The Big Story: Australia's PM calls for even stricter social media restrictions. Is it actually working?

Speaker A: Best of your way home with Hong Bin Jeong. When the headlines move fast, we slow them down. The Big Story. Clarity, context and what it means for you. Only on Money FM 89.3.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Big Story. I'm Hong Bin Jeong. Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says his government is looking to strengthen the country's world first social media ban for children, ensuring the legislation is as robust as possible and can withstand withstand legal challenges. His comments come as new research casts doubt on the ban's early effectiveness. Six months after the law took effect, a study found that more than 85% of Australian children under the age of 16 were still using social media, raising questions about whether the policy is achieving its intended objective. So does the latest evidence suggest the current measures are falling short? Or is it simply too early to judge the success of what was always intended to be a long term policy? And as more countries consider introducing similar restrictions, what lessons can they learn from Australia's experience? Joining us today to share more is Tama uh, Lever, who is a professor of Internet Studies at Curtin University and chief investigator in the ARC center of Excellence for the Digital Child. Hi, Professor Lever, welcome to the show.

Speaker C: Great to be here.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for joining us. Well, Professor, Australia's Prime Minister says he is keen to make sure the country's social media ban for children was as strong as possible. Now, does the signal that the current measures aren't working? Was it an unrealistic pipe dream that a ban would stop all under 16s from using social media overnight?

Speaker C: I think on the technical front it was fairly clear that it was unlikely that the technological roadblocks put in place were going to be that effective. There was a technical trial in the year leading up to the ban, and most of that trial seemed to suggest that while if you use a lot of these sort of age verification, age estimation technologies, you would eventually get something approximating, uh, a correct age, that they were far from sufficient. So I think knowing technically that this was quite difficult and also having made the rule that we wouldn't be asking for government issued ID as the primary way of identifying someone's age, I don't think it's surprising that the technical implementation has been, uh, pretty haphazard, I think that was a known challenge going in. But I suspect even for the people that thought this might not work, seeing 80, 85% of kids getting past the ban is probably a much higher number than anyone really expected to see.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I want to dive into that new study because, I mean, his Announcement, of course, comes as this new study found that the measure had little impact on teen news. As you mentioned, there more than 85% of under 16s were still using social media. How should we interpret these early findings though? Is 6 months enough time to judge whether such a policy works?

Speaker C: Look, I think one of the reasons a policy like this didn't exist already is that it has been both technically and politically, a difficult thing to do. I think we know that the platforms have made it fairly clear that they didn't believe this was particularly straightforward. Um, they've relied on such a long time on basically anyone entering whatever age they wanted to say they were and simply taking that at face value. So I do think there's been some challenges on that front, but also I think there is a wholesale change here, uh, responding to sort of a global appetite for better regulation. I think it's fair to say social media platforms have not proven themselves to be the world's best digital citizens, that they haven't necessarily had children's best interests at heart. So there is a real appetite for change here. But I do think there are a lot of bugs in trying to make that change happen. And Australia is very much in the experimental stage of trying to figure out how to make this work properly. That also said, we won't know if this works for quite a long time. So I think we're very much in the early phase and I guess for the rest of the world it might be, might be time to watch Australia try and sort some of this out before they go and photocopy the legislation.

Speaker B: Definitely. I mean, the study also found that most teenagers weren't using, you know, sophisticated methods like VPNs to get through to social media. Instead, many simply entered an older birth date or uploaded a selfie that platforms accepted as proof they were over 16. So it looks like many of the same safeguards are surprisingly easy to get around. Does this point to weaknesses in the legislation itself or shortcomings in how platforms are enforcing it?

Speaker C: Look, I think it's definitely the case that platforms have done the minimum that they thought they could get away with. I think the, the recommendation was that there was something called a waterfall approach where there were different age gating technologies sort of stacked in a row that would all be used. I think the platforms for the most part have chosen one relatively, uh, unsuccessful, it seems in retrospect way of doing this. I know that video selfies were particularly popular and yet kids could retry. So if a, uh, video selfie got your under 16 response on Monday, you could retry on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday until you got a response that let you in. So I think some of the setup and the parameters of these tools perhaps was setting up these tools to fail. I don't think it's necessarily in platforms interest to show that this would have been straightforward to do otherwise everybody would probably jump on board and be doing it tomorrow. So I think there's a balancing act there. But I do think because the Australian government put the onus on platforms to make this work rather than providing a technical blueprint, it does mean that there's probably going to be a lot of back and forth until both sides are uh, meet in the middle, I guess in terms of actually the technicalities of making this work.

Speaker B: I see M. Well, studies also indicate that some youths are migrating to harder to monitor spaces such as fake accounts or private apps, moving away from mainstream platforms. So in a way is the ban potentially causing more harm than good?

Speaker C: Look, this was definitely one of the things that we predicted in advance that would happen, that young people, if you take away the platforms that we know will regroup in the platforms that we don't and some of those newer platforms, newer apps are likely to be less safe and less regulated. We did see a huge spike in young people trying out and downloading new apps in the first couple of weeks after the ban. But because the ban has been relatively unsafe, successful, it does mean that those uh, newer platforms haven't had the hold or the um, the audience maintained, uh, yet to see what that would really look like. That said, we do really expect to see more of that if the uh, technicalities get tightened and more and more kids are uh, uh, kicked off the social media apps that they've been using. So it's definitely a case that there could be significantly more risk if young people are going into spaces that we simply don't know. It's also true that because messaging apps are largely exempt from this ban, we sort of imagine, oh, so the young people are sort of using WhatsApp and other things to talk to each other. But of course messaging apps uh, are far from straightforward. In on WhatsApp you can have a group of a thousand people that's the size of many schools in Australia. So you could easily see that most of the school might be on WhatsApp. That's not really just a messaging platform. It sort of performs the work of a social media platform in many respects. So I think that that line between social media and messaging is also a bit fuzzy. And so I think WhatsApp actually is one of the apps that's probably, uh, grown most significantly because it is both a known entity and has been marked as something that isn't subject to the ban.

Speaker B: Definitely. And you mentioned earlier how some of the platforms are doing kind of the bare minimum to deter away teens, uh, from using social media. Australia, I believe the government is concerned about considering legal action against multiple platforms that have failed to comply with their ban. Is stronger enforcement likely to improve compliance though?

Speaker C: Look, I think any enforcement is probably the place to start. No bans have been issued. Uh, sorry, no fines have been issued yet. I do think that it is important to really demand that the platforms do a better job because it does feel like what they've done thus far has been pretty haphazard and relatively weak. That said, also, the legislation does make it quite hard to issue a fine. You need to have a, uh, relatively strong history of non compliance to be able to ask the courts to issue a fine. And to be fair, While, you know, $49.5 million sounds like a lot of money to you and me for most of these platforms, it's not going to do a lot of damage to them. So I do suspect that some of the platforms might even be risking a fine just to see, uh, for how long it takes before the government actually does something. So I think that mechanism of fines as a deterrent probably aren't um, going to be that successful. I actually think what's more interesting is seeing these platforms see that while Australia's done this, lots of other countries are considering doing something similar or have done something similar. I think Indonesia and Malaysia have both, uh, said that they bring or have either brought in or will bring in bans. The UK obviously is moving in this direction. So as the global appetite for this increases, I think it's in the interest of these companies to demonstrably do more to make them safer places for young people and children. And in that respect, I think that's where we're probably going to see the change more so than simply the issuing of fines.

Speaker B: Okay, well, Prime Minister Albanese has yet to provide any further details on what steps the government would take. But what can we expect Australia to make to, you know, ensure that these laws are as strong as possible? And is there a chance for the government to even just u turn on this ban entirely?

Speaker C: I think there's too much politically invested for the government to uh, change its mind at this point. I think that the ban is probably here to stay. But I do think actually the more interesting pieces of legislation might be called extensions of the ban now, but were actually things that were under discussion long before the ban was actually um, in place or even being discussed. So I think a digital duty of care, which is the Australian government has indicated it will put into legislation this year. A digital duty of care basically asks uh, or demands rather that any platform or service risk tests, uh, new features before they roll them out. So if you're going to make a change to your platform, then you have to think about and test how will this impact young people, how will this impact different groups of users? I think that's actually a much more effective piece of regulation. I think the Australian government will probably call that an extension of the ban simply to make it look like the ban was perhaps better designed than it was at the beginning. But I do think a digital duty of care has more likelihood to work. It's also true that the children's online privacy, which has, will come into place in December this year, which gives uh, Australian children significantly more privacy rights in the online landscape, is also likely to do some of the heavy lifting and providing a better uh, experience for young people. So there's lots of other moving parts. The ban is perhaps the least well thought through part. But I think if those, the digital duty of care and the children's online code come into place, then I think they're going to basically shore up the best bits of what the band was hoping to achieve. While the ban itself probably needs to do less heavy lifting.

Speaker B: Right. But with, you know, children being so tech savvy these days and still finding loopholes to gain access to these social media platforms, is there truly a perfect way to stop their social media use?

Speaker C: I don't think there is a perfect way, and I think we do, to stop young people using social media. And I think we really need to expect that young people, especially those young people who are already on social media, will probably find a way around any technical ban. I do think it was perhaps an odd choice to have Australian children who are already on social media booted off. If we sort of grandfathered this in so that it was the generation who are sort of 12 and 13 never got accounts that might have made more sense. It might have been easier to make that argument. But I think a 15 year old that's been on Snapchat or TikTok for two years being booted off was always going to be a hard thing to convince them was in their interest. And I think that's what we're seeing play out.

Speaker B: Definitely. I mean, as you've Mentioned earlier, Australia's legislation is being closely watched internationally. I believe the UK has already proposed broader restrictions covering gaming and live streaming platforms, while other governments are considering similar measures. But based on what we've seen so far for countries that have enacted or proposed similar regulations, are they likely to face similar, exactly the same challenges?

Speaker C: Certainly that there are going to be meaningful pushback from platforms any place that these laws are rolled out. That said, some legislations will probably be more comfortable with asking for government issued id, for example, for young people. So I think if, if there's a more straightforward way to easily identify whether someone's uh, under age or not, then that would probably make this process, uh, technically more effective. I think countries that have more of a national identity system probably will have the opportunity, if they want to use that, to make this a more effective piece of legislation. There will still be ways around it, I'm sure, but I think that that sort of initial, uh, blocking of at least some or a significant number of young people, uh, would likely be more effective in those cases. That said, the real argument or the real discussion here is whether we can convince the next generation of young people that they don't want to be on social media, not just banning it, but actually can we convince them that it's in their best interest to delay going on to social media? I'm not entirely convinced that any country has really got to that point yet. Okay.

Speaker B: M. Well, taking a look at Australia's current experience as well, what lessons should other countries take away here? What should governments prioritize before introducing similar legislation?

Speaker C: Yeah, look, personally I believe that more effective regulation is to, is to try and attack or try and ask platforms to turn off the features that we've seen to be most potentially harmful to children. So the endless infinite scroll, for example, that demands a lot of young people's attention with very few breaks. The idea of having widespread social metrics like likes and similar things that young people, uh, can be especially competitive with. So there are some pretty straightforward things that you could do if you, if Instagram in 2026 look more like Instagram in sort of 2030, in uh, 2013, that actually that would be a much better experience for young people. So I think that is going after those, um, particular features seems like a better approach to me. And it means that we can then let young people continue to have the benefits of social media. A lot of this discussion is purely framed around harms and risks, but actually there's a reason that young people are on social media and for many young people that's where they found their voice, it's where they found their expression. It's where they've got involved in politics or business or activism. I think we have to keep in mind that young people aren't fooled into being on social media. They want to be there both for entertainment value, but also because it's part of fashioning their identities in quite an important way.

Speaker B: Right. And speaking of which, I mean, Singapore has taken a different approach. Instead of introducing a blanket age ban, it has focused more on online safety, parental controls, digital literacy, and working with technology companies to reduce harmful content. Do you think Singapore is likely to ever consider an Australian style age ban?

Speaker C: From what I've seen, I don't think it's on the cards in Singapore anytime soon. And I do think that as other countries roll out bans, I think, uh, Singapore has the, uh, probably the opportunity for those platforms to learn how to improve because of other jurisdict and then sort of sit safely in the middle where, uh, young people will probably have better and safer platforms in the long run. And certainly the idea of sort of parental supervision tools I think is something we're seeing more and more of that does rely on the literacy and attention of parents, which can be quite a big ask, uh, in some situations. But I don't get a sense that Singapore, in any point in the immediate future, at least, is looking to implement a ban. And I think, to be honest, watching how this rolls out in other jurisdictions, including Australia, seems to make a lot more sense right now, given that nobody's really got a version of this that works particularly well yet.

Speaker B: Definitely. Well, some great insights from you there. Thank you so much, professor, for joining us today.

Speaker C: It's been my absolute pleasure. Thank you.

Speaker B: Thank you. That was Tama Lever, who is a professor of Internet Studies at Curtin University and chief investigator in the ARC center of Excellence for the Digital Child. This has been the big story with me, Hong Bin Jeong.

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