Australia’s social media ban started with a call to action from a politician’s wife

SYDNEY, Australia — Ever since Meta whistleblower Frances Haugen published internal emails in 2021 showing that the tech giant knew about the impact of social media on the mental health of teenagers, world leaders have been agonizing over how to curb the addictive nature of technology for young minds .

Even the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 recommendation to post health warnings on social media, blaming them for what he called the teen mental health crisis, failed to help lawmakers from Florida to France overcome resistance on the grounds of free speech, privacy and restrictions. age verification technologies.

The spark that ended the impasse was when the wife of the leader of Australia’s second-largest state read Generation Anxiety, a 2024 best-selling book attacking social media by American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, and advised her husband to take action.

A schoolboy holds his mobile phone, presumably to look at it and check his social media accounts, in Melbourne, south-eastern Australia, November 27, 2024. PHOTO AFP.

“I remember the exact moment she said to me, ‘You have to read this book and do something about it,’” South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas told reporters in Adelaide on Friday, the day after the killing. The country’s federal parliament has passed a nationwide ban on the use of social media for people under 16 years of age.

“I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly,” he added.

Malinauskas’s personal push to limit youth access to social media in his state, which makes up just 7 percent of Australia’s 27 million population, took just six months to achieve the world’s first national ban.

This speed underscores the depth of concern in the Australian electorate about this issue. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is due to hold elections in early 2025.

An Australian government YouGov poll found 77 per cent of Australians support banning social media for children under 16, up from 61 per cent in August before the government’s official announcement. Only 23 percent oppose the measure.

“It all started here,” said Rodrigo Praino, professor of politics and public policy at Flinders University in South Australia.

“The Federal Government, including the Prime Minister, immediately realized that this was a problem that needed to be solved (and) it was best if it was done across the country. Allowing children to use social media indiscriminately has become a problem around the world,” he added.

Fast moving

When the father-of-four answered his wife’s call in May, the Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said two months earlier he would stop paying content royalties to news outlets around the world, potentially leading to the passage of online copyright legislation in Australia.

Meta’s decision, in part, prompted the federal government to launch a broad investigation into the social impacts of social media, ranging from the benefits of age-restricted social media to the implications of Meta’s removal of royalties.

Meanwhile, opposition lawmakers have begun calling for age restrictions on social media amid a legal battle between X and Australia’s electronic safety regulator over the spread of false and graphic content related to two public stabbings in Sydney in April.

In May, News Corp. Rupert Murdoch, the country’s largest newspaper publisher, has launched an editorial campaign to ban children under 16 from social media under the slogan “Let Them Be Children”.

In mid-2024, News Corp. headlines and a parliamentary inquiry aired emotional accounts from parents whose children had lost or died as a result of bullying and body image issues linked to social media.

After Malinauskas unveiled his state policy banning participation by children under 14 in September, Albanese appeared in the media the next day, saying his government would adopt a federal version by the end of the year.

“Parents want their children to stop using their phones and go to the football field,” said Albanese, who like Malinauskas belongs to the centre-left Labor Party. “Me too.”

However, the proposed ban in South Australia was largely in line with restrictions already set by law in countries such as France and US states such as Florida, where teenagers over 14 were allowed to continue using social media with parental permission.

The federal model, which the Albanese government presented to Parliament in November, did not include parental discretion, explaining that it freed parents from the burden of a policing role.

The ban was heavily criticized by social media companies, who complained that it placed full responsibility on them (and threatened them with a fine of A$49.5 million) without telling them how it would work. A trial of age verification technology will begin next year.

A spokesman for TikTok, which is wildly popular among teenage users, said on Friday that the process was rushed and risked pushing young people into the “dark corners of the internet.”

The left-wing Greens rejected the legislation as rushed and unfair to young people, while some far-right lawmakers withdrew their party’s support and voted against it out of fear of government overreach and potential surveillance.

But with strong support from the government and much of the opposition, the legislation was passed just after 11pm on the last parliamentary day of the year. It will come into force in a year.

“I’m glad to see it has come as far as it has in Australia,” said Robert French, a former High Court judge tasked by Malinauskas in May to report on whether a state-level age limit might be possible.

Some of French’s recommendations, including making the ban nationwide and holding platforms accountable for taking reasonable steps to keep minors out, are included in the final version of the legislation.

“There is a basic reasonable model,” French said by phone.