Australias Leader Takes On Social Media. Can He Win?
The press conference starts like any other: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is grilled on everything from affordable housing and war in the Middle East to his relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump.Then, Lana, 11, picks up the microphone. Do you think social media has an impact on kids? asks the suburban Canberra primary-school student.Of all the burning issues of the day, its the one that Albanese feels on surest ground to answer. It also goes to the heart of his governments most eye-catching policyone that directly affects Lana and the other student reporters invited to interrogate Australias top politician for Behind the News, a long-running kids current-affairs show.It certainly does, and thats why were going to ban social media for under-16s, Albanese replies resolutely. I want to see you all out playing with each other at lunchtime, talking to each other like we are now, and engaging with each other rather than just being on your devices.The fact that Australias Prime Minister carved out 45 minutes between parliamentary sessions to indulge kids at least two terms from voting age underlines his belief that social media represents an unambiguous threat to his nations most precious resource: its children. And he is determined to do something about it.Albanese answers questions from students from St. Francis of Assisi Primary School in Canberra on Feb. 5. Chris Gurney for TIMEThe perils are largely beyond dispute. Some of the worlds biggest companies use the fig leaf of engagement to hook children during vulnerable developmental stages, rewiring their brains via a firehose of addictive content that psychologists say has changed human development on a previously unfathomable scale. In the decade that followed the proliferation of mobile internet services in 2010, depression among young Americans rose around 150%, with corresponding spikes in anxiety and self-harm. The trend is mirrored across the developed world, including Australia, where mental health hospitalizations soared 81% for teen girls and 51% for boys over the same period. It has become the No. 1 issue that parents are talking about, says Albanese. These are developing minds, and young people need the space to be able to grow up.On Dec. 10, in a bid to carve out and ring-fence that space, Australia will implement a 16-year-old age limit for users of platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X. The law is the first of its kind in the world.While most platforms have a self-imposed age limit of 13, enforcement is laughable; kids can simply input a false date of birth. Rather than targeting underage kids, the Australian law will punish companies that fail to introduce adequate safeguards with fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($31 million) for as yet undefined systemic breaches. (The precise details of how and when these fines will be imposed have yet to be made clear.) In other words, Australia will flip the equation: instead of relying on users to truthfully disclose their ages, it will put the burden on the worlds tech giants. Its a bold move, directly targeting some of the worlds most influential companies run by its richest and most powerful men, including X owner Elon Muskwho has dubbed the Albanese government fascists and the age restriction a backdoor way to control access to the internet by all Australians.For its proponents, however, the law is a critical first step toward checking social medias toxic influence on children. Illustration by Brobel Design for TIMEIn November, Frances Education Minister said the E.U. should urgently follow Australias examplenot least since the infusion of artificial intelligence means that supercharged algorithms are peddling disinformation faster than ever. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit, former U.S. President Joe Biden lamented in his farewell address.The upshot: Australia has now come to serve as a beachhead for others to prepare their own defenses. The U.K., Ireland, Singapore, Japan, and the E.U. are among many jurisdictions closely monitoring Canberras next move. In the U.S., the bipartisan Kids Off Social Media Act (KOSMA) to restrict social media for kids under 13 and bar platforms from pushing targeted content to users under 17 is advancing through the Senate, while around half of states passed legislation last year to make it harder for children and teens to spend time online without supervision. On March 5, Utah became the first state to require app stores to verify users ages and get parental consent for minors to download apps. If the age restriction goes well in Australia, then I think it will go global very quickly, says Professor Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York Universitys Stern School of Business and author of The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.Albaneses stance is also remarkable for just how politically uncontroversial it has proved. As Australia heads for a close federal election in May, Albaneses center-left Labour Party and the right-leaning Liberal-National Coalition opposition are locking horns on every issue, whether nuclear energy, health care funding, or taxation. But the social media age restriction passed with bipartisan support and stands to be implemented no matter who triumphs at the ballot box.Thats not to say there arent detractorsand not just the social media companies, which say the legislation passed without due consultation. We are concerned the governments rapid, closed-door consultation process on the minimum-age law is undermining necessary discourse, a Meta spokesperson told TIME. TikTok complained that an exemption for YouTube was akin to banning the sale of soft drinks to minors but exempting Coca-Cola.Some mental health experts, meanwhile, say blocking kids from social media will drive them to darker, less regulated corners of the internet. Others fear children who bypass the age restriction will find themselves in a less controlled space where theyre unable to seek help. Theres also huge debate over what exactly counts as social media when myriad gaming and educational websites also employ addictive scrolling features. A group of 140 mental health experts penned an open letter to the Albanese government to oppose the ban, calling it too blunt an instrument to address risks effectively.For Albanese, an imperfect plan is better than no plan at all. We acknowledge that this wont be absolute, Albanese tells TIME during an exclusive interview in his parliamentary office in February. But it does send a message about what society thinks and will empower parents to have those conversations with their children.They are children whose upbringing is unrecognizable from that of any previous generation. If parents once fretted about the attention kids paid to comic books and television, the immersive, dopamine-driven pull of the computer screenvideo games, chat platforms, social mediahas changed how nearly everyone looks at the world, but especially young people. A February government report by Australias eSafety Commissioner found that 80% of preteens used social media. A 2024 Pew Research poll found 46% of American teens said they were online almost constantly. Nearly a quarter of U.K. 5-to-7-year-olds now have their own smartphone.The devices can bring physical danger. Pedophiles and traffickers stalk the virtual world with greater freedom than in the real one. In 2023, the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) tracked 298 attempted abductions involving 381 children and received 36.2 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation online.80% of Australian preteens used social media, according to a February report from Australias eSafety Commissioner. William WestAFP/Getty ImagesBut concern also wells around a child alone with a phone. For Albanese, theres something especially sad about Australian kids shunning some of the worlds highest rates of sunshine for the artificial glare of screens. His own childhood in a one-parent household in Sydneys industrial inner-city suburb of Camperdown was far from idyllic. His mother was crippled by chronic rheumatoid arthritis, meaning the family survived on her disability payments and his grandmothers pension. Home was a government-housing block flanked by a childrens hospital, biscuit factory, and metal foundry. But there was a grassy patch where kids would hang around playing rugby, cricket, or swapping football cards. We would go out to play at 9 oclock and just knew you had to be home for lunch, and then do the same in the afternoon, Albanese recalls. People interacted with each other. And that capacity to communicate face-to-face is really important. They learn how to win, how to lose, how to engage.It may sound wistful, but Albaneses perspective is backed by science. Psychologists say physical play, preferably outdoors and among a mix of ages, is essential to a childs development. Young people learn how to not get hurt by negotiating scenarios in which getting hurt is possible, such as climbing a tree or leaping from a swing at its zenith.But such play is increasingly a thing of the past. Instead, time on screens has grown and grown, turbo-charged in 2009 with the arrival of the like button on Facebook and retweet on Twitter, now Xinnovations that, in the minds of many experts, transformed social media from a harmless friendship forum to an algorithm-driven popularity contest. Instagram debuted a year later, coinciding with the launch of the iPhone 4 and Samsung Galaxy S, both of which featured the worlds first front-facing cameras. Instagrams array of filters allowed users to make images less natural and more stylized and are now ubiquitous across Snapchat, TikTok, and other platforms.The result has been a great deal of diversion, not all of it positive. The digital realm brings striking new elements of risk, for instance, to young peoples emerging sexuality, from the distorting effect of readily available hardcore pornography on all who see it (the term incel, or involuntarily celibate, was coined for frustrated, often misogynistic young men who bond online), as well as a heightened risk of online grooming and sextortion. In July 2022, 17-year-old Rohan Patrick Cosgriff died by suicide near his home outside Melbourne after he was pressured into sending an intimate picture to someone called Christine on Snapchat, who then demanded money not to distribute the images. A note in Cosgriffs pocket simply said: I made a huge mistake. Im sorry.The Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation received over 58,000 reports of online child abuse in 202324, a 45% year-on-year rise. Australia is far from unique; the NCMEC, in the U.S., saw a rise of over 300% in reports of online enticement including sextortion from 2021 to 2023.For girls, social media takes a different roleone that statistics show can prove even more damaging. Whereas male social hierarchy has traditionally adhered to physical attributes like sporting prowess, girls find value in the breadth and depth of relationships. In short, popularity. And one way to climb the social ziggurat is to undermine your peers: spread gossip, turn friends against rivals, and lower others value within the group.But the explosion of front-facing cameras and filters has meant the reflection teens see in the mirror has become less and less attractive compared with the carefully curated photos and videos of their peers online, causing self-worth to plunge. Girls seeing lots of beautiful pictures of other girls living perfect lives is absolutely devastating to them, says Haidt. Those with poor self-worth are likelier to lash out at others, with indirect bullying more prevalent among adolescent girls than boys. One of the first things that Kelly OBrien saw upon entering 12-year-old Charlottes bedroom on Sept. 9 was her cell phone on the floor. Then she noticed two pillows neatly arranged under the duvet. By the time she found her daughter in the en suite bathroom it was too late. When the paramedics arrived, they just looked at her and said, So sorry, shes gone, says OBrien, eyes brimming.Kelly believes Charlotte took her own life at their suburban Sydney home in large part because of the toxic effect of social media. Charlotte was a bright girl who loved cheerleading, doted on her baby brother, and was navigating the tricky road from childhood to adulthood, equally obsessed with Taylor Swift and Gossip Girl as well as the latest Disney animation. Charlotte had suffered bullying at school, but her parents say it was social media that rendered that cycle of acceptance and rejection unbearably acute. The weeks that she was in, she was over the moon, says Mat OBrien, Charlottes dad. The week she was out, just awful.As soon as Charlotte got a cell phone it became a problem, spurring reclusive, depressive episodes. Charlotte had her phone confiscated more often than she had access, Kelly says, a punishment that invariably began with two days of sullen withdrawal followed by a marked upturn in moodclassic addiction symptoms, say psychologists. The night before her passing, Charlotte had been upbeat, enjoying her favorite pasta dinner and baking banana bread for the next day. I kissed the happiest girl in the world good night, says Kelly. Something happened after she got to her room. A friend who spoke to a distraught Charlotte later that evening has since told Kelly about the vile, hateful message her daughter received via Snapchat. (We are deeply committed to keeping our community safe, a Snap spokesperson told TIME. Our hearts go out to this family, whose pain is unimaginable.)Social media companies say that bullying has always been a problem and will continue whether via schoolyard taunts, crank phone calls, or their platforms. Still, beginning in the early 2010s, girls mental health was hit by a sharp rise in rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm. The rate of self-harm for young adolescent girls in the U.S. nearly tripled from 2010 to 2020, while the rate for older teens doubled. In 2020, 1 out of every 4 American teen girls had experienced a major depressive episode in the previous year.Family photos of Charlotte OBrien, who died by suicide at age 12 in September after being bullied on social media. Courtesy of the OBrien familyKelly OBrien explained the devastating effects of social media on Charlotte in a letter to Albanese as part of the 36 Months campaigna grassroots movement to raise and properly enforce the age limit for social media to 16. When you hear firsthand about a parent losing their child then it undoubtedly has an impact, says Albanese, who later invited the OBriens to meet with him in Canberra. Also at that meeting was Michael Wipfli, an Australian radio presenter known as Wippa, who spearheaded 36 Months. Sat in the Prime Ministers office, it was clear he knew what needed to be done, says Wippa. We needed leadership, a captains call, somebody to say, enough is enough.Albanese first became involved in leftist politics while studying economics at the University of Sydney. He rose up the Labour Party ranks with a reputation as a backroom mediator and a knack for forging concord between squabbling factions. After Labours shock defeat in Australias 2019 federal election, Albanese emerged as an unexpected but unifying leadership candidate. Hes an accidental Prime Minister, says Nick Bisley, dean of social sciences at La Trobe University.Indeed, Albanese has struggled to unify an ever more polarized countrydespite an undeniable everyman charisma. As Albanese inspected repairs to a bridge destroyed by floodwater in northern Queensland, he was joined by the mayor of the cut-off town of Ingham, population 4,455, who arrived wearing shorts, a faded polo shirt, thong sandals, and a cap advertising the local tractor mechanic. You didnt have to dress up! teased a local lawmaker as helicopters carrying supplies buzzed overhead. Anthonys an ordinary bloke!Its a pit stop that showcases Australias endearing insouciance as well as how vital internet access has become for communications across its vast expansenot least as climate change renders extreme weather more frequent and severe. Australia is the worlds sixth largest country by landmassroughly equivalent to the U.S. minus Alaskathough 55th by population with just 26 million people. The result is an abundance of sparsely inhabited outback communities for which social media is absolutely critical, admits Albanese. Were not Luddites, he adds, reeling off the various platforms he posts on. Young people arent being banned from a range of interactions through technology that are about their education or engaging with each other. Were not confiscating peoples devices.Albanese welcomes students from St. Francis of Assisi Primary School in Calwell to his office in Canberra on Feb. 5. Chris Gurney for TIMEAlbanese points to the success of last years ban of cell phones in Australian public schools. The impact has been phenomenal, says Australian Education Minister Jason Clare. A survey of almost 1,000 school principals in Australias most populous state of New South Wales shows 87% say students are less distracted in the classroom while 81% have noticed improved learning. Meanwhile, South Australia has seen a 63% decline in critical incidentssuch as bullying and distribution of explicit or derogatory contentinvolving social media and 54% fewer behavioral issues. But when school ends the phones come out and theyre back in the cesspit of social media, says Clare. In the old days, bullying and intimidation stopped at the school gate. Now its at home as well.Still, critics say the social media age restriction was a knee-jerk reaction passed without proper consultation, involves thorny data-privacy issues, and creates even more risks for youngsters who use platforms illicitly. Its absolutely dumb, its not going to work, says Roy Sugarman, a Sydney-based clinical psychologist. Its ridiculous because the genie is out of the bottle.Sugarman compares the Australian ban to American Prohibition in the 1920s, which some studies suggest actually increased alcohol consumption in the U.S. while leading to a spike in organized crime. He says a far better tactic would be to teach teens to be technologically astute, to understand online dangers, how to think rationally, act with purpose, and deal with the virtual world to mitigate damages. Human behavior doesnt lend itself to being told what to do, says Sugarman. Its the opposite. Humans hate being told what to do.History also offers examples that point the other way. While Sugarman invokes the example of Prohibition, Wippa compares social media age restrictions to similar rules for cigarettes, which while routinely flouted have led smoking rates among young people to plummet.But the fact is, nobody knows what will happen. Nothing like this has been attempted before. And then theres the question of implementation. Australias eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, says that around 30 different age-verification technologies are being tested in collaboration with various social media platforms, including French firm BorderAge, which claims to accurately gauge age using AI analysis of hand signals. Meanwhile, platforms, which the legislation makes responsible for enforcing the age restrictions, want to pass that burden to app stores, principally run by Apple and Google, saying they should act as gatekeepers.Grant compares the legislation to laws regarding fencing swimming pools. In the early 1970s, the widespread availability of cheap, preformed fiberglass pools meant the rate of young children drowning soared. Not long after, states began requiring all private swimming pools to be fenced, which led deaths to fall and has since been adopted nationwide. But that didnt mean Australia suddenly stopped teaching kids to swim, fired all the lifeguards, or fenced off the ocean. This is not the great Australian firewall, says Grant. Childrens social media accounts arent going to magically disappear. But we can make things a lot better for parents and a lot better for kids.Grant speaks with the zeal of a convert. After cutting her teeth as a congressional staffer focused on tech issues in the 1990s, the Seattle native worked 17 years at Microsoft, two years at Twitter, and a year at Adobe, before being tapped for her current post (the first e-Safety Commissioner anywhere in the world). She believes, from her inside knowledge of the tech industry, that the big players will always put profit first. They can target you with advertising with deadly precision, she says. They could use the same technologies to be able to identify hateful content and child sexual abuse material.Recent events have cemented her skepticism. Last April, Grant sued X over its refusal to remove videos of a religiously motivated stabbing of a bishop in a Sydney church that sparked rioting. X eventually geofenced it so it wasnt available in Australia, while Musk hit out at Grant as censorship commissar, leading to a raft of online abuse. I still receive death threats, she tells TIME.But even more painful for Grant is the knowledge that 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana watched that same Sydney church attack video on X just six minutes before leaving home with a knife to murder three young children and injure 10 others in the U.K. town of Southport on July 29. Having gratuitous violence of terrorist events freely available normalizes it, desensitizes it, says Grant, and in the worst cases [it] radicalizes and spills over into real-world harm.The spat between Grant and Musk prompted Albanese to label the tech mogul an arrogant billionaire. But asked by TIME whether hes concerned by Musks burgeoning influence as Trumps consigliere, Albanese demurs, instead decrying how misinformation can erode trust in institutions. People have conflict fatigue, he says. People need to have respectful debate. And I think there is a concern in society that some of that is breaking down.Albaneses squirming is understandable. Australia and the U.S. are close allies linked via the Quad and AUKUS military arrangements. But Trump spent his first term taking aim at historic alliances, accusing South Korea and Japan of not paying their fair share for American security guarantees, and his return to the White House has heralded a full-frontal assault on European democracies. Australia is one of the few close American allies with a trade deficit with the U.S.since Truman! Albanese stressesas well as a record of deploying alongside American forces and standing up to Beijing. In 2023, Canberra also agreed to invest $3 billion into U.S. shipyards.However, the White House has already hiked tariffs on Australian exports of aluminum and steel, while Albaneses plan to force tech companies like Google and Meta to pay for news shared on their platforms was recently labeled an outrageous attempt to steal our tax revenues by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.The social media age restriction is yet another friction point between Canberra and American Big Business. Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg has called on the Trump Administration to help push back on this global trend of what he terms censorship. Then theres Kevin Rudd, former Australian Prime Minister and current ambassador to the U.S., who was previously quoted calling Trump not only the most destructive President in history but also a village idiot.The center-left of Australian politics is a long way from the MAGA world, adds Bisley, of La Trobe University. Australias welfare-state instincts are just not particularly aligned to the free-market capitalism of the U.S.Its friction that raises the question of whether Australia can even enforce social media age restrictions. While potential $31 million fines may seem eye-watering, thats the top penalty for systemic breachesrather than per offense, day, or childand mere pocket change to someone like Metas Zuckerberg or Xs Musk, the worlds richest man, worth hundreds of billions and with an ideological antipathy to what he perceives as curbs on free speech. (X failed to respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.) Asked whether social media platforms could be banned outright for noncompliance with the new legislation, Australias Communications Minister Michelle Rowland replies, Thats not a feature of the legislation.In the final analysis, it might not matter. For Mat and Kelly OBrien, the social media age restriction at least takes the issue out of parents hands, just like for driving or drinking alcohol. Asked whether Charlotte would still be alive if the legislation had been in place last September, Kelly has no doubt. Absolutely, she says, 1,000%. And while it might be too late to save Charlotte, theyre hopeful Albaneses stand means other families might be spared similar heartache. I feel like lesser men would have crumbled, Kelly says. But he stood up to Big Tech and the naysayers. Im very grateful and proud.If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental-health crisis or contemplating suicide, call or text 988. In emergencies, call 911, or seek care from a local hospital or mental health provider. For international resources, click here.
English
Arabic
Spanish
Portuguese
Deutsch
Turkish
Dutch
Italiano
Russian
Romaian
Portuguese (Brazil)
Greek