The Australian Government is set to impose social media age limits, amid increasing concern over the effect of social media on youth mental health, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced today.
Legislation is to be introduced later this year, and is expected to gain bipartisan support after the leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, called to ban social media for under-16s earlier this year.
“We know social media is causing social harm, and it is taking kids away from real friends and real experiences,” said Albanese in a statement today, which also happens to be World Suicide Prevention Day.
“The safety and mental and physical health of our young people is paramount.”
“We’re supporting parents and keeping kids safe by taking this action, because enough is enough.”
The federal commitment to legislate social media age limits follows similar announcements from the Victorian and South Australian Governments, both of which want to ban social media for kids under the age of 14.
The new legislation will build on a report by former High Court Chief Justice, Robert French, released on Sunday. The report, commissioned by the South Australian (SA) Government, includes draft legislation banning children under 14 from social media outright, and requiring companies to gain parental consent for 14 and 15-year-olds to use their platforms.
Recent polling shows strong public support for an age-based social media ban, with 61% of respondents agreeing that the government should restrict the use of social media platforms for Australians younger than 17. Unsurprisingly, support was lower among younger Australians: 54% of Aussies aged 18 to 24 agreed with the ban.
The potential harms of social media for kids has come to prominence in the past decade, particularly with the ubiquity of the smartphone.
Author and psychologist Jonathan Haidt has said social media is “more addictive than heroin,” causing the “great rewiring” of childhood. He is one of many researchers who suggest that increased uptake of social media and smartphones has created an “international epidemic” of depression, anxiety and suicide among young people.
Research by Australia’s online safety regulator, eSafety, found that 75% of 16 to 18-year-olds had seen online pornography – of those, nearly one-third saw it before the age of 13 and nearly half saw it between the ages of 13 and 15.
In other research, eSafety found that almost two-thirds of 14-17-year-olds have viewed potentially harmful content in the past year, such as content relating to drug taking, suicide or self-harm, or gory or violent material.
There are also concerns about children being preyed upon online. Sonya Ryan OAM, the founder and Chief Executive of the Carly Ryan Foundation, has experienced this personally. Her daughter Carly, was killed in 2007 at the age of 15 by a predator she met online.
Ryan has voiced her support for new laws to protect kids, stating: “In my opinion the only way forward is to create appropriate legislation to protect our children from these harms and regulate Big Tech companies to include mandatory age verification across all platforms.”
Others are worried that banning children’s access to social media will cause unintended harms.
“Social media is one of the only public spaces where children can communicate directly with their friends – often maintaining connections with distant friends and loved ones that would otherwise be impossible,” said information and technology expert Dr. Dana McKay of RMIT University.
Instead of banning kids from social media, the focus should be on making social media safer, said Dr. McKay.
“Many of the problems can already be addressed by minimising advertising and detecting and addressing harmful interactions through behavioural analytics, for example,” she said.
Detail on how the new age assurance laws and technology will work is hazy until draft legislation is tabled later this year, but the concept has already been in development for some time.
The Federal Government has invested $6.5 million in a trial of age assurance technology which will be used to enforce the social media age limit, with the technology aspect of the trial currently out to tender.
At the same time, Australia’s online safety regulator, eSafety has given digital industry associations until the end of this year to propose improved industry codes that will be enforceable by eSafety to limit children’s access to inappropriate content online, including pornography and self-harm content.
Both of these initiatives are tied in with Age Verification Roadmap, which in turn is tied in with Australia’s recently legislated Digital ID framework, to which the government has allotted $288.1 million over the next four years.
In the coming weeks and months, I will be exploring this issue further on Dystopian Down Under. Subscribe to read more about social media, how it’s affecting us, and what we should do about it.
This article was originally published on Dystopian Down Under, Rebekah Barnett’s Substack newsletter. You can subscribe here.
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I think social media is potentially harmful for everyone and actually harmful for many, me included. But this decision is for the parents. But socialists love to destroy the centrality of the family, with the excuse of “doing good”, because that centrality threatens their ability to boss people about. Many parents will probably applaud this – less for them to do. How depressing.
Nailed it.
this decision is for the parents.
But in the madleft paradise of the future there won’t be such “reactionary” and “far-right” things as parents, there will only be the state and its agents.
There’s the problem: The state appoints agents who then cannot be removed or replaced at an election. The agents’ organisation becomes captured by narrow interest groups and the only way to break the cycle is to stand up and argue that the child ‘protection’ is itself damaging. Arguing against child protection is a difficult proposition.
I’m ambivalent about banning social media for under 17s. I don’t think FB and the like are good ‘places’ for anyone – most especially not for kids – but I don’t like the ban-hammer. I don’t approve of the State dictating how kids should be brought up.
I think social media is potentially harmful for everyone and actually harmful for many
Especially to people seeking to keep control of some hairbrained and dangerous narrative, say, the need for proactive COVID vaccination of 3 – 7 year olds or the enormous benefits of breast-binders and gender affirming mutilation for 11 year old girls. Not to mention all those climate denialists who might seek to tell children that they won’t be drowning in boiling oceans anytime soon and the far-right extremists who might have unsanctioned opinions on ritual humilation of white children in schools (Australian topic which featured here not that long ago).
If the supposed motivation of something includes both Save the children! and It’s more addictived than heroin!, not to mention how the […] technology will work is hazy […] but the concept […] is tied in with Australia’s […] digital ID framework, this should set a Tasmania-sized alarm bill ringing. Nefarious purpose guaranteed.
This is a wet dream come true for state bureaucrats.
It removes competition for the brainwashing of children’s minds.
It encroaches even further into the rights of parents to bring up their own children with more prescriptions, as you say.
And all the weak, feeble, socially low status parents who are incapable of commanding the respect of their own children will be clapping the whole thing on like mindless seals.
Books, magazines, newspapers, talking to people down the pub is ‘potentially’ harmful. All communication is.
The real issue here is, it bypasses the normal channels of Government propaganda output, and cannot be controlled.
Printing the Bible is the vernacular instead of Latin – which most people couldn’t understand – took away the Church’s monopoly on the information flow and therefore was ‘dangerous’.
And yes – destroy the family because it provides a support network for most people. Without it, people have to rely on – be controlled by – the State and the malefactors running it.
The harmful aspect I was referring to was really the amount of sheer crap on it (and I don’t mean disinformation, I mean low quality content), and the addictive nature of it, the potential to distract and undermine attention spans, to take away from other activity. But I am strongly against banning it for anyone.
The collected works of Stephenie Meyer (Twilight) and a lot of other books of all ages certainly fall under sheer crap. Or George R.R. Martin’s Game of Adultery, Murder, Tits and Really Disgusting Sickness pseudo-epic which prominently featured on telly not that long ago (I read the former as light entertainment and stopped reading the latter at the point when revulsion of the content overcame interest in the further development of the sort-of story, ie, when I realized that all this blood and pus and sperm and crime was the real story of these books and the supposed story just an excuse for drowning readers in a sea a disgusting execretions).
You’re basically repeating the claims made in the text. Why do you believe they’re true and that combatting them is honestly the intent behind this?
I certainly don’t believe the intentions are honourable and I think the remedy for the harmful aspects of social media is for people to use it more wisely- I include myself in that.
I have not yet tried to ‘grey’ the screen.
Apparently removing colour reduces the addictive nature.
Interesting- is that a feature?
I’m far from this is a suitable area for heavy handed intervention by useless next Tuesdays in government.
Kids’ use of the mobile computer needs to be controlled but that is parents’ job not the government’s.
All government actions have unintended consequences, mostly exceedingly damaging.
I would love an outright ban, up to the age of 18, ie past adolescence. But…allowing 14-16s ‘with parental consent’? Of course most parents will allow it, as they won’t want their kids to be the only ones not allowed… Open the floodgates at probably THE most vulnerable time in their adolescence, and of course the exam period. I think that is actually evil.
“I would love an outright ban” – well, feel free to ban your own kids from using then, and leave other parents to make their own decision based on what’s right for their kids based on their opinions, not yours and not the state’s. That’s called parenting, or used to be.
You want the state to decide what your child can and can’t see? Are you totally insane, or just a good Deborah having a bad day?
I presume you meant to reply to Deborah and not to me…
Good MAk having a bad day in the Social Media department
Jonathan Haidt says that if a school bans smartphones, noone misses out. They can use social media at home, on the computer.
The problem isn’t the ‘communicating’, it’s the posting and waiting for ANYONE, or everyone, to vote you up, just like a beauty contest: and usually for something you cannot change. And it could be ANYONE.
One to one communication, like email, is OK, certainly not as bad.
The world is full of things that have good and bad aspects. One of the things that gives our lives meaning is the process of learning to deal with the world in an optimal way. Every time you remove options you diminish that challenge.
I’m not removing the facility: just trying to find the optimum, with the parents’ consent. Expecting children with a smartphone not to explore is naive in the extreme. And implementing the policy in Primary School would be a start. Politicians are just ‘doing something’, instead of thinking first, and then trying out some ideas.
It’s not a total, government, ban, they can use basic phones, like we had before smartphones, and I didn’t specify any age. What age limit do you think is appropriate? They can learn how to deal with the world at home, not isolated, or among rivals.
I think it has to be up to the parents. By all means say that they can’t be taken out during lessons in school because it’s a distraction from learning.
I think there should be an outright ban on people who want to ban things.
In the recent German state elections, the AfD has made enormous gains among young voters (supposed to become 16+ people). This is mostly ascribed to its well executed presence on social media platforms young people tend to frequent, eg, Telegram or TikTok. But banning people of voting age or approaching voting age from establishment-unauthorized information sources would never ever be meant to interfere with a democratic process failing to deliver the results those who favour such bans would like to see delivered. Our caring and unselfish politicians would never act that disingeniously!
Nigel Farage said the same that Reform UK had had a very successful social media campaign – which cost little- particularly among the young and those old enough to vote next time.
Shutting down social media is an excellent way to ensure emergent political forces with limited are starved of publicity.
They cancelled Trump on Twitter precisely because he was having so much success reaching folk, at no cost.
The cat is long since out of the bag.
“We know social media is causing social harm, and it is taking kids away from real friends and real experiences,”
Unlike, for example, lockdown, closing schools, playgrounds, enforced mask wearing and dangerous jabs, destroying the power grid, terrifying young people about climate change, encouraging infants and teens to change sex.
“…age assurance technology which will be used to enforce the social media age limit…”
Oh? How? Does this mean some form of digital ID which can be checked when anyone signs up or uses the Internet?
So child safety – my eye! It’s all about establishing digital ID for all.
However – it won’t work. There are far too many clever people who will develop a work-round.
Yeah, VPN.
And if you have an ounce of wit, many other ways which do not require a credit card.
The excerpt states that this will tie into Australia’s recently legislated Digital ID framework
and this couldn’t work in any other way: It’s not possible to stop children from accessing stuff on the internet without the technology to monitor and interfere with (if so desired) anybody’s use of the internet.
My thoughts exactly. This is a Trojan Horse. Once they’ve established the right/power to ban the use of social media (children for now), next they will demand the means to enforce it. That’s what they really really salivate over.
Of course, because everyone knows that banning things completely stops them from happening…
For god’s sake. Have they not realised this will only increase the taboo?!
And have they never heard of Virtual Private Networks?!
These people really are dumb as f***.
I have two children. I have access to the internet. I control that access. I also ask my children what they need the internet for. I don’t spy on them. I trust them and explain what social media is. And I tell them to ask me or mum if there’s anything they’re uncertain or worried about. It’s called being a loving parent and I don’t need stupid crap from the government to “help” me in that most sacred of endeavours. They can p*** off.
We all know what this is really about.
Some things are correctly banned for those unable to handle them properly, the problem is how do you go about doing it. It is often said that it takes a village to raise a child. This idea correctly identifies the issue and really quite massive problem of pier pressure, the village is looking on and maybe judging or twitching the curtains.Demanding access to social media is a pier pressure issue, and then social media is mainly pier pressure of varying types. If it takes a village to raise a child, then what the village will be doing is by default at least, affirming the parents decisions( unless they are clearly perverse) so that pier pressure can be overcome. A state ban is not an affirmation of parenting even if it is actually helpful for some parenting situations. The current situation is that parents are not affirmed, and so the pier pressure problems of social media have full sway.
“Peers are people who are part of the same social group, so the term “peer pressure” refers to the influence that peers can have on each other.”
And there are many on social media that are definitely not in the same social group, let alone would support the parents.
Yes sorry for the spelling mistake. … but of course people who use social media are also a group. You seem to think peers only cut one way. You seem to be deliberately missing the point.
If left alone (by the state and it’s oppressive bureaucrats) the problems of social media will sort themselves out. Families and individuals will work it out. There may be nothing to work out.
We assume a straight line trend of phone and media use. That of course is impossible. There are physical limits. And people may eventually just get fed up. That’s where I would put my money, on people – children included – just growing out of the novelty and returning to some reasonable balance.
But no, the state will intervene, make things worse, as it always does, and demand more powers to solve the new problems it creates and tackle the old ones it has exacerbated.
You could say the same about lowering the age you can drive a car
If a school said that smartphones weren’t allowed at school, but basic mobile phones were, the problem would be easier to manage, and it wouldn’t involve direct government control.
The real reason for this ban is captured at the end of the article. This will be the lever that the government uses to force everyone into adopting their digital ID. It will end up being a requirement for everyone to use it in order to prove that you are of age.
This article is fairly typical of the people who claim to be against social media, but actually are terrified of the worldwide web itself.
Note how Rebekah smoothly glides from talking about social media to talking about online pornography.
And let’s realise that any “harms” to children that are claimed to result from social media almost certainly apply to adults as well.
This whole anti-internet movement (because that’s what it is) is incredibly dangerous because it is really a push for digital id, and for the State to know what everybody is doing and saying. Its proponents want to control the internet so that they can go back to a world where the plebs know their place and are only allowed to say what is approved by the elite.
They are terrified of the net because it has enabled ordinary people, and they want to turn the tables so that they can use the net to control the ordinary people.
Any restrictive law of this kind will inevitably be used as precedent for further intrusion into private life. The move has an initial appeal to the unenquiring mind – which is what many Leftists tend to possess. Looked at more closely just for a moment, it looks like sh*t.
Good. Ban it for adults as well. In fact pull the plug on the whole world wide web.