10 platforms<\/a>, including Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, suspended or deleted the accounts of children under 16 under new laws that threaten multimillion-dollar fines for tech companies that don\u2019t take \u201creasonable steps\u201d to keep children off social media.\n <\/p>\n\n The rollout\u2019s been messy, as the government predicted, with some children barred and others overjoyed to find that they are still online \u2013 though officials say platforms must continue to monitor users and eject anyone under 16 for as long as is needed.\n <\/p>\n
\n Some experts say, however well-intentioned, the law won\u2019t address cyberbullying, a broader societal problem that is not platform-specific.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt has been massively overhyped,\u201d said Tama Leaver, Professor of Internet Studies at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt is world-leading, but it\u2019s also world-leading because a lot of the world recognizes that the tools to do this don\u2019t really work yet.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n One of the motivators of the Australian ban was a book, \u201cThe Anxious Generation,\u201d by American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, published in March 2024.\n <\/p>\n
\n The wife of South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas was reading the book last April and gave her husband a nightly summary of its contents.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI will never forget one night, she finished the book, she turned to me and she said, \u2018You better bloody do something about this,\u2019\u201d Malinauskas told the event in Sydney on Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n
\n So, he commissioned a draft law on possible solutions in the state, and the idea spread to neighboring New South Wales, then on to a federal level, backed by campaigns driven by grieving parents like Holdsworth.\n <\/p>\n
\n Haidt\u2019s main point is that parents have overprotected children in the real world but failed to protect them online, exposing them to predators while depriving them of the real-life skills learned in the playground that build resilience.\n <\/p>\n
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Albanese’s message to teenagers\n <\/p>\n
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Albanese’s message to teenagers<\/p>\n
0:59 <\/p>\n
\n On the eve of the ban, Albanese sent a direct video message to Australian teens, urging them to \u201cstart a new sport, learn a new instrument, or read that book that has been sitting there on your shelf for some time.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n His call for children to take up new interests is grounded in research by many experts that excessive screen time \u2013 and especially time spent scrolling curated feeds \u2013 is increasing anxiety, with long-term implications for the mental health of younger generations.\n <\/p>\n
\n Experts who work closely with vulnerable and isolated children warn that taking away social media platforms from those children could deprive them of support networks, making them feel even more isolated and alone.\n <\/p>\n
\n They\u2019re warily watching the change \u2013 and finding new ways to reach out to children, either in person, through groups, or on other platforms to ensure they don\u2019t slip through the safety net that Australia\u2019s now wrapping around its children.\n <\/p>\n
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\n The conversations had by parents around dinner tables are not substantially different from those in the US and other countries, demonstrated by the popularity of Haidt\u2019s book, and suggestions that other governments may follow suit.\n <\/p>\n
\n In recent months, the United Kingdom and France have made it harder for children to access age-inappropriate content, and members of the European Union, among others, look to follow suit.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Australian government believes that the social media legislation could set a world-leading standard, as it did with gun laws in the 1990s, when the government of the day introduced tough new restrictions after the Port Arthur massacre.\n <\/p>\n
\n Thirty-five people died when a shooter opened fire at a tourist site in Tasmania, prompting quick legislative action and vows that it would never happen again.\n <\/p>\n
\n Shootings haven\u2019t been entirely eradicated, but firearms aren\u2019t common in Australia, and mass shootings in the US are a frequent reminder about why the laws are in place.\n <\/p>\n
\n Australia\u2019s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, who grew up in Seattle, says the ban will perhaps be the \u201cfirst true antidote\u201d to what some see as a vast social media experiment on young people.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe world will follow like nations once followed our lead on plain tobacco packaging, gun reform, water and sun safety,\u201d she said. \u201cHow can you not follow a country with clearly prioritizing teen safety ahead of tech profits?\u201d\n <\/p>\n
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\n Critics of the ban say it infringes privacy and impedes free speech, and warn that any measure that seeks to monitor online activity is the beginning of tighter surveillance.\n <\/p>\n
\n Australia\u2019s High Court will hear arguments about the ban\u2019s impact on the freedoms of young people to engage in political discourse, and some of the platforms themselves may bring legal action to fight the ban.\n <\/p>\n
\n As to the heartfelt pleas for action from parents who lost children, some caution that taking social media away will not necessarily end the type of bullying endured by some young people who took their own lives.\n <\/p>\n
\n Leaver, from Curtin University, said bullies are likely to switch platforms, and fears the law has given parents a false sense of security. He\u2019s worried about young people who don\u2019t have a trusted adult to help them through this period, or those whose parents are the problem.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI think if we just get every young person through summer without there being a tragic incident that I think we\u2019ve done all right,\u201d said Leaver. \u201cI think in the long-term, because the government has set no goals or what success looks like, it\u2019s very hard to tell if the ban has worked or not.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Teenagers subject to the ban are already flocking to smaller platforms that likely don\u2019t have the same level of protections built into child accounts by tech companies that have seen public sentiment shift.\n <\/p>\n
\n eSafety commissioner Inman Grant has suggested the list of banned sites will grow \u2013 and those on the list will be subject to regular monitoring, to start immediately.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cTomorrow, I will issue information notices to 10 major platforms, and we will provide information to the public before Christmas on how these age restrictions are being implemented, and whether preliminarily we see them working,\u201d she said Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cA few things are certain,\u201d she added. \u201cParents will be backed, families can reconnect, technology tethers will loosen.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cAustralia stands as a global changemaker firmly on the right side of history.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Holdsworth says, for him, what comes next is more education for children under 16 about the risks they face online before they gain access to social media.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got an opportunity now to educate kids between eight and 15, so when they do get access to social media, they\u2019re prepared,\u201d he told CNN.\n <\/p>\n
\n Of his son Mac, he said, \u201cHe would be looking down today very proud, proud to be an Australian, proud to be my son.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sydney, Australia \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 For parents and campaigners who\u2019ve long argued that incessant scrolling is damaging young minds, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-340643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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