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

“I felt really scared to be honest,” James said, describing an incident on Snapchat that left him wondering if it was safe to go to school.

Australian boy, 12, he had been having a disagreement with his friend, and one night before going to bed the boy engaged him in a group discussion with two older teenagers.

Suddenly, his phone “started blowing up” with a barrage of violent messages.

“One of them sounded like he was 17,” James told the BBC. “He sent me videos of himself holding a machete… he was waving it around. Then there are messages saying that they will arrest me and stab me.”

James – which is not his real name – first joined Snapchat at the age of 10, after a classmate suggested that everyone in their friendship group get the app. But after telling his parents about his life of cyberbullying, which was dealt with by his school, James deleted his account.

Her experience is a cautionary tale showing why the Australian government’s proposed social media ban on children under 16 is necessary, said her mother Emma, ​​who also uses a pseudonym.

The laws, presented to the lower house of parliament on Thursday, were hailed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as “the best in the world”.

But while many parents have applauded the move, some experts have questioned whether children should – or should – be restricted from accessing social media, and what the negative consequences of doing so could be.

Albanese says the ban – which will cover platforms such as X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram – is about protecting children from the “harm” of social media.

“This is for moms and dads… They, like me, are concerned about our children’s online safety,” he said.

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

Instead, it will be up to the nation’s internet regulator – the eSafety Commissioner – to expedite how the rules will be implemented and implemented, which will not come into force for at least 12 months after the law is passed.

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

Tech companies will face fines of up to A$50m ($32.5m; £25.7) if they don’t comply, but there will be an exemption for platforms that can create “low-risk services” deemed suitable for children. The conditions for this limitation are yet to be established.

Messaging services and gaming sites, however, will not be restricted, prompting questions about how regulators will decide what is and isn’t social media in the fast-moving environment.

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

Such legislation could push children into “dangerous and unregulated parts of the internet,” said the Digital Industry Group Inc – a fear echoed by other experts.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant acknowledged the huge task her office will face in enforcing the ban, as “technological change always outpaces policy”.

“It’s always going to be fluid, which is why regulators like eSafety have to behave,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

But Ms Inman Grant also raised concerns about the main idea behind the government’s policy, which says there is a causal link between social media and deteriorating mental health.

“I would say that the evidence base is not settled at all,” he said, pointing to a study from his office that found that some high-risk groups, such as LGBTQ+ or First Nations youth, “feel more connected online than they do in the real world”.

This is a sentiment echoed by Lucas Lane, 15, who owns an online business selling nail polish to boys. “This [ban] it destroys… my friendships and the ability to make people feel seen,” the teenager from Perth told the BBC.

Ms Inman Grant would like to see tech companies clean up their platforms, and more investment in educational tools to help young people stay safe online. He uses the analogy of teaching children to swim, rather than being trapped in water.

“We are not destroying the sea… but we are creating protected swimming areas that provide protection and teach important lessons from a young age,” he told parliament earlier this year.

But parents like Emma see it differently.

“Should we really be wasting our time trying to help kids use these complicated programs when tech companies are always looking for them?” he says like this.

“Or should we just let them be children and learn to interact with others outside, and start these conversations later?”

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

“We cannot ignore all the good things technology has brought to our lives. There’s a lot of good, but what we haven’t really thought about is the impact it has on the brain that isn’t ready for that.”

More than 100 Australian academics have criticized the ban as a “too vague tool” and said it went against UN advice calling on governments to ensure that young people “safe access” to digital environments.

It also failed to win the support of a bipartisan parliamentary committee examining the impact of social media on young people. Instead, the committee recommended that the tech giants face stricter regulations.

To address some of these concerns, the government says it will eventually introduce rules for “digital jobs of care”, which will make it a legal obligation for technology companies to prioritize user safety.

Joanne Orlando, a researcher in digital behaviour, says that while bans “may be part of the strategy, it will never be the whole strategy”.

He says a “big piece of the puzzle” should be teaching kids to think critically about the content they see on their feeds and how they use social media.

The government has spent A$6m from 2022 to develop free “digital learning tools” to try to do just that. However, research shows that many young Australians are not receiving mainstream education.

Ms Orlando and other experts warn there are also major hurdles to making age verification technology – which is needed to enforce the ban – work effectively and safely, given the “significant risks” associated with having the power to house the identities of every Australian online.

The government has said it intends to address that challenge through age verification tests, and hopes to present a report by the middle of next year. It promised that privacy concerns would be front and center, but offered little detail on what kind of technology would actually be tested.

In his recommendations, the eSafety Commissioner floated the idea of ​​using a third-party service to anonymize the user’s identity before it is transmitted to any age verification sites, in order to “preserve” their privacy.

However, Ms. Orlando remains skeptical. “I can’t think of any technology that exists right now that can pull this off,” he told the BBC.

Australia is hardly the first country to try to restrict how young people access certain websites or forums on the Internet.

In 2011, South Korea passed a “shut-up law” that banned children under 16 from playing online games between 10:30 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., but the laws – which faced controversy – were later withdrawn citing the need to “respect rights of young people. “.

France recently introduced a law requiring social media sites to block access to children under the age of 15 without parental consent. The study revealed that almost half of the users were able to bypass the ban using a simple VPN.

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

Albanese admitted that Australia’s proposal may not be foolproof, and if it passes parliament, it will be reviewed.

“We know that technology is moving fast. No government will be able to protect all children from all threats – but we must do everything we can,” he said when announcing the measure.

But for parents like Emma and Ms. Friedlander — who called for changes — the message that prohibition sends is very important.

“For a long time, parents have had this impossible choice between allowing their child to become an addictive tool or seeing their child isolated and feeling abandoned in society,” said Ms. Friedlander.

“We are stuck in a way that no one wants to be a part of.”

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

And he hopes the new rules will get more kids like him to “go out and do what they love” instead of feeling forced to be online.