Squiz Shortcuts: Is the social media ban for under 16s working?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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What is the social media ban for children under 16 in Australia?
Five months ago, Australia brought in a world-first social media ban for children aged under 16. The original goal was to protect kids from potential harms of social media like online bullying and mental health concerns.
What were the original goals of the social media ban?
And aside from Australian parents keen to see how this is all going to work, there are also a lot of other countries who are thinking about something similar, keeping an eye on what's going on here. So with new studies coming out, giving us a better picture of if this ban is working or not, we thought we'd check in on how it's going. With Shortcuts is the backstory to the big news stories. I'm Andrew Williams. And I'm Bryce Calvert. Bryce, thank you very much for joining us. I can't imagine there are people who don't know who you are at this point, but on the off chance we have a brand new listener to this episode, you run Squeeze Kids and News Hounds, very heavily involved in educating kids about not only the news but disinformation, misinformation and whatnot.
How has the social media ban affected conversations in households?
So we tend to recruit you in for these updates. Yep.
What platforms are included in the social media ban?
And the social media ban, I know, has also been a big focus for you at Squeeze Kids. So it might be good to start by just letting us know broadly how you've seen it at your end. Have you seen any kind of notable effect?
Phew.
Well, Andrew, I think probably it's best described as having had a very mixed outcome so far. It's probably the most diplomatic way I can put it. A great big success in terms of focusing the nation's attention towards the scale of the problem, but perhaps limited success in terms of actually solving the problem. which is to say there's been a noticeable uptick in the conversations that are happening in households around the country about what kids are seeing when they're online. And I think that's probably universally recognised as being a good thing. But in terms of how many fewer kids are on social media platforms today than there were before the ban was introduced in December, well, I think that's probably been negligible.
And that's what a lot of the studies that are coming out now are about, which we'll talk about in a second. But before we do that, probably worth reminding ourselves at this point, which platforms are actually banned. So there are 10 of them.
What evidence shows the ban's effectiveness so far?
You've got the three big meta platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. There's also the sort of video sharing platforms like TikTok and YouTube, streaming platforms like Twitch and Kik. And then the last three are Snapchat, Reddit, and X, or what used to be known as Twitter. So those are the big 10.
Yep, they're the ones. And the other thing to remember, of course, is when it comes to figuring out how this ban is working is how it actually logistically works. And the government here has asked the platforms themselves to ensure that no one under 16 is allowed on them.
And exactly how they're doing that is kind of difficult to work out because it's up to each individual social media company or tech company to themselves to sort that out and take their own approach into how they do that.
How are kids circumventing the social media ban?
Now, there are a number of ways they could do it, and it's sort of mix and match depending on the company that you're talking about.
Yeah, it is very much choose your own adventure. That includes facial analysis. The age verification technologies you've heard a lot about to work out whether or not a user is old enough. And that often uses AI and other tech to try and nut out a user's age from their other behavior online or looking for confirmation of their age from friends or relatives or tracking their online habits to paint a picture of their age.
Yeah, so it's sort of, I guess, you might use the word holistic oftentimes.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:29
2
What is the social media ban for children under 16 in Australia?
0:29–0:42
3
What were the original goals of the social media ban?
0:42–1:21
4
How has the social media ban affected conversations in households?
1:21–1:24
5
What platforms are included in the social media ban?
1:24–2:30
6
What evidence shows the ban's effectiveness so far?
2:30–3:13
7
How are kids circumventing the social media ban?
3:13–5:34
8
What are the reactions from kids about the social media ban?
5:34–21:39