The cost of Australia’s social media ban

This BBC Podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Want to know how to become the richest person in the world? Start with the latest episode of our podcast Good Bad Billionaire. How Elon Musk earned half a trillion dollars. From his troubled childhood in South Africa. To buying Twitter and launching rockets into space. With all the boardroom dramas along the way. Find out how he did it on Good Bad Billionaire. Listen wherever you get your BBC Podcast. Hi there, I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service. This week Australia is introducing its new social media ban for children under the age of 16. A move that the government says is overdue and necessary for kids' mental health. Not everyone agrees. Social media is a main resource of communication between people, like especially young people. Not all social media is negative, like there has been some negative effects. But also you can still learn things from social media like it's not all bad. The ban is the first of its kind anywhere, but there could be a whole array of practical and legal wrangles ahead. And content creators companies who sell products through social media and tech companies are all braced for the impact the world is watching. It's on every country's mind right now. As long as your governments have their citizens in mind, I think this is on their mind. Getting Australia's youth off social media, that's Business Daily from the BBC. Social media is doing harm to our kids and I'm calling time on it. I've spoken to thousands of parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles. They like me aware it's sick about the safety of our kids online. That's Australia's Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, there. And I want Australian parents and families to know that the government has your back. Announcing plans for his government to introduce a ban on social media for children under the age of 16. And now a year later that ban is coming into force. Sites like YouTube, TikTok and Facebook are going to be inaccessible to children and teens across the country. The destructive impacts of social media are widely alleged and of course contested by some. But many studies have identified increasing stress, anxiety and depression rising cases of self-harm, eating disorders, as well as the risks of cyberbullying and online grooming. And the government reckons the legislation is needed to enforce protections that the social media companies themselves have consistently failed to deliver. The communications minister, Annika Wells, spoke with the BBC's Australia correspondent Katie Watson. They have had 15, 20 years in this space to do that of their own volition now and the harms that are coming through by independent research demonstrates not enough. We feel that they have more of a social responsibility as social media platforms than they have signed up for themselves, so we have made it the law. We stand firm on the side of parents and not on platforms, we can't outparent an algorithm. This is giving parents another weapon in their arsenal. Well, it's fair to say that many young people are not happy. There's the thoughts of some 13 and 14-year-olds at a college in Adelaide. I think it's pointless. I think there's so many better things that they could do to keep children safe. And I think no matter what how hard they try, people are always going to find a way around it. There's better things that they can be doing. And because they've just like banned it, everyone's going to like find ways around it. We're like America with the TikTok ban. It just came online the next morning. Teenagers aren't just grumbling. Two have launched a high court challenge arguing an infringement of children's right to free speech. Metta have already closed accounts of under 16's. There's also questions over how the ban will actually work. Once again is the BBC's Australia correspondent Katie Watson. There are 10 platforms that have been named as of now. They include the likes of YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok. Now they have to take reasonable steps. That's the word that's used in the legislation. To make sure under 16's don't have an account on their platform. So the owners is on the companies. If they're found to not be taking those reasonable steps, they could be fined as much as 50 million Australian dollars. It's about 33 million US dollars or 25 million pounds. But if young people bypass it, if they're given away around it by friends or by family, that's not something that the companies will be penalised for. Also, the definitions of what a social media platform is presumably will be ever evolving. Because with these eliminated from the market, no others will be trying to step in and allow chat on their platforms. So there's been a huge criticism about this. Many a person has told me that they think it's basically a game of whack-a-mole effectively banning the big ones. Then people are moving on to other platforms so will they ban those. The point of the legislation is very much about trying to stop this social interaction of creating algorithms, doom scrolling, targeting young people. The government's made it very clear that they want to improve young people's mental health. They want to give parents peace. One of the big issues is it doesn't involve gaming either, because I think the idea being that if there were no games on those platforms, would kids necessarily be on those gaming platforms, no, well, that's why it's not a social media ban. There are legal challenges inevitably going to be brought. There are being brought against it, but is it your sense that this is still broadly a popular measure with Australians at large? I think if you speak to any parent, they'd probably say this is great. I think what it does is it gives them another tool to push back when one of their young teens wants to have a social media account. I think for younger kids, perhaps, it might be more successful because they will never have a social media account, perhaps, and none of their friends will, so it kind of stops that wanting to have what everybody else has, and perhaps might push away the interest. I mean, there's an awful lot of critics who say who are concerned that by closing these big platforms, you know, or closing access to the big platforms, people will find other ways, perhaps less protected ways of going online, there needs to be more education, not just for children, but also for parents who are having to navigate this, because it feels like there's a massive lack in understanding how teenagers use social media and how important it is for their lives. Katie Watson. So how is business responding to the new measures? Lucas Lane is a remarkable 16-year-old entrepreneur. He's the founder of Glossy Boys, a nail varnish company specifically for Teenage Boys. Tina and Mark Harris, meanwhile, are children's musicians whose Lala YouTube channel, with 1.4 million subscribers, offers educational content. I heard from Mark, first of all, that he told me the ban will have a big effect on his company's channel. We're a little bit confused about it to be perfectly honest. Our businesses, primarily in YouTube and digital music distribution, very much the world we play in that digital space, is not considered by anyone to be social media, and for the Australian government to be explicitly rolling up YouTube inside the social media, you know, a major restrictions just doesn't make sense to us. And you see it as an educational platform, primarily here. Education and entertainment. Let me bring in Lucas Lane now. You are providing a community to an underrepresented subgroup, which is Boys who, perhaps against the male stereotype, like to wear varnish, they like to wear makeup, they like to wear other things. That I guess is what the social media rate has done for a lot of people, isn't it? It's found a niche for people who aren't necessarily part of the traditional mainstream. Yeah, social media let me find who I was and let me, well, let me have a voice. With social media, it let me express myself, and it let me connect to other people. And let me create a business that was inclusive, that was for everyone, that for the people who didn't have, they just wanted to be heard, they wanted to be spoken to, I was able to create something with that because of social media. Markin Tina, the bulk of Australians, I think, are supportive of the idea of some kind of curb. Don't you see them needing to be something done here? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that if you speak to most parents, they're open to this being discussed and worked together. It feels very rushed. There hasn't been a lot of consultation and consultation with the public, but also consultation with the platforms themselves. But the one thing that is really interesting, and I think this is probably the biggest mistake the government's making, is that by saying that all of these platforms must get rid of the accounts in YouTube's situation accounts are actually where the protectors and safeguards are. And when an under 16-year-old has an account, parents can actually monitor that account, they can, the algorithm knows not to send them certain kinds of content. Lucas, what do you think? I mean, you know young people, people your age, and there are mental health issues attached, aren't there? Yeah, like there's, I would say there's definitely a connection, but there's also, there's so many negative and also positive things to do with social media. And what I feel like the government needs to do is to talk to those actual social media platforms, like meta, like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, because they need to do so people don't get harmed is for them to regulate the content, for them to regulate what's being said and what's being distributed. They need to regulate that because of my access to social media, especially at 13, 14 years old, I was able to find myself. I wouldn't have been stuck in the same bubble and I wouldn't have like my school and like my town or city, like for me, it has opened me up and has, and I've discovered myself. Like for me, social media has been a big opportunity in expressing myself. And I'll say there are definitely lots of like areas that need improving and that can be negative about social media. But that is the social media platforms thing, that's what they need to do, that's what they need to fix. The oldest daughter was 13 when she started her first YouTube channel and she was interested in making videos and filming. And she's now about to start working on her second major Hollywood film in Sydney and that entire learning platform, her learning how to do that was all done in the YouTube ecosystem. The views there of some business owners affected by the ban, you're listening to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. Want to know how to become the richest person in the world? Start with the latest episode of our podcast, Good Bad Billionaire. We're telling the story of how Elon Musk massed half a trillion dollars from his troubled childhood in South Africa to buying Twitter and launching rockets into space. With all the boardroom dramas along the way. Find out how he did it on Good Bad Billionaire. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts. I'm Ed Butler and today we're asking, can this ban to stop Australia's young people using social media really work? You might see Australia as a kind of test case when it comes to this type of blanket legislation, but it is far from the only country trying to curb children's screen time. In France, a law was passed in 2023 requiring social media platforms to obtain parental consent for users under the age of 15 and a wider ban is being considered. South Korea has a nationwide ban on the use of mobile phones and other devices in classrooms and Iceland is also looking to raise the minimum age for social media accounts to 15. So will Australia show the way for these others to follow? It's on every country's mind right now. I don't see why social media shouldn't be regulated if there are negative effects occurring from social media to under 16 year olds. So in any industry where there is a negative effect that affects societies, regulation comes into play. That's Mo Mubayad, a co-founder of Veridoo, an Australian ad tech company. I spoke to him alongside Bruce Dazley, himself a former executive at Twitter and YouTube. The most effective way to do this would be to legislate and ensure that platforms baked in age verification. We all use a device individually and so having something where your operating system knows the age you are would be by far the most effective way of running this. The alternative is that there will be a whole ecosystem of organisation that are attempting to verify it. And the effectiveness of them is potentially one of the weak points of this legislation. Either the applicant scan your face, he's one of the suggestions or most young people don't necessarily have government ID that they can load in. No, they're going to be legal challenges. We know about that. They're coming in against the government whether or not it's even allowed constitutionally to be sort of denying under 16's they're right to expression as they would put it in the court case. Marketers, I mean from a corporate perspective, there's a lot of stress here, isn't there? In any industry where there is a negative effect that affects societies, regulation comes into play, I say this because the advertising industry is very well regulated. If you think about where and what an advertiser can do today, there are already restrictions. So if a CMO is stressing out about whether they can now target under 16 year olds on social media, well they already have restrictions in other channels. For example, in adabo advertising where we operate, an alcohol company can't advertise within 150 meters of a school. Perhaps the social media companies themselves would welcome and say, look, take it out of our hands because we're fed up with being kind of beaten up by the media if you like, as well as everyone else for being the bad guys when the terms of reference are so complicated when it comes to regulating a blanket ban maybe is the simplest. One of the things that proves most effective actually is what Australia led the way we then we've seen in other countries since which is holding local executives legally and criminally responsible for the conduct of the platforms. And I used to work at one of the big tech platforms during the time of the Christchurch mass shooting in New Zealand. And one of the things that was clear at the time is that a lot of the content of that horrific content was being re-uploaded to social media and Australia in particular said we will hold local executives responsible if this content is not removed. And let me tell you, nothing mobilizes an organization more quickly than thinking that the local bus is going to go to prison. One way or another, it seems like Australia is a kind of canary in the coal mine here. We're testing out something that could spread around the world using one country as the litmus for it. Do you think that there is at least appetite for change? You sense that democracies are electorates around the world want to see something change? I definitely sense it. I think if you just look at how much time and effort and research goes into understanding the effects of social media and the negative effects of social media, it's on every country's mind right now. And so I think Malaysia, if I'm correct, if I'm wrong here, but Malaysia is looking at enacting a similar regulation in 2026, but definitely there's appetite. As long as your governments have their citizens in mind, I think this is on their mind. Yeah, most definitely, I suspect these sort of controls, these limitations on what people can see. They're often styled as censorship. But if the net effect is generally removing some of the most unpleasant aspects of our internet experience, and I suspect they will prove to be one of those ideas that's quite contagious. I agree, Bruce. And what are the positive effects of the ban? If we look at what the UK has done with the less healthy food at ban, right? The intention was to ban less healthy food and people may or may not have foreseen this, but what we're seeing are companies that have these less healthy foods and now changing their formulations to be more healthy so they can still advertise. So the positive effect on this less healthy food at ban is there's more healthy food in market, right? Rather than less healthy food in market, not being advertised. Mobile Byad, and Bruce Daisley there. Well, that's it for today's business daily. I'm Ed Butler, the producer was Matt Lines. And remember, you can listen to more episodes of this program, wherever you get your podcasts. (Music) Want to know how to become the richest person in the world? Start with the latest episode of our podcast, Good Bad Billionaire. We're telling the story of how Elon Musk massed half a trillion dollars from his troubled childhood in South Africa to buying Twitter and launching rockets into space. With all the boardroom dramas along the way. Find out how he did it on Good Bad Billionaire. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcast.