What you need to know:

• The Albanese government proposes banning social media for children aged up to 16 early next year, calling it a “scourge”.
• South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas has been leading the charge on age limits: "The evidence shows early access to addictive social media is causing our kids harm. This is no different to cigarettes and alcohol."
• Teen anxiety and mental wellbeing concerns are the primary drivers and are on the rise – a recent Australian National University study found regular social media use was negatively impacting Year 10 and 11 students nationwide.
• But age verification and implementation challenges remain for social media age bans – the Federal government is backing the eSafety Commissioner’s position for a “double-bind tokenised approach” in which a third party verifies a user’s age to the platforms without disclosing personal details, much like the surge in use of data clean rooms by brands for targeting.
• Hello Social MD Sam Kelly told Mi3 he wasn’t convinced: “I don't think this sort of blanket ban is the solve; we've got to learn to coexist safely with this technology.”
• Conversely, AKQA ANZ boss Brian Vella said in an Mi3 OpEd today: “Companies must embrace content moderation, scale back on ads and invest in healthier ways to engage users, even if that means sacrificing short-term financial gains."
• Prime Minister Albanese yesterday told Nova’s Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli, who with Finch boss Rob Galluzzo, launched the “36 months” campaign earlier this year to lobby politicians to act on lifting the social media minimum age to 16: “Congratulations to you for the campaign you’ve been very much leading.” 
• Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has committed to lifting the minimum age of access to social media to 16 within the first 100 days of the Coalition taking office.

Antisocial actions

The announcement on Sunday by the Albanese government to impose an age ban on social media use is part of a broader global trend. In the United States, several states have enacted or proposed similar measures – Arkansas aimed to restrict social media access for minors but faced legal challenges. Florida's Online Protection of Minors Act prohibits social media platforms from allowing teens under 14 to create accounts.

"Social media companies have a social responsibility and we are seeing the mental health issues rising from young people. We know that this is having a devastating impact,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in announcing the plan. “We need to act as a society. There’s nothing social about social media”, he said, which is taking kids “away from real friends and real experiences. Parents want their kids off their phones and on the footy field. So do I. We are taking this action because enough is enough.”

"We know that technology moves fast. No government is going to be able to protect every child from every threat -- but we have to do all we can."

At the heart of the issue lies the addictive nature of social media platforms, engineered to exploit human psychology for maximum engagement. Sean Parker, Facebook's former president and founder of Napster, told Axios six years ago: "It's a social-validation feedback loop ... exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology." (Watch it below.) Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor, described  it as an "opiate-like" effect on users back in 2017

Token efforts

The debate here is fractured – many question the effectiveness of compliance and enforcement. Meta is officially backing the move although privately senior executives have said they expect there will be a rush by teens to other more nefarious platforms. 

“Social media has been the cornerstone of youth marketing for over a decade,” Hello Social MD Sam Kelly, told Mi3. “Pivoting away from these platforms will require significant investment in new technologies and strategies. I don't think this sort of blanket ban is the solve; we've got to learn to coexist safely with this technology. So I don't think it's a social media issue. There's broader pieces around gaming [and] internet platform usage."

For the social media giants, the pressure is mounting to address these health concerns or face stringent regulation. Meta, Twitter, and others are racing to implement more robust age verification systems and wellbeing features. 

The eSafety commissioner has proposed a "double-blind tokenised" approach to protect user privacy. Tech giants like Meta have already begun trialling their own age verification systems, but concerns about effectiveness and potential workarounds persist.

Alcohol age workarounds, same for social  

However, implementation remains a challenge. Meta's Vice President and Global Head of Safety, Antigone Davis, told an Australian Senate Joint Committee hearing: "Most of the age assurance that's done across the industry has limitations. We're still committed to doing that kind of assurance on our platform. What we're really saying is that we need a multi-layered approach, and app stores and/or the OS – the operating system – have access to this information already."

The counter from some is a parallel to alcohol age limits – teens under 18 find ways to drink but the guardrails are set regardless, on the grounds of public health – and civics. 

In a Mi3 podcast and feature in June, Wippa and Galluzzo responded to their critics saying teens will find workaround to the age-verification system, such VPNs. 

“If you look at how many households have a VPN in Australia, you're at 25 per cent,” Galluzzo said. “That's still three quarters of the country that don't. We are not ever suggesting that it's going to be foolproof. But getting three quarters of the country aligned to it, and hopefully much more, we still believe that we can create real systemic change for the country.”

He added: “I don’t know how you could argue it. The reaction as we've spoken [to people] has been nothing but supportive, especially from parents of young girls. They're the most vulnerable. A lot of the statistics say that one in two [teenage girls’] mental health is affected by social media. So about half the kids on there have an issue with what it actually does to them from depression and anxiety and self-harm. Boys are also affected. But the graphs seem to show it's a slower build – and then the outcome can be extremely challenging to hear.”

ANU’s Professor Ben Edwards told SBS that “you can walk and chew gum at the same time" and that “a ban isn't good or bad; it's how you implement it. Yes, we should help and train young people to use social media responsibly,” he said. “Yes, we should have greater expectations of social media companies. But yes, we should also try to implement something that might have some positive benefits."