from the the-blunder-down-under dept

Australia’s social media ban for kids is now in effect. As we’ve discussed, this is a monumentally stupid plan that will do real harm to kids. It’s based on a moral panic and a wide variety of faulty assumptions, including that social media websites are inherently bad for kids, something that none of the evidence supports. And, even if there were harms associated with social media, the way you deal with them is teaching people (not just kids!) how to use them in an age appropriate way—meaning understanding the difference between risks and harms—not banning it altogether.

But, Australia has gone in the other direction entirely, and the clusterfuck is just beginning. As with Australia’s link tax (officially: news bargaining code) the folks at The Juice Media have created their “Honest Government Ad” for the social media ban, and it’s just as biting as you’d expect.

Here’s just a snippet…

Regulating billionaires is hard work!

So we said: let’s just ban the kids. So now the billionaires can keep pegging humanity with even less incentive to moderate….

Sure we rushed this law through in just nine days Ignoring hundreds of experts, our Human Rights Commission, and our leading digital rights, Indigenous, and mental health orgs. And sure we’ve created huge privacy and identity theft risks, and taken a big shit on freedom of speech.

But think of the children.

Just not the children being hammered by gambling ads, which we’ve refused to ban. And definitely not the ones saying we need to protect them from climate change. Those children can go and get fucked.

Ok so it won’t be perfect. But, now that it’s happening, here are some tips as we roll out this evidence-free experiment on your kids:

One: look out for your young people, ‘cause some will need help. Like the kid being bullied at school, the kid in an abusive family, and the LGBTQ kid who found support online. All of whom are part of the 73 % of young people using social media for mental health support.

Two: kids who sneak-on to social media may not feel they can ask for help if they’re being bullied, shown harmful content, or groomed by some pedo. So talk to your kids!

And, three, for fucksake maybe spend less time on social media yourself?

Meanwhile, basically every politician in Australian is taking a huge victory lap on this, looking like complete buffoons. Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, who has been pushing for this nonsensical, dangerous, backwards proposal is bursting with glee:

Grant said: “Technology companies are used to moving fast and breaking things. They can certainly move fast and improve things, and that means deactivating these under-16 accounts.”

She acknowledged some nerves over the ban – and the global attention on it. “I’ve aged in dog years,” she told Channel Nine.

But she added: “I’m trying to contain my excitement”.

Imagine being excited about cutting off tons of young people from their support networks while doing nothing about actual problems those kids are facing. But sure, “contain your excitement.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who literally claimed this ban “will save us all,” is taking a censor’s victory lap:

“This is the day when Australian families are taking back power from these big tech companies and they’re asserting the right of kids to be kids and for parents to have greater peace of mind,” Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“This reform will change lives. For Australian kids … allowing them to just have their childhood. For Australian parents, enabling them to have greater peace of mind.”

None of which is happening. Parents don’t see why the government is making this decision for them:

“How about I raise my children, and you run the country.”

Kids are claiming that the whole thing is frustrating… while also totally pointless:

Rima, 14, says she and her friends are “pretty frustrated at first” by the ban and they also don’t think it will work.

“The verification techniques are not very accurate, and there are no penalties enforced on teenagers that get past the ban,” she says, adding that she has already verified herself on Snapchat and also made some new accounts.

She says social media is “not that important” to her but she does use it for “advice, studying and talking to my friends, which is quite integral to my everyday life”.

And the lesson kids are taking from this: the adults are condescending and out of touch with the kids today.

She’s against the ban, saying: “From my perspective, it’s kind of insulting to think that they don’t trust me with the internet.”

And, of course, it’s not working. Kids are always going to figure out ways to get around the ban:

It took 13-year-old Isobel less than five minutes to outsmart Australia’s “world-leading” social media ban for children.

A notification from Snapchat, one of the ten platforms affected, had lit up her screen, warning she’d be booted off when the law kicked in this week – if she couldn’t prove she was over 16.

“I got a photo of my mum, and I stuck it in front of the camera and it just let me through. It said thanks for verifying your age,” Isobel claims. “I’ve heard someone used Beyoncé’s face,” she adds.

“I texted her,” she gestures to her mum Mel, “and I was like, ‘Hey Mummy, I got past the social media ban’ and she was just like, ‘Oh, you monkey’.”

Or how about this “hack”:

Either way, Adams and her friends don’t plan to go quietly. When one app asked them to submit a selfie for an age verification system, they used a photo of a golden retriever they found on Google.

It worked, she said.

So let’s review what Australia’s politicians have actually accomplished here: They’ve alienated parents who don’t appreciate the government deciding how to raise their kids. They’ve taught an entire generation of young people that adults don’t trust them and that circumventing authority is both necessary and easy. They’ve cut off legitimate support networks for vulnerable kids while doing nothing about the actual harms that those same kids face. Indeed, they’ve actually pushed kids towards more dangerous places online while making it more difficult for them to learn to use the internet appropriately. And they’ve created a system so trivially easy to bypass that a golden retriever can pass age verification.

But beyond the immediate disaster, Australia has set a dangerous precedent that moral-panic-driven governments around the world are already eyeing. The message to other countries is clear: you can rush through deeply flawed legislation, ignore all expert advice, create real harms in pursuit of imaginary ones, and still declare victory while the whole thing collapses around you.

The kids, at least, have learned something valuable: when the people in charge respond to complex problems with simplistic bans, you work around them and stop trusting them. Not exactly the lesson Australian politicians were going for, but probably the one they deserve.

Filed Under: age verification, anthony albanese, australia, julie inman grant, moral panic, social media, social media ban, think of the children