0:00 Hello, I'm Lucy Hockings from the BBC World Service. This is The Global Story.
0:07 Today: Are teens in Australia about to get kicked off social media?
0:14 Parents across the world know this predicament.
0:17 Social media networks can be a huge part of teenage life.
0:21 A place to speak to friends and join communities.
0:24 But it's also a place where harmful content can repeatedly impact young people.
0:29 So how can we keep our teens safe on these platforms?
0:33 In today's episode, Australia wants to ban teens under the age of 16
0:38 from using social media networks. But will it work?
0:48 With me today is the BBC's cyber correspondent Joe Tidy
0:51 and our Australia correspondent joining us from Sydney, Katy Watson.
0:54 Hi to you both. Hi!
0:57 Joe, I think because I have teenagers that social media is a bit
1:00 like a runaway train in a land I've never been to,
1:04 and I just really want the train to pull over and give me a bit of a break.
1:07 It is a constant topic of conversation, and in my house.
1:11 Is that because the kids want to be on there all the time?
1:14 They're saying, give me my phone late at night and that kind of thing?
1:16 The kids want to be on there all the time.
1:19 That is where they're talking to their friends.
1:21 That's where they're making plans, making arrangements,
1:23 everything from a sports practice to meeting up, you know, to socialising.
1:27 It's all happening on social media. It's no surprise, though, is it,
1:29 because these platforms have become the biggest companies in the world
1:33 because of how successful they are. They know how to keep us on the platform.
1:37 They've got very, very specific and very sophisticated
1:40 algorithms that know that if you dwell on a picture
1:42 oh, you might like that kind of content, let's give you more of that.
1:45 They know that, for example, when you get a like, it feels good,
1:48 or when you get a message, it makes you feel loved.
1:50 So it's no surprise, is it, that young people, even more so than us,
1:54 are addicted to social media.
1:57 And what about your kids, Katy? They're a bit smaller,
1:59 but has it made you think about what you're going to do
2:02 about social media as they grow up?
2:05 I think I'm in the privileged situation of watching everybody with slightly older kids.
2:08 My eldest is eight and so I can see everybody else who've got,
2:12 you know, early teens panicking and I can take a view
2:16 or certainly start debating and discussing it with my partner, I think.
2:21 Uh, no, none of them are on social media.
2:23 They sometimes look at what I do.
2:26 Um, but really, um, I'm in a probably a good place right now to kind of...
2:30 But I've got to make decisions and I've got to have that kind
2:32 of authority of what my plan is. And at the moment,
2:35 I'm still formulating that one.
2:36 Have you formulated a strategy with yours, Joe?
2:38 They're small too. Yeah. My eldest is ten today.
2:41 I've got two others who are younger, so I'm in the same position, really.
2:45 I'm waiting to have those conversations.
2:47 Luckily, they're not happening yet,
2:49 and my boy is obsessed with football and likes to be outside
2:53 and loves gaming.
2:55 I have to restrict the gaming, but phones, social media?
2:58 I'm not there yet. So any advice from you would be great!
3:00 Okay, I've got lots of it! But let's have a look
3:04 at what Australia is proposing.
3:06 This is about protecting young people, not punishing or isolating them,
3:11 and letting parents know we're in their corner
3:14 when it comes to supporting their children's health and wellbeing.
3:17 That's Australia's communications minister, Michelle Rowland.
3:21 She says the ban, it's going to cover platforms
3:23 like TikTok, X, Facebook and Instagram.
3:27 Not that many teens are actually on Facebook, I have to say,
3:29 but it's about protecting young people from the harms of social media.
3:33 Katy, tell us a little bit more about what
3:35 the Australian government is saying and what they're planning.
3:38 This has made huge waves in Australia because of the age 16,
3:43 you know, that was a seen as a high age, a big discussion about
3:47 whether, you know, that was even going to be feasible.
3:51 And what the main thing is, is that parents aren't going to be penalised.
3:56 Neither are any teens who slip through the net and get social media accounts.
4:02 But effectively there will be no exceptions.
4:04 Not even if parents agree and say that they want their kids,
4:08 they're okay with their kids having a social media, um,
4:10 social media account, that they can't do that.
4:13 But the onus will be on the companies and the platforms
4:17 to come up with ways of making sure that those under 16s are kept safe.
4:22 And this is the thing. At the moment, it is a legal framework.
4:25 So, you know, the legislation is passing,
4:29 but it's not clear exactly how it's going to be implemented.
4:31 And it will still have a year
4:34 from the legislation passing to coming up with
4:37 a solution on how it's going to work. And a year at least. That can be negotiated.
4:42 So it's a big process, and there's lots and lots
4:46 of question marks about how it's going to work in practice.
4:48 How it's going to work was the big question I had when I heard about it,
4:51 because keeping your kid
4:53 off social media, if they really want to be on there,
4:57 aside from actually taking the device away from them,
5:00 could prove almost impossible. Has the government got some suggestions
5:03 about how you're actually going to stop kids from logging on.
5:06 There's discussions about age verification. How would that work?
5:09 Will that mean everybody has to upload their ID,
5:13 whether or not they're under 16? There's so many question marks.
5:16 And the other thing is, is that messaging services,
5:19 gaming sites, none of those are going to be restricted.
5:21 Some sites, for example, that, um, you would access for health
5:26 or education purposes, they won't be restricted.
5:28 And I spoke to, you know, one young, uh, influencer who was just like,
5:32 it's just a bunch of old people who are making up rules
5:34 for young people who who know far more about it.
5:37 Just angry old people like, 'Ah, ban social media.'
5:40 But now this is becoming a threat.
5:42 This only affects me, not the people making this law. Not at all.
5:46 You're taking choices away from young people,
5:50 and these are choices that they have grown up with,
5:52 that they understand, that they navigate quicker and better.
5:56 It's not really good for communities and stuff
6:01 because some people need to have communities online.
6:04 Honestly, I think it's a good thing. There's a lot
6:06 of really terrible influences online, more so than good ones.
6:11 Joe, we're going to be talking a lot about teenagers as consumers of social media.
6:17 But teenagers are also wonderful creators of content when it comes
6:21 to some of these platforms as well. And that's had a big impact.
6:24 Yeah, I think the social networks want the kids on their platforms
6:28 because often, as you say, it's vibrant, it's creative.
6:31 Some of the best memes and GIFs and online trends
6:34 have come from very young people on these platforms.
6:38 And some of the most fun that you can have on the internet is on these
6:40 on these networks, for example, TikTok, you know, some
6:43 of the stuff that we saw on TikTok in the last couple of years.
6:46 The joke is that it takes three or four weeks for that to eventually end up
6:49 on Instagram, because it does start on these platforms
6:51 where kids populate and social networks know that,
6:54 and they want their creators to be young and have a long future
6:58 of building content that people are going to be interested in.
7:01 And what's interesting as well is that if you look at what's happening
7:04 in what some, including Mark Zuckerberg from Meta, will argue is
7:07 the next stage in our technological entertainment, the Metaverse.
7:12 So VR headsets, they've actually lowered the age.
7:15 They've now lowered it to ten in America and Canada.
7:18 And if you go on those platforms, you know, I feel very, very old now going
7:23 into some of these rooms and these experiences and horizon worlds
7:27 because they are... it's all kids there.
7:29 And that's where they see the future of these platforms being.
7:32 So you can see the kind of the strain
7:35 that the social networks and these companies are under.
7:38 If they somehow get rid of the children,
7:41 how are they going to get them into the social networks that are going
7:43 to help them create the next generation of content creators?
7:47 If you speak to parents around the world,
7:49 most would acknowledge that they're worried that
7:51 their teenagers are spending too much time on these social media platforms.
7:55 And that's concerning, particularly as we start to learn more
7:58 about the impact that that is having on them.
8:01 What are some of the things that actually do concern you when you look
8:05 at what some teams are consuming.
8:07 There's no denying that algorithms push people towards extremes.
8:11 We now know that. We've had 20 years of social networks,
8:13 and there's been so much research that's been done on it.
8:16 So, for example, if you look at, um, a macho type account, maybe you're going
8:22 to be given more of that, maybe it's going to lead you down a path of,
8:24 I don't know, misogyny or, um, you know, incel culture in some ways,
8:28 and particularly with, with young boys, we see that kind of thing.
8:31 Likewise with women more in particular,
8:33 we see if you look at, um, body image type imagery or videos or content
8:38 that will push you eventually down to potential issues of how you feel
8:42 about how you look and potentially eating disorders, that kind of thing.
8:45 We know those issues are there,
8:47 but then there's lots of other things that we're still not sure about.
8:49 So, for example, is there such thing as social media addiction?
8:52 Is there such thing as gaming addiction? There's a lot of this discussion.
8:56 A lot of these words are being bandied around right now about children being addicted.
8:59 I said it earlier, didn't I? Just off the cuff.
9:01 But there's no real evidence to say that those are actual real addictions.
9:05 There's a gaming addiction, uh, therapy centre in the UK that was opened
9:10 and that was very controversial because scientists
9:12 said, well actually, is it an addiction?
9:14 And there are other places, other research that says that actually social
9:17 networks are really good for children because it brings them together.
9:19 We mentioned earlier, Katy said about particularly if you're,
9:21 for example, LGBT, queer or trans,
9:24 you know, you need that kind of community, to find your people.
9:27 So the dangers of social media are there. Some of them we know about,
9:31 and there seems to be not enough happening to solve them.
9:35 And some are still kind of debated about whether
9:38 or not they're good or bad for you. And so do we know
9:41 or has research been done about what regular social media use does?
9:45 Because I think that'll be a lot of the concerns
9:47 that parents will be expressing is just about the daily use of social media
9:52 and how much time their kids are spending on social media.
9:55 Well, the research says that if everything else
9:58 in your life is stable and good,
10:00 then social media is good, because it's another way to socialise,
10:05 open up your world horizons, that kind of thing.
10:08 But when you add that into a situation where perhaps you haven't got a stable home life
10:12 or you're being bullied at school or something like that,
10:15 then it can just compound problems and make things worse.
10:18 There's no hard and fast rules that I've seen in research that says
10:21 if you spend more than two hours a day
10:23 as a teenager on social networks, you're going to have mental health problems.
10:26 There's nothing that concrete out there.
10:29 But the thing about all of this is, you only have to ask a parent
10:34 when you look at your kid absorbed in their phone for hours and hours a day,
10:38 perhaps starting to feel bad about how they look, or things like that.
10:43 And you feel like anecdotally it cannot be a good thing.
10:46 Or that it's preventing them from doing other things. Yeah.
10:48 The amount of time I hear parents say, 'Get outside, get a ball, go and play,
10:51 get off your phone, get off your phone!' You hear it time and time again.
10:55 Is there an argument that teenage years should also be
10:59 when teens are learning to navigate online spaces safely?
11:03 So if they get to 16 and they're in Australia
11:05 and they've got no experience of this. That that's a bit dangerous.
11:09 That's one of the arguments that we're hearing on this is
11:11 that if you're suddenly launched into the internet at the age of 16
11:15 and you haven't got much experience, would you know how to spot,
11:17 for example, AI imagery? The prevalence now
11:20 of models that are artificial intelligence created.
11:24 Would you be aware of that kind of thing because it's something that you haven't had experience of.
11:27 There was some research done by a university in the UK
11:32 about Chinese, not just social media bans, but
11:35 the bans of smartphones and devices, at a certain sort of time of night.
11:39 And they are saying that it's a good thing to take the devices away,
11:43 and then they can go out and they can play and
11:45 it's a less sedentary lifestyle, that kind of thing.
11:47 And they said that a 10% reduction
11:50 in screen time means ten more minutes of playing outside or something.
11:53 So they would argue, the researchers, that that kind of experience of playing
11:57 and socialising face to face makes up for a lack of technical knowledge,
12:01 for example.
12:02 Are these some of the arguments, Katy, that you're hearing,
12:04 particularly from parents, in Australia?
12:06 When, uh, the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, announced it back
12:10 in September, he said, um, we want people back on the footy fields,
12:15 uh, you know, out and doing things, you know,
12:17 like a kind of typical childhood.
12:19 And I spoke to one expert who said, but why?
12:22 That's such a kind of attitude that everybody's good at sport.
12:25 I mean, on a personal level, my son hates football,
12:28 He doesn't like, he's not into social media either.
12:30 But like, there's this assumption that childhood is the same
12:33 as it was when you were young. And that is that.
12:37 So that doesn't mean that you might not, you know, go out and enjoy a good walk.
12:40 And we all know that's really good for health as well.
12:42 But this idea that it's better to be in sport than it is to be online
12:47 is a huge assumption that everybody's sporty and liking that.
12:49 And we all know that there are plenty of kids in their youth
12:51 who hated being part of sports and team sports like that as well.
12:54 So if you spoke anecdotally to parents, especially parents, um,
12:58 of kind of similar age to my children,
13:01 the view is, oh, well, at least it kicks a can down the road
13:04 so that when our kids go, I want to have a social media account, we can go,
13:07 oh, you can't now because the government doesn't let you.
13:09 And also everyone's on the same playing fields.
13:12 You know, it's a level playing field.
13:13 So that it's not that some people are allowed to because their parents let
13:17 them and others don't. Legally, nobody's allowed to.
13:20 So there's a kind of initial, ah, well, great.
13:23 It's one extra tool. But then when you dig down
13:26 and certainly I've spoken to plenty of experts and I don't,
13:29 I haven't found one, like, tech expert who thinks it's a good thing.
13:33 So we've established that there's a problem.
13:35 The Australian government is trying to provide a solution.
13:38 This was the view of one online safety educator.
13:42 The big reason that I am pro-ban
13:45 is because we're having a conversation about it.
13:47 And if the collective total of world governments look at this
13:51 as a positive move and maybe they'll do it,
13:53 and that pressure goes back towards those companies or changes
13:57 in legislation in the US that also going to be a really positive thing.
14:02 So that's Kirra Pendergast.
14:03 She heads up an online safety education company in Australia.
14:06 She speaks to thousands of students every week.
14:10 But Joe, tell us a bit more about what the challenges are going to be
14:13 in banning under 16s in this way.
14:16 How practically difficult is it going to be?
14:18 Well, one thing I think we should sort of bear in mind here
14:21 is that you have to be 13 to be on these social networks,
14:24 but that doesn't stop under-13s going on right now.
14:26 So the issue is, you put in a 16 age limit. How is that enforced?
14:31 Because at the moment, of course, you go on to a TikTok or an Instagram
14:34 and you just say, oh, I'm 18 or 19 when you're not, very clearly,
14:39 and there's no checks or balances there.
14:41 It's just literally you put your date of birth in and they say,
14:43 you know, there you go. Ofcom, the Office of Communications here in the UK,
14:48 a survey they've done, says that one
14:50 in five children are lying about their age to get on social networks.
14:54 In fact, it's 22%. So a bit more than one in five.
14:57 So that goes to show that the current restrictions
14:59 of 13 just simply don't work.
15:01 So if you bring in a 16 or in France, they've been trying really,
15:05 really trying to get a 15 age limit going on there.
15:08 You have to then have the law in place.
15:11 And as Katy said, the onus in Australia will be
15:14 that the technology companies have to be the ones that check.
15:18 So how are they going to do that? Well, they could use,
15:21 for example, facial recognition systems where you scan your face and
15:24 it has a rough guess at your age, um,
15:27 which may or may not be accurate. What's really interesting in this
15:31 is that actually the ones that I've used are really accurate.
15:34 I was mucking around on TikTok a few months ago,
15:36 and there's a filter that you can use to guess your age,
15:39 and it got me exact and it got my wife exact.
15:41 But what's funny is they're not using that.
15:43 I don't think I want to use that! But if we're playing around
15:48 with this tech as a filter that's made by some,
15:50 you know, independent company that might make some money from it,
15:53 why isn't TikTok already implementing that?
15:55 And we do see that, for example, in China with their ban
15:59 that they've had on gaming and, um, online use late at night.
16:03 It does make a difference, but it's not being used elsewhere.
16:07 So when you bring in a ban on 16s or under,
16:11 you have to then have something like that in place.
16:13 And also these teenagers are so savvy when it comes to tech, surely
16:16 they're just going to get a VPN and get around it?
16:19 Yeah we have, we did see that, particularly in France
16:22 with the ban there. Um, you can just get a VPN and say you can pretend
16:26 you're logging in from a different country where there is no ban.
16:28 So you can get around the issues.
16:30 But then I think the thing to bear in mind here is as well, though,
16:34 is that if you add friction, so let's say you bring in the ban,
16:37 but you can circumvent it with VPN. That is another step.
16:41 That is another step that children will have to take to get around it.
16:43 So that will knock out a certain number of people.
16:46 It's whether or not you want 100%, you know, um, success rate.
16:50 Katy, what else are people who are criticising this ban saying? What are their other concerns?
16:55 A lot of the experts I've spoken to have kind of expressed a lot
16:58 of disappointment that they, they're like, we've talked about this.
17:01 We've, you know, advised the government,
17:04 and yet nothing seems to have gone through
17:07 on anything that we have suggested, um, you know,
17:11 and they've even pointed to the fact that the UN
17:13 also doesn't really say ban it.
17:16 It's about the human rights is to kind of educate and give access to.
17:19 It's a really, really hard, uh, law to implement, I think.
17:25 I think, you know, and because it's still so much a framework,
17:28 there's so many, you know, unanswered questions on this.
17:31 So it's very much a headline grabber. But really getting down
17:34 to the nitty gritty, we'll see in the next year or so.
17:36 So the argument against this ban would be, hang on a minute,
17:40 instead of blocking children from going on to dangerous places,
17:43 make those dangerous places less dangerous.
17:46 And of course, that is even more onus on the technology companies to do that.
17:49 But it can happen. It can be done. If you look at Douyin in China,
17:53 for example, which is the Chinese equivalent of TikTok,
17:56 which is owned by the same company, ByteDance,
17:59 they own both TikTok around the entire world.
18:01 And then Douyin in China. Douyin is exactly the same as TikTok,
18:04 but it is very, very different in terms of the content that is displayed
18:07 to young people on that app. It's all about science.
18:10 It's all about maths. And they have big campaigns about
18:12 social well-being and how to be a good citizen.
18:15 There must be teens dancing?!
18:16 Well, yeah. Oh, there'll be there'll be a bit of that as well.
18:19 But it's a very different experience.
18:22 And I think some people in the camp of, 'This is wrong,
18:25 don't ban kids, make technology companies do more',
18:28 would look at Douyin as an example of that being possible.
18:31 Well, let's have a look at how the tech companies are responding.
18:33 Because Elon Musk wrote that this Australia ban was
18:35 backdoor control of the internet.
18:38 How are the other platforms, you know, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat,
18:41 how are they reacting?
18:42 They're all dead against it, as you can imagine.
18:44 The main argument from them is that we need more time.
18:47 We need to talk about this properly because, I think Katy mentioned earlier,
18:51 it is a bit of a rush.
18:53 What's happening in Australia is going through quite fast
18:55 and the technology companies, rightly or wrongly, are saying pause,
18:58 slow down, let's look at the science, let's look at the research,
19:01 let's look at the evidence that there are harms out there for children.
19:04 And also let's look at whether or not the verification systems
19:07 will actually work. How is it actually going to work.
19:09 We are seeing some interesting developments of having
19:12 technology companies have youth-related apps.
19:15 So you can have a kind of you've seen, for example,
19:17 on YouTube, you've got main YouTube and then you've got kids YouTube,
19:21 which is meant to be and is, to be fair,
19:24 a more moderated and protected version.
19:26 So it's that 'making the swimming pool safer' for children.
19:29 That's the kind of argument there.
19:31 And we might see that rolled out more widely,
19:34 where you have a kids' Instagram, a kids' version of TikTok and the others.
19:38 So Katy, headlines all over the world.
19:40 Lots of people are talking about it. Uh, parents particularly.
19:44 Do people in Australia think this is going to succeed?
19:47 I think a lot of people are questioning whether it will really succeed,
19:52 even those for and against are thinking, like, they
19:57 just don't really understand how they could possibly it could possibly work.
20:00 So, uh, no, I think a lot of people are wanting to, to wait
20:05 and see exactly how this will play out. And to pick up on Joe's point.
20:08 So the tech companies, the onus is on them to comply,
20:12 but they will face penalties of as much as 50 million AUD.
20:16 So that's about £26 million, $33 million USD.
20:22 So if they don't comply, that's, you know, the top penalty they can get.
20:25 But there will be some exemptions.
20:26 So if they're able to create low-risk services, so more kid-friendly services,
20:32 then that might kind of help their case.
20:34 But again all of this is still, the detail is yet to be defined.
20:38 But certainly there's a kind of a motivation there to try
20:42 and make these platforms more, uh, kid-friendly.
20:46 Well, the whole world is watching Australia on this one.
20:48 Katy, thank you so much. Joe, good to have you with us here.
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