Australia put into effect a ban on social media usage for teens, making itself perhaps the first major country to do so amid rising concerns about the impacts of social media on young minds, especially teenagers. The ban came into effect on Wednesday and requires that 10 social media platforms, including those owned by Meta -- Facebook, Instagram and Threads -- TikTok, Twitter and others will have to track accounts of users who are under 16 years of age and disallow fresh signups or else face fines running into millions of Australian dollars.
The action that has been welcomed by parents and opposed by social media companies, who nonetheless have agreed to comply, comes in a bid to protect early teens from “predatory algorithms” that can expose young minds to online bullying, violence, and peer pressure and studies have shown that content has left young people anxious with low self esteem and prone to self harm.
Australia’s ban is being watched around the world. The ill effects of social media are well known. What began as a seemingly harmless way for people to connect with each other, share stories, life events, opinions and achievements is today a nonstop bombardment of viral content that’s designed to trigger outrage, provoke, and even target in a bid to keep users engaged and constantly glued to their phones.
Words like doomscrolling and brainrot are today becoming commonplace, and more than helping people connect with each other, they are being used to spread hateful, chauvinistic, fascist and supremacist content. It was not too long ago when the Cambridge Analytica scandal occurred, in which the social media company was accused of deliberately using demographic data to target vulnerable populations with political messaging in a bid to manipulate the US elections.
While social media is looked upon as being harmful in general, studies have shown that teens are especially vulnerable. Social media use has been linked to body anxiety, setting unrealistic expectations for themselves and low self-esteem. Most importantly, social media companies have, to date, by and large completely escaped scrutiny and accountability for hosting harmful content on their platforms. That era needs to end.
On the other hand, however, teens say that social media helps them escape from reality, helps them unwind and can make interacting with people their age easier. The ban is not going to be perfect, and teens will find ways to circumvent it, most particularly through lying about their age when signing up. But the ban puts the onus on social media companies to ensure that no children younger than 16 are accessing their services. It will not apply to services where a sign-up is not required.
There are other concerns as well, particularly over the fact that the website doesn’t cover sites where a sign-up is not required, gaming sites, streaming services, etc. But the proponents explain that this is just a first step and that they will modulate the ban as is necessary going forward in order to make it more effective.
Importantly, the ban in Australia will serve as a template for other countries to follow. Several other countries are said to be contemplating similar bans (outside of countries that have banned social media outright). India too needs to consider such a ban in a manner that can protect our teens and youth from becoming fodder for predatory algorithms and harmful actors online.
