Australia’s world-first social media ban has been sold to the world as a policy to help protect children. But is it doing more harm than good?
Australia introduced the world’s first social media ban for under-16s last December. Since then, some 20 other countries have adopted similar bans, including the UK, Canada, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil and Austria.
The ban was pitched as a measure to protect young people’s health and wellbeing from harmful content. This includes cyberbullying, violent or sexually explicit content, scams and content that encourages unproductive or unhealthy behaviours.
Associate Professor Noam Peleg from the School of Global & Public Law at UNSW Law & Justice agrees that there’s online content young children shouldn’t be exposed to without guide or support. But he argues the ban breaches children’s rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“Any decision or process of adopting a decision concerning children – in our case, legislation – should take the rights of children into account, including listening to children,” he says.
“In other words, you can’t form a policy about children without listening to them and then claim that it’s done for their own good.”
A right to freedom of speech
A/Prof. Peleg says limiting children’s access to social media platforms effectively prevents children under 16 from taking part in public forums, whether socially or politically.
“The ban significantly limits children’s access to information. They cannot engage with others. They cannot produce their own knowledge. They cannot be part of these knowledge production processes, which all now happen online,” he says.
“Conversations happen online in forums, blogs and social media; you don’t send a letter to the newspaper anymore. Children have been removed from these spaces. Freedom of expression equates to the right to information and the right to assembly.”
But A/Prof. Peleg isn’t alone in raising these concerns. The Digital Freedom Project launched a High Court case against the social media ban, which is still pending.
In August, France’s Constitutional Council ruled against a social media ban for under-15s, finding that it infringed freedom of expression.
A policy designed for adults
A/Prof. Peleg also argues the ban wasn’t designed around how children engage with the online world, but around adults’ concerns about online harm.
“The outcome is an adult-centric process. It provides a so-called solution that might make sense for adults who are panicked with Instagram or TikTok,” he says.
The eSafety Commissioner’s first evaluation of the social media ban found most children aged 10 to 15 were still using social media in March as often as they were before the ban came into effect.
“The ban doesn’t correspond with the ways in which children engage with these platforms,” A/Prof. Peleg says.
Part of the problem, he argues, is that the legislation relies on categories that don’t reflect how young people engage with the online world.
Under existing measures, age restrictions apply to Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, Threads, Twitch, YouTube and X (formerly Twitter). But other platforms with social or communication features, including YouTube Kids, Roblox, Messenger, Discord and WhatsApp, are excluded.
