Josh Taylor
@joshtaylor.bsky.social
11K followers 720 following 2.7K posts
Technology reporter at the Guardian, in Melbourne, Australia. Tech, infosec, FOI, politics, media 🌈 (he/him) https://linktr.ee/joshtayl0r
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joshtaylor.bsky.social
See me in the background of Matilda's latest video.

Accurate.
Matilda in a pelican outfit. I'm on the right hand side in a blue shirt
joshtaylor.bsky.social
Wish I'd thought to ask about it but focused my questions on their use of AI in news/illustrations etc.
joshtaylor.bsky.social
They're reporting incorrectly then. I've been listening to estimates and officials rejected that label.
joshtaylor.bsky.social
It wasn't a redundant one, just an old one for all outage notifications. Critical ones were supposed to go to a new address. So it's more like, an inbox that is flooded with emails every day (because telcos have routine outages) that wasn't checked.
joshtaylor.bsky.social
Notable here is the minister's office was CC'ed in on the email... The defence here is Optus at the time didn't express the gravity of the outage.
joshtaylor.bsky.social
News out of estimates today is that Optus sent the alert about the triple zero outage to the department to an old communications email address for outages, not a new one, and the government didn't see it til later.
From:
Sent: Thursday, 18 September 2025 2:45 PM
To: cialerts < @communications.gov.au>
Cc: @mo.communications.gov.au; < @optus.com.au>; Optus
Government Affairs < @optus.com.au>
Subject: NOTIFICATION | Issue with calls to Triple Zero in SA and WA
Good aernoon team,
I have just been informed that Optus has received reports that some customers in SA and WA are experiencing
impacts to Triple Zero calls.
Suspected cause has been indicated to stem from our Regency Park exchange (which services SA and WA), this
matter is urgently being worked through.
-
3
I have no further details yet, but our Networks team have commenced the welfare check processes and relevant
protocols.
As more information is made available, I will provide updates, and let you know when the issue is resolved.
Kind regards,
Associate Director, Government Affairs
1 Lyonpark Road, Macquarie Park, NSW 2113 Aust
joshtaylor.bsky.social
Comms estimates this morning is the Coalition arguing Wells shouldn't have gone to the US when the Optus outage happened, then Labor saying their criticism shows the Coalition doesn't support the social media ban strongly enough
joshtaylor.bsky.social
A guy used a cell site simulator in Melbourne to send scam messages to Telstra customers claiming to be from Commbank. 18 month sentence but released on recognisance. jade.io/article/1156...
CDirector of Public Prosecutions v Low [2025] VCC 1172 - BarNet Jade
The smart way to search, annotate and share Australian legal judgments, decisions and statutes!
jade.io
joshtaylor.bsky.social
iirc it has long been a requirement to only retain personal info for as long as required but there has been some vagueness over how long it is required for under other laws, eg data retention.
joshtaylor.bsky.social
Hard to figure out sometimes whether submissions were made using AI, but then sometimes they make it fairly easy.
Three citation urls that include the source being chatgpt.
Reposted by Josh Taylor
chibdm.bsky.social
Robin Williams' daughter has some quality thoughts on AI slop
Reposted by Josh Taylor
samtlevin.bsky.social
NEW: Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom "deceived" the Supreme Court + "profoundly misrepresented" LGBTQ+ research, according to scholars cited by ADF.

Quoted experts speak out about ADF's "distortions" + "false evidence" in major case, on deck tomorrow, to revive "conversion therapy"
Christian group ‘deceived’ supreme court about LGBTQ+ research, cited scholars say
Exclusive: Experts say Alliance Defending Freedom, arguing to revive conversion therapy, ‘profoundly misrepresented’ their work in case threatening trans and queer youth
www.theguardian.com
joshtaylor.bsky.social
I didn't realise David Tennant was playing a Guardian reporter in the Hack until I started watching (I didn't read much about it beyond phone hacking scandal) but they nailed the look
David Tennant in a blue shirt, arms crossed, with grey hair
joshtaylor.bsky.social
Having only seen Mae Martin before in their season of Taskmaster, Wayward is so good and totally not what I'd expect from them.
Reposted by Josh Taylor
hern.bsky.social
Six years ago, almost to the day, Apple removing a similar app from the Hong Kong App Store was seen as such a breach that Tim Cook wrote an all staff email to defend it www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
joshtaylor.bsky.social
lol the AG Dept was getting so many FOI requests about the FOI bill that they tried to get a blanket extension of time on those requests, info commissioner said no, the law doesn't work like that. www.righttoknow.org.au/request/i_am...
7. On the information before the OAIC, I am not satisfied that the application to extend
the processing period is justified, for the following reasons:
 The reasons provided by the Agency do not address the complexity or volume
involved in processing the applicant’s particular FOI request, including the
number of documents captured, or the specific challenges that may be involved
in processing this specific FOI request.
 While the Agency submits that a cohort of FOI requests it has received relating to
the proposed FOI reforms, are- in their totality- complex and voluminous to deal
with, an extension under s 15AB cannot be exercised to provide a ‘blanket’
extension to a cohort of cases. As outlined above, each request needs to be
considered on its individual merits.
joshtaylor.bsky.social
As the communications minister is in the AFR today heralding soon to arrive notifications during Triple zero outages, I learned SA Ambulance had signed up for them already (Optus has offered since July) but didn't get any during last month's outage. www.theguardian.com/business/202...
SA Ambulance received no alerts from service meant to notify authorities during Optus triple zero outage last month
Exclusive: Despite being signed up to a new alert system, the South Australian emergency service was not notified during September’s triple zero outage
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by Josh Taylor
parkermolloy.com
Even creepier given that this was written by a 63-year-old dude
Tyler Cowen, creep
joshtaylor.bsky.social
I see this is being reported as new news today again 🙃
joshtaylor.bsky.social
The telco sector has been complaining the past few months about being overregulated so I decided to go back and see what Optus had said recently.
australia.theguardian.com
Months before triple zero failure, Optus claimed that giving live updates on outages would impose ‘huge burden’