The social media ban for kids: Australia’s world-first experiment

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:06Today, Australia's teens get chucked off social media.

0:31The day that teenagers across Australia have been dreading, it's finally here. From today, snapstreaks across the country will be broken, memes will go unmade, hauls will remain unboxed, and millions of under-16s will be cut off from the world's largest social media platforms. Australia's attempting a world first, banning children from platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, and forcing the tech pros who run them to comply. And young people are, well, absolutely furious. I feel as if it's just, it's a very short-sighted idea, because a 16-year-old having no experience with the internet is suddenly thrown headfirst into something that's meant to be curated for adults, right?

1:18I just don't think banning it outright will fix the solution. And not only that, but I don't think that it takes into consideration people with disabilities and neurodivergent people and just people who feel isolated in general. And the fact that it's simply being taken away because of harmful content creators. The harmful content won't stop and bullying and online harassment doesn't stop at 16. The government says it's doing it for their own good And no, they don't care if all the other countries let their kids go on TikTok. But as the bang comes into force, will or can it work? From The Guardian, I'm Annie Kelly.

2:05Today in Focus, Australia leaps into the unknown.

2:13Can you tell me about how you might interact on Instagram or TikTok or Snapchat with your friends? Yeah, so it's really just a fun way for all of us to connect. and for us to find, you find something hilarious that you would never be able to think of in real life and it would like crack you up for a good 10 minutes and you'd be like, I'm going to send this to my friend. And then you come to school the next day and you can laugh about it again. And it can, so many online memes have become inside jokes for a lot of my friends and I. Sarai loves to dance. She's 14 and she and all of her friends have grown up online.

2:54And how long have you been on these platforms? Since we entered year seven, I was 12. We were born in the generation that develops as technology develops. And actually during COVID and during the pandemic and quarantine, we were all encouraged to engage online and to be able to communicate and connect online. And so it's become such a major part of our lives. So is it that you can't imagine life without them? See, it's a bit frustrating because when if I were to say yes, it would seem like an addiction, but it's not. We've simply been raised with electronics. but on a regular school day I would wake up at around 6 or 6 30 and I wouldn't go on my phone until after the school day is finished.

3:48I know a lot of my friends wouldn't be mindlessly scrolling for hours. The issue is harmful content and if our algorithms are specified to what we like if I interact with one slime ASMR that's going to be on my sorry I'm so sorry you've got to tell me what a slime ASMR is when someone plays with slime and it makes all of these like crackles and pops and they have like a microphone really close okay it's like satisfying sounds and you this is something that you're that you find relaxing yeah so sometimes I will be having dance tutorials on my For You page the entire time and other times it'll be slime.

4:40For Ewan, age 15 in Sydney, the freedom to try new things has been a big part of his social media too. I've grown up with stuff like YouTube and that's influenced a lot of my interests and passions and stuff like filmmaking and theatre. Like, I love making films, I love doing theatre, I love, you know, going really intricately into different parts of pop culture that I'm interested in. And I just don't think I would have had that as smooth a transition into those communities as I would have about social media. My name is Ezra Scholl. I am a 15-year-old teenager from Melbourne, Australia, and I have a disability.

5:25Social media has been a lifeline since he lost the use of his arms and legs following a chronic illness. I use Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok. I follow basketball and Australian football. And so I follow all sorts of channels and pages about that. I'm very into music. so I follow a lot of music accounts. Radiohead, they're great. I'm also really into movies and I started a movie account where I review and write movies, so that's fun. That's on Instagram. I probably spend more time than is healthy and I use it to talk to friends and to scroll, doom scroll Instagram reels and TikTok. Today's ban is a real loss.

6:26My Snapchat account will be taken down and that's my key way of communicating with my friends. My Instagram account will be taken down and that's how I see what people are up to and connect with people as well as my movie account on my Instagram as well as my TikTok account and that disconnects me.

6:58So Josh Taylor, you're the technology reporter for Guardian Australia and I imagine it's been quite a busy week for you. Could you start by telling us what exactly is this new law that's being brought into Australia today? There are 10 social media platforms that the government has deemed are harmful for children. And basically, the social media apps will have to have all the under-16s off their platform. They won't be allowed to register new accounts, and they must make sure that they're not able to sort of dodge the ban and get in through other ways. It's such an ambitious thing to try to do.

7:34Could you explain how's that actually going to work in practice? So the legislation sets out that the platforms must take reasonable steps to keep the teens off their platforms. And that is essentially it. They basically left most of the how they're going to do it to the platforms to determine themselves. And what we've seen through what Meta have said, what Snap have said, and a few others sort of come out on it is essentially they're going to use what they call sort of a waterfall approach for age assurance. A lot of the companies that are using behavioral signals, knowing the age of your account, then figuring out which ones are likely to be under 16.

8:11And then they are sending them messages. This is at least what Meta is doing. And Snapchat, they're sending the messages saying, hey, we think you're under 16. If we've got this wrong, here's an appeals process you can go through. And through that, you can either on the Meta one, you can choose to do facial age assurance. You hold your camera up to your face and it'll take a scan of your face and then come back in a couple of minutes and say yes or no. And if it gets that wrong, or if you just don't want to go through the facial age assurance, you can provide a government ID and then that will be your way in or out.

8:44And it's not all social media apps that are banned from today, is it? Can you tell me kind of who's on the list and who isn't? Yeah. So it's Meta's platforms, it's TikTok, it's x it's youtube it's uh kick uh reddit there's about 10 altogether and but those are the just ones that uh the government has identified as it is needing to go through this self-assessment process the e-safety commissioner has set out and determine if they think that the ban would apply to them there are sort of set out exclusions so um platforms that are sort of educational or particularly designed for kids, or there are a few other ones like gaming and things like that that are excluded.

9:26We're sort of at the stage now where the government said, we've got this 10, we're happy with this for the moment. And what are the repercussions for them if they don't comply with this new law? Yeah, so there's a$49.5 million fine that can be intentionally applied to them if they don't take reasonable steps. And that will be something that the court will determine. So launch court action in the federal court. I think that's going to be a fair while away. So if we have some ones that are not complying with it, that's going to be fascinating to watch over the next couple of months.

10:04Can you take us back a little bit? How did this law come about? Who's behind it? Well, the really real origin of the ban was essentially the South Australian And Premier's wife bought Jonathan Haidt's book, The Anxious Generation, and read his book, which is all about the mental health impacts of social media on young people, and turned to her husband and said, we need to do something about this. And I think the other thing that's important to point out here as well is that News Corp has such a major presence in Australia, and they got very much behind this. they launched this campaign called Let Them Be Kids and were fully behind the ban.

10:47And when you've got cheerleaders in the media, that makes it much easier to get a policy through, particularly when it's News Corp and they have such a big influence in Australia. So I think that that's essentially what led to it. The polling has always been very, very, very much in favour of the social media ban. In the abstract, it sounds like a really, really good idea. And a lot of people are going to be in favour of it. They think that social media is not doing great things for not just kids, for adults as well. When you think about what's been happening, I think our mental health has been slowly being undermined.

11:17And first of all, you can think about social media as being a little bit of a cognitive cocaine, like the kids are at a party all the time. Their interest in doing things just for the sake of doing it, I'm going to learn a skateboard trick because I enjoy it, not because of how much attention it's going to get me. Even as we've gone through the implementation of it, there's been very little pushback from the public. Have you heard of any cases where parents are against this or are happy to try and help their kids stay on social media? I think with parents, there has been a bit of pushback, particularly from parents of kids who live in regional Australia, parents of LGBTQ kids, parents of kids living with disabilities, because for a lot of them, the social media is their sort of community, is where they find people who are like them.

12:04They may not have connections in their local area. The Prime Minister likes to talk about, you know, this is going to get kids off social media and going out and playing football and things like that. But a lot of, like some kids, that's not interesting. They want to spend time finding their communities online. I think the other thing to point out as well is that there has been a lot of pushback from kids themselves. The Prime Minister did a press conference with a bunch of school kids a couple of weeks ago. What measures are in place to prevent people from bypassing the security systems and creating fake accounts?

12:32The responsibility is on the social media companies. And all the questions from the kids were basically like, why are you doing this? Like, you know, you've done this for us, but without including us, they feel entirely left out of the process. So kids weren't involved at all in the consultation process, or their voices weren't considered at all when they were writing this legislation? Yeah, I mean, they said they did, there was some sort of, you know, a little bit of consultation here and there, but I don't think it was particularly in depth.

13:08Stopping us from simply having accounts online is really frustrating and feels like we're being infantilized and simply generalized as these internet addicted mind-addled users who aren't doing anything productive on there but again aren't doing anything productive in real life either. We're just these mindless lobs. Sarai is against the ban, but she does admit that social media can be harmful to young teens. So very occasionally, nowadays, I come across harmful political content that I don't agree with. And I come across content that is very racially motivated a lot of it isn't directed towards me but it's directed towards races of my friends it's people being harmful to the lgbtq community and there's also a lot of concern around like body autonomy it's really scary seeing that on social media and thinking wow like what an intense thing to what just it's pretty horrible when it comes up that's kind of content that might make you feel bad about your own body is that right yeah so we've recently seen an uprising in pro ana pro anorexic culture when everyone is coming back it's really really skinny and they're glorifying eating one meal per day and while social media is definitely a way that you can share your recovery journey it's also a way for a lot of people to be able to share and promote harmful content like that and that for teenagers I will admit it's very susceptible to us and then bullying is such a big thing you could repost one thing about something that you like and you'll have five people come up to you at school and you're like oh you like this but I'm again very lucky because I've been bullied before online and face to face so I've become very sure of myself in that way but it's really horrible and so obviously when people are exposed to it for the first time they're not necessarily going to be able to know how to navigate those situations.

15:41I mean, it sounds like you are a really kind of strong person who's gone through some negative stuff online, also offline. I'm really sorry about that. Bullying is just horrible. But you are kind of saying that you feel like it's made you a stronger person now. But obviously, there's a chance that other people your age are not as resilient. And do you, can you kind of see that there might be people out there that are exposed to the kind of content that you've just been telling us about that perhaps wouldn't have the support networks that you do and that actually might find themselves at the age of 12 or 13 or 14 being exposed to stuff online that they can't handle?

16:25Absolutely and it's truly horrible like there's been so many cases of image-based abuse where it has led to severe depression and anxiety and sometimes suicide and social media has real downsides and it is an issue and I'm not trying to pretend at all that it's harmless but these problems don't come from teenagers simply being allowed on social media and again a lot of people use online as a way to escape.

17:02Josh, Australia is leaping into the unknown here, isn't it? I mean, this is the first time a government has tried to do something like this. Do you think that it's actually enforceable, though? I will be interested to see what happens. I think that they've structured it in a way that will allow them to try and use a sort of carrot and stick approach. They've been quite successful so far in convincing platforms to bring this in without having to sort of take them into court or anything like that. It would be interesting to see where it goes if, you know, the ultimate end point is that some companies might decide to pull out of Australia, might not make their products available to Australia because they think it's too hard.

17:44Or if we're still such an attractive market that they will just come in and then abide by our laws. There is a kind of dynamic list, isn't there, of apps where some are on, some are off. Can you explain how that's going to work? So we've got these 10 to start that they've named and sort of applies to them. But if kids start to migrate to another platform, you know, we've been talking about Yope and Lemonade, Lemonade, Lemonade. And if kids start to go there, then they can potentially be told, you need to assess yourself. And then if we decide that you need to apply it, then you must apply it. It could be a game of whack-a-mole after a while, I feel.

18:23I think the big platforms that have been named, they are huge. They have all these systems in place that they've been dealing with, these sorts of things for the past couple of decades. Some of these apps will probably be like two employee companies and not used to having to deal with regulatory issues and having to deal with governments and things like that. And I think we just have to see what kids are going to do, if they're going to try to get around it or if they're just going to find new places to go. The other thing I should say is, well, messaging apps are not included in the ban. So if there's bullying that's happening over messaging app, group chats, things like that, that's still going to happen.

18:58So all of the ills of the internet are not going to be solved by this one piece of legislation. One of the things I'm going to be interested to see is how the government is going to measure success for the social media ban, because I think that it is hard to gauge how things are going to improve. Are you going to be looking at what the suicide rates are? Are you going to be looking at better mental health outcomes for teens?

19:26I escaped many situations by going online, and I know many of my friends have. It feels like adults punishing us because they don't know how to fix the real problems. So I'll lose daily contact with friends around the world, so people I've built strong, healthy friendships with for years. and everyone's going to get around it in some way. So I'm not completely dejected in the fact that it's happening. I just wish that they would go about it differently. So that's really funny. So you're not dejected that much because you kind of figure that you'll find a way around it. Yes. If I could find a way around it at 12, I can find a way around it at 14.

20:12I think we should have more restrictions on content creation. So the adults are the ones who are making harmful content. And I think also our parents assume that when we're online, all we're looking at is slime ASMR or la boo-boos or makeup. But really, Gen Z is one of the most politically active generations. And we do a lot of that via social media. That's how we raise awareness for so many things. That's how we make sure that we stay up to date with information because you don't see many people opening a newspaper and reading it on the bus on the way to school now. It's all on social media and that's how we access it.

20:55And you saying that you were pretty like you were a bit like, well, they're going to put this ban in, but we're going to find ways around it. have you been talking about that with your friends kind of workarounds and ways that you're going to be able to to get around the band that's coming in today yeah so a lot of my friends have been making like accounts fake accounts that that obviously they've lied about their age on they've all talked about the makeup they would wear or the masks they would wear that would trick these systems and it's really it's just going to drive it underground and I feel like also going to make people who end up do getting affected by this less likely to reach out because they weren't supposed to be on it in the first place I know my I know my I know my people and I know that we're even if our accounts are banned we will not be banned we will still be we will still be going on social media.

21:58So it seems to me that what you're saying really is that what they should be doing is making the platforms safer and trying to get rid of the harmful content, not kicking you all off social media until you're 16. Yeah, I've said this before and I'll say this again, bullying, online harassment, image-based abuse, harmful content, exposure, none of that stops at 16. It won't stop. You'll be 24, you'll be 65 and you'll be seeing harmful things. You'll have people saying horrible things to you. You unfortunately have to learn how to live with it and how to deal with it.

22:38Coming up, will the rest of the world follow Australia?

22:52I guess in a way they've taken the easy road by just saying, okay, just issuing this blanket ban. But in some ways, I guess you could argue it's also maybe a bit of a wasted opportunity, because if you're going to pass a piece of groundbreaking legislation that's looking to try and limit the damage of these social media platforms and young people, is this the right piece of legislation to pass? I think when the government's been defending this, saying that they should have just taken action to make it safer for everyone they've basically been saying we've been giving the platforms so much time to get this right to make it safer for everyone we've been trying this is something we can do to stop it now for a section of the public for young people when their brains are developing and they're not quite as equipped to potentially handle social media as adults are although i disagree that adults can handle social media any better than kids and so that they're basically just pushing ahead with this ban to basically cut off a section of population and maybe look at fixing things up later on.

23:50And I think the success of the ban may ultimately have an impact on whether the other stuff happens. Maybe some new apps will be designed that are safe and good for kids to use, because that is one of the things that they can get an exemption if they show to the government that they have all these safety features in place that are not toxic for children. If they bring some of those in and kids actually do want to use them, that could be a good outcome. I think what we've seen is, you know, the probably last last 10-15 years of kids growing up is that they've had this constant thing in their pocket that's just constantly available to them and immediately accessible.

24:24They will probably not cope as well without it. But I think what we will be looking for, I guess, when the next sort of generation comes up is if there is a sort of different impact because they haven't had that in their pocket all the time. I mean, it's going to be so fascinating to see how this plays out, isn't it? And I mean, there is a real sense, isn't there, that Australia is doing something properly groundbreaking here. I know that the rest of the world is really closely watching how this whole thing plays out. Is there a sense within Australia that this is a momentous thing that the government's trying to do?

24:58I mean, from the government's perspective, yes, they often like to say this is world-leading a social media ban, and they like to always mention the world-leading aspect to it. There are a lot of other countries that are looking to do what we're doing now and waiting to see how we go. I think there will be a lot of pressure on the government and the safety commissioner in particular to make sure that this is right and this works. And as the Guardian's technology correspondent in Australia, do you feel optimistic that this is going to be a success? I think the best sign of success is if it stops being sort of the biggest news story of the day, if it just fades into the background and people just get on with their lives and we start to see, I guess maybe kids having potentially different outcomes.

25:43But I do worry that particularly for regional kids and LGBTQ kids and kids with disabilities, that they might suffer as a result of this because they will be cut off from their connections or they won't be able to find their connections as easily as they have been up until now. No, I wouldn't recommend that other countries follow Australia's example. social media it's a new thing it hasn't been around for long and it's obviously got some very major flaws but I really just don't think that banning social media completely is just a reasonable thing to do What I would say to other governments about doing a similar thing to what Australia is trying to employ right now proceed with caution and how are you planning to say goodbye to your social media channels for now because it sounds like you're quite determined to make sure that isn't forever um all of like my saved videos i'm downloading the ones that i want to keep whether it be a dance i want to learn or whether it be like a meme i want to send out and i'm screenshotting all of the people i follow so i know to keep up with them if I don't end up making a new account or I know to follow them when I do make my new account and then also kind of just like distancing myself away from social media I was planning on having a detox anyway as I know a lot of my friends wanted to do over the break so they're nice and fresh for the school year but um I think I just kind of like spending time away from it Yeah.

27:29So actually you're quite looking forward to having a little break? I think so. I think while it's very good, it can also be taxing. Like you could just spend a whole day scrolling on your phone and be like, where did the time go?

27:44That was Sarai, Ewan and Ezra. Thank you so much to them for talking to us today. And thanks too to Josh Taylor, The Guardian's Australia tech reporter. You can follow all of his reporting on today's social media ban. on theguardian.com. And that's it for today. This episode was presented by me, Annie Kelly, and produced by Ruth Abrahams. Sound design was Brianne McNamara, and the executive producer was Sammy Kent. Don't forget to check out our new video podcast, The Latest, this afternoon. And we'll be back tomorrow.