Australia wants to ban kids from social media. Will it work?

“I felt really scared to be honest,” says James, describing an incident on Snapchat that left him questioning whether or not it was secure to go to highschool.

The Australian boy, 12, had had a disagreement with a good friend, and one night time earlier than mattress the boy added him to a gaggle chat with two older youngsters.

Virtually immediately, his cellphone “started blowing up” with a string of violent messages.

“One of them sounded like he was probably 17,” James tells the BBC. “He sent me videos of him with a machete… he was waving it around. Then there were voice messages saying that they were going to catch me and stab me.”

James – not his actual identify – first joined Snapchat when he was 10, after a classmate recommended everybody of their friendship group get the app. However after telling his mother and father about his cyberbullying expertise, which was finally resolved by his college, James deleted his account.

His expertise is a cautionary story that reveals why the Australian authorities’s proposed social media ban on youngsters beneath 16 is critical, says his mom Emma, who can be utilizing a pseudonym.

The legal guidelines, which have been tabled in parliament’s decrease home on Thursday, have been billed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as “world-leading”.

However whereas many mother and father have applauded the transfer, some consultants have questioned whether or not youngsters ought to – and even can – be barred from accessing social media, and what the adversarial results of doing so could also be.

Albanese says the ban – which can cowl platforms reminiscent of X, TikTok, Fb and Instagram – is about defending youngsters from the “harms” of social media.

“This one is for the mums and dads… They, like me, are worried sick about the safety of our kids online,” he said.

The new legislation provides a “framework” for the ban. But the 17-page document, which is expected to head to the Senate next week, is sparse on detail.

Instead, it will be up to the nation’s internet regulator – the eSafety Commissioner – to hash out how to implement and enforce the rules, which will not come into effect for at least 12 months after legislation is passed.

According to the bill, the ban will apply to all children under 16 and that there will be no exemptions for existing users or those with parental consent.

Tech corporations will face penalties of as much as A$50m ($32.5m; £25.7) if they don’t comply, however there might be exemptions for platforms that are capable of create “low-risk services” deemed suitable for kids. Criteria for this threshold are yet to be set.

Messaging services and gaming sites, however, will not be restricted, which has prompted questions over how regulators will determine what is and isn’t a social media platform in a fast-moving landscape.

A group representing the interests of tech companies such as Meta, Snapchat and X in Australia has dismissed the ban as “a 20th Century response to 21st Century challenges”.

Such laws may push youngsters into “dangerous, unregulated parts of the internet”, Digital Business Group Inc says – a worry additionally expressed by some consultants.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has acknowledged the gargantuan activity her workplace will face when imposing the ban, given “technology change is always going to outpace policy”.

“It will always be fluid, and this is why regulators like eSafety have to be nimble,” she informed BBC Radio 5 Stay.

However Ms Inman Grant has additionally raised issues in regards to the central concept behind the federal government’s coverage, which is that there’s a causal hyperlink between social media and declining psychological well being.

“I would say that the evidence base is not settled at all,” she mentioned, pointing to analysis from her personal workplace which discovered that a number of the most susceptible teams, reminiscent of LGBTQ+ or First Nations youngsters, “feel more themselves online than they do in the real world”.

This can be a sentiment echoed by Lucas Lane, 15, who runs an internet enterprise promoting nail polish to boys. “This [ban] destroys… my friendships and the ability to make people feel seen,” the Perth teenager tells the BBC.

Ms Inman Grant would fairly see tech corporations clear up their platforms, in addition to extra funding in schooling instruments to assist younger individuals keep secure on-line. She makes use of the analogy of instructing youngsters to swim, fairly than banning them from the water.

“We don’t fence the ocean… but we do create protected swimming environments that provide safeguards and teach important lessons from a young age,” she informed parliament earlier this 12 months.

However mother and father like Emma see it otherwise.

“Should we really be wasting our time trying to help kids navigate these difficult systems when tech companies just want them on them all the time?” she says.

“Or should we just allow them to be kids and learn how to be sociable outside with each other, and then start these discussions later on?”

Amy Friedlander, a mother of three from the Wait Mate movement – which encourages parents to delay giving their kids smartphones – agrees.

“We can’t ignore all the positives that technology has brought into our lives. There are huge upsides, but what we haven’t really considered is the impact it is having on brains which aren’t ready for it.”

Over 100 Australian academics have criticised the ban as “too blunt an instrument” and argued that it goes against UN advice which calls on governments to ensure young people have “safe access” to digital environments.

It has also failed to win the backing of a bipartisan parliamentary committee that’s been examining the impact of social media on adolescents. Instead, the committee recommended that tech giants face tougher regulations.

To address some of those concerns, the government says it will eventually introduce “digital obligation of care” laws, which will make it a legal obligation for tech companies to prioritise user safety.

Joanne Orlando, a researcher in digital behaviour, argues that while a ban “could be part of a strategy, it absolutely can’t be the whole strategy”.

She says “the biggest piece of the puzzle” should be educating kids to think critically about the content they see on their feeds and how they use social media.

The government has already spent A$6m since 2022 to develop free “digital literacy tools” to try and do just that. However, research suggests that many young Australians aren’t receiving regular lessons.

Ms Orlando and other experts warn there are also significant hurdles to making the age-verification technology – which is required to enforce the ban – effective and safe, given the “enormous risks” associated with potentially housing the identification documents of every Australian online.

The government has said it is aiming to solve that challenge through age-verification trials, and hopes to table a report by mid-next year. It has promised that privacy concerns will be front and centre, but offered little detail on what kind of technology will actually be tested.

In its advice, the eSafety Commissioner has floated the idea of using a third-party service to anonymise a user’s ID before it is passed on to any age verification sites, to “preserve” their privacy.

However, Ms Orlando remains sceptical. “I can’t think of any technology that exists at this point that can pull this off,” she tells the BBC.

Australia is by no means the first country to try to restrict how young people access certain websites or platforms online.

In 2011, South Korea passed its “shutdown law” which prevented children under 16 from playing internet games between 22:30 and 6:00, but the rules – which faced backlash – were later scrapped citing the need to “respect the rights of youths”.

More recently France introduced legislation requiring social media platforms to block access to children under 15 without parental consent. Research indicated almost half of users were able to circumvent the ban using a simple VPN.

A law in the US state of Utah – which was similar to Australia’s – ran into a different issue: it was blocked by a federal judge who found it unconstitutional.

Albanese has conceded that Australia’s proposal may not be foolproof, and if it passes the parliament, it would be subject to a review.

“We all know that expertise strikes quick. No authorities goes to have the ability to shield each little one from each risk – however we have now to do all we are able to,” he said when announcing the measure.

But for parents like Emma and Ms Friedlander – who have lobbied for the changes – it’s the message that the ban sends which matters most.

“For too long parents have had this impossible choice between giving in and getting their child an addictive device or seeing their child isolated and feeling left out socially,” Ms Friedlander says.

“We’ve been trapped in a norm that no one wants to be a part of.”

James says that since quitting Snapchat he’s found himself spending more time outside with friends.

And he hopes that the brand new legal guidelines may allow extra youngsters like him to “get out and do the things they love” as an alternative of feeling pressured to be on-line.