Griffin on Tech: Aussie’s under–16s social media ban is destined to fail

I’ve praised the Australian Government many times for its more proactive stance on moderating the power of Big Tech compared to the hands-off approach taken here.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) did some fantastic work with its long-running Digital Platform Services Inquiry which revealed the extent to which the likes of Google, Microsoft and Meta dominate aspects of the digital economy in Australia. We could have piggybacked on much of that work given the dominance of those companies here too but have chosen instead to bury our heads in the sand.

Even the digital news bargaining bill which would require Meta and Google to negotiate commercial deals with media outlets now looks like it may not proceed after vociferous, and entirely predictable criticism from Google, previously known for its more reasonable position on the matter.

But Australia has gone off the deep end in its latest plan to hold Big Tech to account, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor Government pursuing legislation that would ban Aussie youths aged under 16 from accessing social media websites and platforms.

This is a plan that first gained traction in South Australia, but has attracted political support at the national level as evidence mounts of the severe downsides of social media use, from bullying and cybercrime, to depression and antisocial behaviour. 

“I’ve spoken to thousands of parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles. They, like me, are worried sick about the safety of our kids online. And I want Australian parents and families to know that the Government has your back,” Albanese said earlier this month at a press conference where the plan to introduce a social media ban was launched.

A ban on the fast-track

Those efforts now appear to be on a legislative fasttrack to pass laws by the end of the year with next year’s looming election no doubt influencing the priority Labor is giving this issue. The legislation was introduced into the Federal parliament yesterday.

It outlined a requirement for platforms including X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram to prevent children from holding accounts on those platforms or face a fine of up to A$32.5 million.

As Al Jazeera reported yesterday: “The bill, which has the support of the governing Labor Party and the opposition Liberals, would grant no exemptions for parental consent or pre-existing accounts. After it becomes law, platforms would have one year to work out how to implement the age restriction.”

So with the flick of a switch everyone under 16 in Australia will suddenly be booted off social media platforms with no exceptions. The tech companies will have a year to figure out how to make their platforms impenetrable to young mines.

The logistics of that are mindboggling. Which platforms exactly will it target? How will “social media” be defined. Will games like Roblox and platforms like Twitch be roped into the ban? The Government will need to set up a dedicated office to keep the ban running as new social networks and apps appear.

And what of genuinely useful services like Youtube Kids that feature age-appropriate content and limitations on who young users can communicate with. Is all of that to be rendered null and void? Will all messaging apps, useful for discussion between family and friends, going to be off-limits to youths too?

More importantly. Is this how we want to prepare our kids for lives lived increasingly in the digital realm, by wrapping them in cotton wool, censoring the internet that they use?

Teach kids to look out for trouble

There are so many problems with this legislation, the Australian Government will struggle to pass sensible laws or to properly enforce its ban. This is not the answer to our problems with social media, which the big platform operators certainly have primary responsibility for tackling through better content moderation, safety mechanisms and policing of their sites and apps.

In a lengthy open letter to Australia’s Prime Minister, Leigh Stark from Australian tech outlet Pickr sums it up better than I could.

“Education is the answer we have for scams, and education is also the answer we have for social media. You don’t have to be the most experienced social media guru to know how to use it, but you can still learn. You can learn about social engineering, about how best to use social platforms, and how to take messages with a grain of salt.

“And we can use that knowledge to teach children and teens so they’re actually prepared when they start to use the services for real life, ideally in conjunction with their parents whom they trust, rather than simply blocking them from the action until they’re ready, hoping to hell they are by simple virtue and the good graces of emotional maturity.”

This will be an interesting political exercise to watch play out, but one I hope our own coalition government has no plans of replicating.