World closely watches Australia's social media ban for children

The wide-ranging impact of Australia's new social media ban for children under 16 — the first of its kind in the world — is already being felt at home and abroad, especially for major platforms that have controversially allowed children full access. 

The ambitious move to improve online safety governance for youngsters, which took effect on Dec 10, requires major platforms like Instagram, Facebook, X, Snapchat, TikTok, Reddit, and YouTube to enforce the new legislation. They face fines of up to A$49.5 million ($32.9 million) if they take no reasonable steps to prevent underage users from holding accounts with them.

The ban follows a major survey which revealed how social media is negatively affecting the life satisfaction of Australian high school students. The study, led by the Australian National University, looked at the impact of regular use of social media platforms on life satisfaction levels for students nationwide. It found most participants reported regularly using at least one social media platform, while nearly one in five young people actively post or share social media content at least once a day.

Most major platforms have said that they would comply with the law. Video service provider TikTok said in a statement it has a range of methods for compliance including facial age estimation, credit card authorization, and government-approved identification.

YouTube said it would make changes to how it operates in Australia under the ban, adding it is committed to finding "a better path forward to keep kids safe online". "We believe a more effective approach is one that empowers parents, rather than stripping away their choices, and allows kids to continue to derive the immense benefits of digital environments while protecting them from harm," it said in a statement.

Legal action

On Friday, message board website Reddit filed a lawsuit in Australia's highest court seeking to overturn the country's social media ban for children. The San Francisco-based firm, which ranks Australia among its biggest markets, said in the High Court filing that the ban should be declared invalid because it interfered with free political communication implied by the country's constitution.

A spokesperson for Communications Minister Anika Wells, who was named as the defendant along with the Commonwealth of Australia, said the federal government was "on the side of Australian parents and kids, not platforms" and would "stand firm to protect young Australians from experiencing harm on social media", Reuters reported.

Health Minister Mark Butler said Reddit filed the lawsuit to protect profits, not young people's right to political expression, and "we will fight this action every step of the way". "It is action we saw time and time again by Big Tobacco against tobacco control and we are seeing it now by some social media or Big Tech giants," Butler told reporters.

One Reddit user said in a message-board post: "Our son can no longer access his apps — this has already had a profound effect … Normally he would be consumed with his phone, watching mind-numbing videos."

In a radio interview a day after the ban took effect, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said online safety regulators from the eSafety Commissioner are looking at accounts in line with the new legislation. "So they'll look at what the impact is and then every month for six months they'll have to report," he said.

Albanese also acknowledged the challenges implementation of the ban faces.

"Some people will get around it, just as chances are this Saturday night an under 18-year-old will get a beer in a pub somewhere. That doesn't mean that society doesn't set these rules, and these processes, in order to keep our youngest Australians safe," he said.

"We'll be sensible about it … we're talking of over a million accounts across platforms. We don't expect it to all be done perfectly, but we do expect the law provides for them to do their best endeavors."

Praise, wariness

Julian Sefton-Green, a professor of new media education at Deakin University, said the ban was "inspiring legislation".

"It's designed to raise questions … It's designed to make families and young people talk in different ways," he said.

"So I think the significance of this law might be that it changes the power of these huge multinational global platforms, which are to a very great extent unaccountable, unregulated, and not owned by individual national countries, and it will raise a lot of questions about what individual countries can do in respect of these large multinational companies," Sefton-Green, who is also a member of the Australian eSafety Commissioner's advisory group that explores the implementation and outcomes of the nation's social media minimum age legal obligations, told China Daily.

But Catherine Archer, a senior lecturer and researcher in social media at Edith Cowan University, said many academics feel children and teens were not consulted widely enough before the legislation was announced.

"The ban could cause anxiety and other mental issues for teens. They will face uncertainty over the school holidays on how to keep in contact with their friends and be entertained and informed on their regular platforms," Archer said via the Scimex science information portal.

"Teens are starting to think of ways around the ban, and the concern is that they may go to 'darker' places on the web. Messaging apps like WhatsApp won't be under the ban, so bullying may still occur," she said.

"The effectiveness is yet to be tested. Some adults are worried that it will lead to more data and surveillance, as age testing is not foolproof."

Some teenagers have expressed concern over the ban, according to the Australian Associated Press.

It cited the example of Carlee Jade Clements, 15, an influencer from Melbourne with 37,000 Instagram followers who was still on the platform two days from the ban's effective date. Clements spent years building her Instagram presence, with her mother managing the account, but fears the new rules will impact her income and opportunities, AAP reported.

Two teenagers representing an Australian libertarian group filed another suit last month against such a ban, according to Reuters.

Tama Leaver, a professor of internet studies at Curtin University, said that no matter how people feel about the ban or social media, the feelings and responses of teens losing access to social media must be taken seriously.

"Parents and trusted adults need to listen to young people, to support them, and not dismiss what social media may have meant to them," Leaver said.

The ban may well reduce some risks, he said, but "cyberbullying will still exist — messaging platforms are mostly exempt from the ban. Untrustworthy adults may still be able to find ways to reach and speak to teens across almost any platform."

"The job of helping young people learn to navigate the digital world safely is ongoing, and helping teens continue that conversation matters. Opening a door so young people have someone to turn to if they experience something challenging, confronting or terrible online, is vital."

Sabrina Caldwell, senior lecturer from the School of Systems and Computing at UNSW Canberra, said the new social media ban "won't work perfectly, but it can work imperfectly".

"Some young people will find ways to circumvent the restrictions. However, even if they find a way to sneak online, they will not find most of their peers there, and this will detract significantly from the social media experience," Caldwell said.

Bigger issues

An Australian Broadcasting Corporation survey of more than 17,000 youngsters aged under 16 about the ban, found one-quarter would stop using social media.

Twenty-two percent of social media users said they were unsure if the ban would be effective, while 72 percent said they did not think it would work, according to the poll.

Associate Professor Katie Wood, an expert in clinical psychology at Swinburne University of Technology, questioned the ban's role in addressing the "clear negative impacts on mental health and well-being" from excessive social media.

"While more research is needed to fully answer this question, parents will need support to work with their children to find ways to manage the ban," Wood said.

"There is a risk that children will find other ways to access social platforms and become sneakier about it. Parents will need to be vigilant about this as well as any emotional and social fallout."

Tom Sulston, head of policy at Digital Rights Watch, a group that advocates protection of Australians' digital rights, told China Daily that despite the ban, bullies, abusers, and predators will not go away.

"They will merely follow young people onto the platforms that they are allowed to use. At the same time, young people will be discouraged from seeking help as they may feel they are doing something they shouldn't be."

Demanding ID from people to use simple internet systems is likely to cause an increase in identity theft, as Australians become habituated to entering their ID around the internet and potentially into criminal honeypots, Sulston said.

Considering the ban's potential impact on other parts of the world, Sulston said his hope and expectation is that "countries will look at Australia's experiment on young people's ability to communicate with each other and treat it as a cautionary tale".

"Instead, they will opt to regulate social media companies to remove the harms, rather than remove the young people. We need to stop social media companies from using their algorithms to profit from spreading hate, lies, and division. That is what we should be regulating, rather than the age of the users," he said.

Sefton-Green said it will also "encourage other countries to stand up against these social media firms, to try to say that the norms of behavior we see in our society should be norms for which national governments take responsibility".

Prime Minister Albanese said the "world is not only watching, the world is following".

Professor Michael Salter from the School of Social Sciences, Arts, Design and Architecture at the University of New South Wales, said the ban is still "an unfortunate but necessary step to protect children from escalating levels of online sexual abuse and exploitation".

"Globally, 300 million children experience online sexual abuse each year, and the majority of this occurs on social media platforms," said Salter, who is director of Childlight UNSW, the Australasian hub of Childlight, the Global Child Safety Institute, which undertakes research on the impact of child sexual abuse and exploitation.

"Social media companies have consistently prioritized growth and engagement over child protection. Age restrictions are a necessary circuit breaker for a sector where voluntary industry action has failed," he said.

Rachael Sharman, a senior psychology lecturer at University of the Sunshine Coast, said that while the logistics of the ban remain under question, the move, if successful, "will give parents and families the opportunity to reclaim childhood, and ensure the building blocks of the brain are set in place before exposure to what has proved to be a most pernicious influence".

"I suspect the rest of the world is taking such an extraordinary interest in this Australian initiative, to see when and how they can best follow suit for the improved wellbeing of their future generations," Sharman said.

Germany, Denmark, New Zealand and Malaysia are already considering policies concerning access to social media by teenagers.