Description of the Activity undertaken
My chosen activity is to analyse a website on the topic of censorship. I chose the Electric Frontiers Australia or EFA website. This website is a non-profit that offers articles on internet censorship and surveillance that’s relevant to young adults who are concerned about their privacy. This blog post will talk about the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 which was passed in December of 2025 in Australia which has sparked many conversations around internet privacy and censorship.
What did I learn?
I learnt that the EFA are a nonprofit and offer news articles that talk about the digital privacy and safety of online users. Analysing the website itself, a few key design principles stood out where the website endeavoured to present an aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate web browser.
Eline Jongmans (2022) described that visual design in affecting a user’s experience is complex but more often than not has an indirect impact
Eline Jongmans (2022)
It allowed for an easy flow to access the numerous articles posted on the website.
How was the activity relevant to your professional practice working with children and/or young adults?
By analysing the website, I can understand how groups are attempting to educate children and young adults on censorship in the wake of the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024. This required all websites to verify the ages of its users and prevent under 16-year-olds from accessing the content. By learning what groups are doing to educate children on the new censorship laws, I can educate myself in helping them navigate the internet in accordance with the laws.
What gaps in your knowledge were revealed and how might you fill those gaps?
I did not know that there were websites available for children and young adults that aimed to educate on digital rights and censorship laws. Phillip M. Lutscher (2023) described
how authoritarian governments have begun to block news websites in recent years as found in the country of Egypt.
Phillip M. Lutscher (2023)
The people reacted by forming independent groups and fighting for the right to the internet and the whole truth. By paying attention to these new non-for-profit groups and their websites, I can better fill the gaps in my knowledge.
Discussion of the relevance of Professional Development Activity to topic.
As of December 2025, new censorship laws have activated in Australia in an attempt to protect the youth from harmful content. Ibrahim Obaidat et all (2023) stated
the reason being that young people struggle to comprehend the connection between action and consequence completely which is exacerbated when young people are given free access to the internet.
Ibrahim Obaidat, et al (2023)
But groups such as the EFA have criticised the policy behind the Bill with the EFA Team (2026) stating a discrepancy where
“70% of young people remain on social media platforms, while over 4 million children have been supposedly removed according to the social media platforms themselves” (para. 12).
EFA Team (2026)
The EFA are striving to educate the youth and young adults and by analysing the website they use. I as an information professional can better learn how to educate children and young adults in the library of the changing landscape of the internet.
References
Jongmans, E., Jeannot, F., Liang, L., & Dampérat, M. (2022). Impact of website visual design on user experience and website evaluation: the sequential mediating roles of usability and pleasure. Journal of Marketing Management, 38(17–18), 2078–2113. https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2022.2085315
Lutscher, P. M. (2023). When Censorship Works: Exploring the Resilience of News Websites to Online Censorship. British Journal of Political Science, 53(4), 1342–1350. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123422000722
Obaidat, I., Al-zou’bi, A., Mughaid, A., & Abualigah, L. (2023). Investigating the cyberbullying risk in digital media: protecting victims in school teenagers. Social Network Analysis and Mining, 13(1), Article 139. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-023-01152-2
Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024
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