls (e.g. changing settings or creating fake
accounts) to as…

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alexiamaddox.bsky.social @alexiamaddox.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Just discussed Meta's content moderation changes on EastFM! While fact-checking changes may not hit Australia yet, the broader content shifts likely will. What I loved? We focused on what people can actually DO about these changes. 🎙️ Listen: eastsidefm.org/episodes/173... (1:02:00)

eastsidefm.org

Drive - Friday - 10, January 2025

Listen to Drive - Friday

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Casey Newton @caseynewton.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

NEW: Meta just killed its diversity, equity and inclusion program. Employees aren't buying the company's argument that it's the result of a 'shifting legal landscape.' What they're saying inside the company ➡️ www.platformer.news/meta-kills-d...

Another employee noted in an internal post how reactive the company had become, dramatically changing policies and positions based on one relatively close election. "It's a bit crazy, just thinking that if the election result was different — none of this would happen? Does it mean we were doing things that we did not believe in? Are we going to have such big changes every time power shifts?"
Responded another employee: "Apparently the current direction of the wind is the way we 'lean in.'"

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Dave Willner @dwillner.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Folks are mostly missing the forest for the trees re: the recent Meta announcement. Specifically, the focus on the move from fact checking to community notes. There two different changes that are a much bigger deal that have received less focus. 🧵 1/11

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