60 Minutes - 10/25/2026: Destination: Nowhere, #FreeTinaPeters, Australia's Experiment

Episode Date: October 26, 2026

As the Trump administration seeks to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history, it is removing more and more people to countries they are not from and often have no ties to. It's called "third country deportation," and a 60 MINUTES investigation reveals how some of these third countries are forcing deportees back to the nations they fled, places where U.S. immigration judges have ruled they could not be sent because they’d likely face persecution or torture. 60 MINUTES’ Gianna Toboni travels to West Africa, where she meets a man who says he was sent, against his will, to his home country, despite a U.S. judge’s ruling. She also interviews the top lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security, James Percival, about these kinds of deportations. Andy Court, Annabelle Hanflig, and Camilo Montoya-Galvez are the producers.After one of the worst wildfires in Colorado history, Governor Jared Polis (D) asked the Trump administration for federal aid but was denied. The decision came as a top election official, Tina Peters, was serving a prison sentence after being convicted in connection with breaching her county’s election system in pursuit of President Trump's claim that rigged voting machines cost him the 2020 election. Governor Polis commuted Peters' sentence in May and saw the release of federal funding into his state. Correspondent Bill Whitaker interviews Governor Polis and Peters in Colorado about the case, conviction and commutation. Sarah Koch is the producer.   Last year, Australia became the first country in the world to force many social media companies to prevent children under the age of 16 from having accounts. 60 MINUTES' Holly Williams reports from Australia on how the ban is working, why other countries are now following its lead, and what the tech giants stand to lose if the Australian experiment succeeds. Jacqueline Williams and Erin Lyall are the producers.

So we got a warrant for your arrest. The U.S. has deported 25,000 people to countries that many of them have no connection to. I don't know no one to Ghana. But some of those countries are sending them straight back to the home countries U.S. judges said they should not be returned to. I just sort of wonder if the U.S. government is sort of looking the other way when there's evidence in front of them. It's like watching a monster crawl across the earth.

When Colorado burned, the president denied the state federal aid. What did that have to do with the arrest of this former election official? And what did the president do? Did you break the law? Are you asking me if I broke the law? They said I broke the law. Last year, Australia became the first country in the world to force many social media companies to prevent children under 16 from having accounts.

You're not eligible. Other countries are now following Australia's lead. There are high stakes for children as well as big tech's bottom line. You're saying they were the ones trying to make it a failure. And arguably they still are. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm John Wortham. I'm Nora O'Donnell.

I'm Ross Douthan. I'm Giana Toboni. I'm Bill Whitaker. Those stories and more tonight on 60 Minutes. Nearly one million people were deported from the U.S. during the first year and a half of President Trump's second term. Most were returned to their country of origin. About 25,000, though, were sent somewhere else, places where they may have never been and may not speak the language. They're called third countries because they're not the U.S. and not the person's home country. Iranians

were sent to Panama, Cubans to the Central African Republic. Deportations like these can be legal and past administrations have carried them out, but not at this scale. Our five-month investigation uncovered cases in which people ended up in places where U.S. immigration judges said they would likely be persecuted or tortured. On July 11, Musa Diawara, who's been in the U.S. for 25 years with no criminal record, was wrapping up his night shift as an Uber driver, heading to the home in the Houston suburbs he owns, with his wife and children, who are U.S. citizens. But when he pulled up,

U.S. immigration and customs enforcement agents were waiting for him. So we got a warrant for your arrest of a removal outside of the U.S. After three weeks in ICE detention in Texas, without being able to speak to his lawyer or a judge, he was put on a plane and deported to West Africa. And that's where we met him

two months after his arrest, thousands of miles away, from his Texas home. For me, it was like a nightmare. That's like, oh my God, what's happened? It just didn't feel real. I still say myself, this is real, this is me. 25 years ago, Diyawara entered the U.S.

and overstated tourist visa. He applied for refugee protection, arguing he would be persecuted if he were returned to Mali, the war-torn African country he's from. In 2012, a U.S. immigration judge ruled he could be deported, but not to Mali. As a result of the ruling, he was able to get a U.S. work permit.

Past administrations rarely deported people in Diawara's situation. But as part of the Trump administration's mass deportation operation, ICE has deported 25,000 people to dozens of third countries that, in return, receive millions of dollars in aid or other benefits from the U.S. On July 31st, Diawara landed in a place he'd never been, Ghana. He says that he and others were detained in this hotel by armed guards and not allowed to make phone calls. I cannot call my wife, I can't contact my lawyer, I can talk to no one.

I tell them, this is kidnapping. You guys kidnap us. Do you have any connection to Ghana? I don't have any connection. Do you know anyone there? I don't know no one to Ghana. Within five days, Diawara says, Ghanaian officials forced him onto a flight to the very country a U.S. judge said he could not be deported to, Mali.

This is where he was when we first managed to contact him in August, homeless and in hiding in Mali. I don't feel safe at all. Part of the reason he didn't feel safe, he told us, is that he'd converted to Christianity. Mali's a Muslim majority nation with an Islamist insurgency. Diawara told us he was dropped here with no money or ID. That bank is my bed for the last two weeks. Jesus hurts. After three weeks in Mali, with the help of some local truckers,

he escaped to another African country, which he asked us not to disclose. A little bit different than a Texas grocery store? Oh, yes. No big difference. For me in America, I was everything. I called America my home because I'm 57 now. I moved in America when I was 32. I don't know nowhere.

The U.S. government's position is that you overstayed your visa. You were in the country illegally for a period of time, that they had in order of... deportation. They couldn't send you to Mali, but they could send you to a third country, and that's what happened. They can send me to third country, but now back to my country of origin. That's where they do. They do something wrong.

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security told us Ghana had provided the U.S. with diplomatic assurances for his safety. DHS also questioned the credibility of Diyawar's arguments for fearing persecution in Mali. You know, I think a lot of people who make fear claims do not make credible ones. There's a lot of fraud there. And so if somebody found themselves in a different country and decided they'd rather go home, then that's their decision. James Percival, the top lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security,

told us third country deportations are widely misunderstood. I absolutely believe with all of my heart that these third country removals have stopped crimes from happening and kept Americans safer. And that is our fundamental obligation of the Department of Homeland Security. Why does the U.S. deport people to third countries? So like one example is somebody, maybe they're a serious criminal, and the country just won't take them back. Another is sometimes aliens get a country-specific form of relief where the immigration judge says you need to leave the United States, but you have to go somewhere other than your home country. When an immigration judge rules that someone cannot safely be sent back to their home country, it's called withholding of removal.

Musa Diawara had that protection. So did dozens of others on his deportation flight. We obtained the names of all 63 people on Diawarra's flight, which left Texas on July 30th and stopped in Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic, and Ghana. 17 of the 19 people we reached who were sent to Ghana told us the same thing. Ghana quickly transported them against their will to countries that U.S. immigration judges had ruled they should not be returned to. Are you aware of cases where Ghana has sent people against their own?

will to a country, their home country, where they have a withholding of removal. I'm not aware of any such cases. Do you think these people are voluntarily going back? Either they would choose to go home, and they might not always be truthful about the fact that they consented. So that's one possibility. The other possibility is that the foreign government applied their own procedures and consistent with international law determined that it was acceptable to return them home. I mean, what we have seen in case after case, in one flight we looked into, almost every single

person on the flight, within days, after arriving in Ghana, were sent back to their home country. where a U.S. judge has said it is more than likely that they will face persecution or torture. I think I already answered this question. Number one, they can always consent to go home, and that may very well be what occurred. And number two... But that's clearly not what's happening, right? They're clearly not consenting. I don't know if you've seen this video of a woman being dragged to her deportation flight to her home country where she had a withholding of removal. She is resisting. Have you seen this video? I have not seen that video. An eyewitness confirmed those are Ghanaian officials pulling this woman, Rabiatu Kuyiqq,

a nurse who lived in the U.S. for 30 years. Do you think the U.S. knew that you would end up in Mali? 100%. Why? Diawara showed us a document. He says U.S. officials gave him on the deportation flight, along with a small supply of his medication. They say here, destination, SHRC, Mali. SHRC stands for special high-risk charter, referring to the kind of flight he was on.

So they know 100% I'm going to Mali. It doesn't say Ghana. He just said Mali. Ma'am, right here. And so do both of his DHS issued bag tags. To Mali. It says destination, Mali. Well, he wasn't flown to Mali.

He was flown to Ghana. But I can't speak to why that piece of papers. What he says is he thinks the U.S. government, you know, coordinated this. Or at a minimum was aware of it. I can just say I was not aware of that. That is not my understanding of how this works. After our interview, DHS sent this statement saying the bag tags were produced by contractors who are not part of the process that determines the destination.

And the medication form, they said, was a clerical error. Ghana's government declined to comment. It seems like you're very focused on Ghana. Do you want to talk about any of the other countries? Sure. Sierra Leone, when folks arrive, they receive a pamphlet. The pamphlet says Sierra Leone is serving as a temporary transit location while arrangements are made to return you to your country of origin. Again, they are entitled to return to their home country if they consent.

They are also entitled to process the fear claim, as we discussed. There's no way the U.S. officials don't know what Ghana is doing to people that the U.S. supports there. Immigration attorney Meredith Ewan says the U.S. government was warned about Ghana's conduct in a lawsuit last year. Despite this, the U.S. sent 10 more flights to Ghana, which Eun believes is a violation of international law. Why do you think the U.S. violated international law? If they didn't send Musa straight to Mali, they sent him to Ghana who sent him to Mali.

They sent him to Ghana with full knowledge that Ghana is systematically deporting refugees back to the very countries they fled. I just sort of wonder if the U.S. government is sort of looking the other way when there's evidence in front of them. I mean, I think you've asked me the same question about five times. I'd really like to talk about the public safety threats associated with this population of aliens and the fact that every administration before President Trump absolutely abdicated their responsibility to the American people by letting criminals back on the street

and doing no diplomatic efforts to get these people out of our country. Percival says third countries like Eswatini and South Sudan have agreed to accept deportees with criminal records for first-degree murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, and sexual assault when their home countries refuse to take them back. What percentage of folks who have been detained and deported are violent offenders? I don't have that figure off the top of my head. Of the 63 people on Diawara's flight to Africa, we found a criminal charge or conviction for 19%, including theft, assault, drugs, and weapons possession.

For everyone else, we found either traffic violations or no criminal record at all. What our reporting also reveals, though, is that a lot of these people are nurses, their moms, their Uber drivers. Is that part of what this administration is trying to do, remove these folks? This administration is following the law that Congress has passed. There are a lot of people in this population that we talk about who've committed very serious crimes, and people should be very happy with President Trump for getting these serious criminals out of the country. I'm not a criminal. I'm raising two charges. I'm a married man, and I'm working and paying taxes.

Last month, a federal appeals court upheld a ruling in a class action lawsuit that found the Trump administration's third country policy unlawful because it denied deportees due process. But the Supreme Court has allowed these deportations to continue until it hears the case in December. We're doing everything that we can. As for Musa Diawara, his attorney has asked a federal judge in D.C.

to order him return to the U.S. Back in Texas, Dio Juarez's family is waiting for him. His wife Barbara works full-time as a registrar. nurse. Their son Corey is 16 and their daughter Chloe 12. Hello guys. Oh my god, we're so happy to see you. Look at your daughter. Oh my guys. Chloe, how's cool? Good. I got 100 on this history.

Your dad had a big presence in your day-to-day life here. Yeah. It feels really empty without him. Chloe, I know you were really close with your dad. How are you feeling? Um, not really great. Like, he was always making me feel like better. Do you worry about your mom right now? I worry about my mom a lot. I'm trying, you know, not to cry in front of death.

To be strong for that, because they need me. Corey, listen to mommy, okay? Mm-hmm. You don't forget, every Sunday. You need to vacuum the copy of state. Okay. Okay. I love you guys so much.

Bye. Love you. Good night. Bye-bye. Bye, Dad. My name's PJ Vote, and our podcast search engine recently got this question

from a listener. His dad, a retired pharmacist, had been sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to India, either because he was funding a Bollywood movie with a director he met on the internet

or because he was being scammed. What exactly had his father really gotten himself into? Where was all this cash really going? On our episode, we go all. all the way to India to investigate what's really going on. Check out the podcast search engine.

The episode is called Bollywood Dreams. On the eve of the midterms, President Trump won't stop talking about voter fraud. Yet he has gone to extraordinary lengths for an election official convicted of helping breach the very voting system she swore to protect. Tina Peters, once Mesa County, Colorado's top election official, used her office to pursue the president's claim

never backed by evidence that rigged voting machines cost him the 2020 election. A Colorado jury convicted her. A judge sentenced her to nine years. Mr. Trump wanted her freed. How he went about it, critics say, reveals how far he'll go to advance his agenda and punish those who stand in his way. In Colorado, the cost of that punishment came into focus with a fire in August of 2025. It was one of the worst wildfires in Colorado history, scorching nearly 138,000 acres. It left almost all of Kathleen Kelly's 2,000-acre ranch in ashes. Did you see it moving towards you? Yes, yeah.

What's that like? It's like watching a monster crawl across the earth. This tells you about the fire right here. So it came right up to your house. Yeah. Kelly, a retired school teacher, says the leaf fire tore through the ranch her father built in 1949, leaving behind an apocalyptic wasteland. You said it was like hell opening us.

Yes. There are people whose whole livelihoods depend upon the buildings, the structures, the things that they built over years, who lost everything. A lot of the damage was oil and gas infrastructure, some homes, buildings. It absolutely met the requirements for a federal disaster declaration. Even so, the Trump administration denied Democratic Governor Jared Polis's plea for federal aid. These are disasters that are larger than any particular state can pay for and handle at one time. We had not been turned down for one. I think it's been decades since that's occurred. What was different this time?

Well, you know, obviously I'm not the one to ask, right? The person to ask is the White House and the president. What was different this time, critics say, was President Trump's fixation on Tina Peters, who has long championed his false claims about rigged voting machines. You're right. Colorado's Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser's office

helped convict and imprison Tina Peters in connection with tampering with voting machines. President Trump has said he doesn't like that Tina Peters was sentenced and serving this nine years. sentence. So he said, I'm going to punish Colorado. Last year, as the Lee fire raged across northwest Colorado, the president warned on social media, if she is not released, I'm going to take harsh measures. That was the statement the president made. And then the consequences started to follow.

If Colorado doesn't want to lose these benefits, it might consider treating the Tina Peters case differently. The White House insists denying wildfire aid had nothing to do with Peters. spokesperson Lauren Biss said there's no politicization to the president's decisions on disaster relief. But the fire aid was only the beginning. The Trump administration threatened to withhold food aid from the state's neediest families, canceled $109 million in transportation funding, and moved to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder,

actions the administration described as a series of independent agency decisions. The threats were not hidden, they were not subtle, they were out in the open, and we're fighting back. So you were suing the president? On what basis? The president using bullying, using threats to take away our sovereignty, the president doesn't get to tell us what to do. That's for us to decide. So when the president posts free Tina Peters, what does that say to you? I don't get it.

The president appears to think that there's some injustice here. She was elected by her county to uphold the elections. Instead, she attacked the elections from within. Colorado's Democratic Secretary of State, Jenna Griswold, who oversees state elections, said Peters helped an election conspiracy theorist pose as a county employee, gave him access to secure voting equipment, and allowed him to copy its proprietary software. Tina Peters ordered that her video surveillance cameras be turned off,

and then took images of the voting equipment and shared it with a network of election deniers. Thank you. Rizwald discovered the breach when copies of the data surfaced at a conference devoted to claims of election fraud, where Peters spoke. Something didn't seem right in our county.

What was harmed by her actions? Voting equipment, confidence in Colorado elections and American elections, and election workers. You let go with me. Let's go with me. Peters was charged with obstruction for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into the voting machine breach. And you're under arrest. For what?

Obstruction. She was indicted a month later on ten criminal counts, which elevated her standing among election skeptics even higher. She was all smiles on her way to court in 2024. After a two-week trial, a jury found her guilty of state charges. Three misdemeanors, four felonies. You are no hero, you abused your position, and you're a charlatan. Mesa County District Court Judge Matthew Barrett sentenced Peters to nearly nine years in prison. I'm convinced you would do it all over again if you could.

You're as defiant as a defendant as this court has ever seen. Matt Crane, who leads the Colorado County Clerks Association, says Peter's actions and the president's support for her have fueled distrust of election workers. making them targets of threats and intimidation. As election officials, we don't have the kind of megaphone that the President of the United States has. He has much more ability to spread disinformation and lies about our election process than we do

to spread the truth about what really happens. And you are a Republican? I am a Republican, yes, sir. So this is not a partisan issue for you. This is not a partisan issue. But in May of 2025, President Trump made it one. He called Peters a hostage, being held in a Colorado prison by the Democrats for political reasons.

He also called her a patriot. I feel like we're in Alice in Wonderland. When someone breaks the law, they're not a patriot. When someone seeks to undermine the integrity of our elections, lying about it, that's not a patriotic act. That's undermining the core, the foundation of a Democratic Republic. President Trump issued a pardon for Peters, but it had no legal effect since she was,

convicted on state, not federal charges. He puts Tina in jail for nine years. President Trump continued to build up Peters while tearing in to Colorado Governor Jared Polis. The governor of Colorado is a weak and pathetic man. President Trump is known for using colorful language. He calls you the sleaze bag governor of Colorado. I mean, whatever he wants to call me is fine.

He called you a sleaze bag. He called Tina Peters. a hostage? It's not a fair characterization of Tina Peters. Governor Polis said he fully agreed with the jury's conviction of Tina Peters, but felt her sentence was too long. Look, she should have gotten a year, two years, three years. When she got close to nine years, I was shocked. Many people were shocked.

In May, after Peters had served less than two years, Mr. Polis commuted her sentence and set her free. The county clerks said they were furious and disgusted. It was a complete betrayal of the election community here. So why do you think Governor Polis commuted her sentence? I mean, as simple as it is, he bent the needed President Trump. You've heard all the blowback from your critics. They say that you caved to the president. Did you?

No, this would have been much easier to do had the president never mentioned her. This was a nonviolent elderly first-time offender who got a longer sentence than she showed. of straightforward case. But the governor's critics question his timing. The courts were in the middle of reconsidering her sentence when Mr. Polis stepped in. The legal process was still ongoing. So why did you intervene? I had what I needed to act.

But why jump in before the court had rendered its final decision? Well, I mean, look, there is no timeline for commutations and pardons whenever I make up my mind. But when it's made up, it's made up. There's no reason to delay. You said you believe, and as you put it, in the value of mercy and redemption. But you said that that certainly also means taking responsibility. Has Tina Peters shown that she's taken responsibility for what she did? I hope that she understands that what she did was wrong.

She wishes, presumably, that she did it in a legal way rather than an illegal way. But since her release... Everybody give Tina hug. Peters is back. on the election denial circuit. So many people just want to hear what you have to say. She attended a fraud fighter summit in Las Vegas. Tina, thank you so much.

We all salute you, and it's good to see you out of that hellhole. Went on Alex Jones's podcast and met with President Trump at the White House. When we met with Tina Peters in August, she was unapologetic and argued the ends justify the means. The bottom line is, can people trust these machines? Can they really trust these machines? My answer is no. Show me the evidence that the paper ballot results differed from the computerized results. Well, my place is not to show, you know, pick out different things of what could have happened.

Mine was, I was authorized to protect the election records according to 52 USC 70201, which is a federal mandate to preserve election records. More than 60 lawsuits were filed alleging voter fraud in the 2020 election, and they were either dismissed or withdrawn. There were multiple investigations by federal, state, and local investigators, many of them Republican. None of them found evidence of fraud that would have changed the outcome of the election. Is it possible that you're wrong?

You know, I'm not going to debate about what's happening in across the country in that regard. All I know is that I was the election official in charge of preserving election records, and those election records were wiped from the system. We checked. The wiping she speaks of turned out to be part of a routine system update of voting machines across the state. County Clerks Association Director Matt Crane, a Republican, says all election results were preserved. It's kind of like the updates all of us do for our phones. That's correct. That's correct. Only a lot more secure and a lot more intentional.

Tina Peters has said that she was just protecting election data. Yes. What's wrong with what she said? The fact that every record that was required under federal and state law for retention, her staff had already backed up. You took an oath. Mm-hmm. I did. to do this job. Yes.

Why turn off the security cameras? It was not against the law. You gave an outsider fake credentials. Okay. Oh, we're getting into it now. Did you break the law? Did I, are you asking if I broke the law? They said I broke the law.

You were prosecuted by a Republican district attorney. Doesn't matter. In a Republican count. Doesn't matter. What makes you think your conviction was unjust? because I do believe these machines can be breached. You plan to run for office? I plan to do...

I'm a woman of faith. I believe that what God brings you to, he'll see you through. And I'm willing to do whatever needs to be done to save this country. Tina Peters got out of prison and delayed federal funds are flowing to Colorado again. 47 million dollars of water projects was unfrozen. Also, last month, the Trump administration approved federal wildfire aid for the state. Now, Holly Williams, on assignment for 60 minutes. Roughly two-thirds of people on the planet use social media, and many simply cannot stop scrolling.

The dangers for children are well documented, including mental health problems, bullying, and sexual predators. Here in the US, social media companies have settled lawsuits totaling billions without admitting any wrongdoing. But Australia is trying something different. Last year, it became the first country in the world to force many social media platforms to prevent children under the age of 16 from having accounts. As we discovered, it's too soon to say if the experiments working, but the stakes extend far beyond Australia. If other countries follow its lead, it could decide what growing up looks like for future generations.

Should we try Snapchat? Sure. Yeah, do you try and open a Snapchat account? Oscar Groves is just shy of his 16th birthday. In Australia, social media platforms covered by the country's new law must take reasonable steps to stop him from opening or holding an account. We're sorry to share that new local laws have put place restrictions on users under 16 accessing Snapchat. Social media companies are required to check the age of all users,

or may face hefty penalties. So what happens if you try to open, say, a TikTok account? Oh, okay, wow. So it straightaway tells you you're not eligible. Australia is trying to control something that has transformed the lives of young people, the way they communicate, the information they're exposed to, even their entire experience of childhood.

Study after study has shown the dangers. A U.S. Surgeon General Advisory reported that more than three hours of social media use a day can double the risk of mental health issues like depression and anxiety in children. In the U.S., the titans of tech have been brought in front of Congress. Don't you think they deserve some compensation for what your platform was done? To face families. who said their young relatives had been exploited, abused or killed through their use of social media. There's families of victims here today. Have you apologized to the victims?

Would you like to do so now? Show them the pictures. At that hearing in 2024, Mark Zuckerberg did then apologize. Australia's solution is more sweeping. It puts the legal responsibility on tech companies to protect children under 16. by keeping them off social media in the first place. The plan was hatched in this home. I'm going to get dressed for school.

Peter Malinouskas is the premier of the state of South Australia, the equivalent of a state governor in the US. Kids are being done harm now. Two years ago, he announced a plan to ban children from using social media in his state of under 2 million people. It was his wife, Annabel West, who urged him to, take action. Did you feel that parents had lost control? It sounded like it from the stories that I was hearing from other parents. Once sort of those early teenagers got access to a phone, it became a bit

of a downward spiral in terms of their use of it and not being able to stop them. What made you think that you could take on these big tech companies? The fact that we would almost certainly have the overwhelming majority of Australian parents behind us. If people are on your side, you can achieve anything and I was pretty confident that parents were on our side on this one. The vast majority of Australians are on his side, according to the polls. It's about protecting our children in a world that is increasingly digital. When Malinowski announced that his state would legislate, the Australian national government quickly followed suit with bipartisan support.

Malinowski told us he never expected it to be a silver bullet. Kids are going to find ways around it. No different than a kid at 16 years old, sneaking behind a shed and having a cigarette or a beer, but they're doing it less than what they otherwise would if you didn't have a community standard in place. It sounds as if you're saying that this is really about social engineering, changing people's behaviour. Well, I think social media is the ultimate form of social engineering. They are dictating who sees what, when, in a way that is unregulated, unchecked and ultimately driven by the profit motive. When a corporate operator is engaging in social engineering,

then I think the government's got a role to play to stop it. Lots of parents have concerns about social media. I know that I do. But most parents just restrict their children's social media use. Why didn't you just do that? You know, asking a 14-year-old to give something up once they've allowed that platform to become central to the way they communicate is almost impossible.

So trying to get in early to stop it before the rot sets in was part of the objective. In the first three months of the ban, the number of 10 to 15-year-olds holding at least one account on age-restricted social media fell by around 20% according to research from Australia's online safety watchdog. At this school in Malinouskas' state, St Ignatius, the teachers told us the social media ban has freed at least some children to have healthier childhoods. You've been consumed by technology. In the words of the principle, they want young people to master technology,

not be mastered by it. We are teaching you how to use these tools in a way that's ethical and safe and responsible. We did something. Wayne Holdsworth has visited over 100 Australian schools to talk about the hazards of social media. In 2022, his teenage son Mack was sent a nude photo on social media by someone he thought was an 18-year-old woman.

When Mack responded by sending an intimate photo of himself, he discovered he was really communicating with a criminal in his 40s, who blackmailed Mack, threatening to share the photo publicly if he didn't pay, and then followed through, sending it to Mack's friends and family members. Mack was crushed by the shame. I just sensed that Mac should have been up by now and he wasn't. At five minutes to seven on the 24th of October, 2023, I knocked on his door and there's no answer, unopened the door and he'd taken his life.

We elect the government to ensure that we're safe and that includes children and they have not been safe because there's been organisations that have come into Australia that have damaged them. And finally, Australia, the first country in the world, introduced legislation to prevent those tech giants damaging our children. The way you're putting it, it sounds like Australia, this is actually quite small country, up against these big foreign tech companies. That's how we roll here in Australia. We like to punch above our weight. That may be true, but Australia's thing to write a law, another to make sure it's obeyed. Three months after the social media ban came into effect,

50% of children under 16 who still held accounts said they hadn't even been asked to confirm their age, according to Australia's independent e-safety commissioner. We haven't seen the kind of compliance I would have hoped for from the social media platforms. We know they have the technology to do that because I met with their engineers and product people in September of last year to find out what their capabilities were.

We still have a ways to go. Julie Inman Grant is in charge of enforcing the social media ban. She's American and used to work for Microsoft and Twitter before switching sites, frustrated that tech companies weren't doing more to protect users. Her office is currently investigating several social media platforms for potential non-compliance. And if she proves a case, they could face penalties of around $70 million each. The fines sound big to you and to me, but aren't they just to sort of drop in the ocean for those big tech companies? I've found over the years that sometimes it isn't the regulation or the fines that motivate them.

It's their reputation. They don't want to be seen as the company that's deliberately heard. recruiting kids. Noah Jones was 15 when the ban went into force. He agrees with Inman Grant that its implementation has been patchy. One social media platform scanned his face with AI and decided he was old enough to keep his account. Others made it even easier.

Yeah, well, I just clicked create a new account, did the exact same name, exact same everything, changed my birthday to two years before. So you just lied about your age? Yeah. Why is it important to you? Jones has also become the public face of opposition to the law. He's a witness in a legal challenge in Australia's high court

made on the grounds that the ban violates the right to political communication. What is it to your mind that is so seriously wrong about the legislation that you wanted to take it to the highest court in the land? It's just unfair. Like, I understand drinking laws, consent, all stuff like that. but why should we be blocked from information? What would your life be like without social media? If we didn't have social media but I was born 20, 30 years ago,

then it wouldn't be such a big deal, but now social media is the Montown Square. So information is being passed around and everyone uses it, and so it would be putting me at a disadvantage. There are other countries that are thinking about bringing in similar legislation to Australia's. Yeah. What would you say to those?

those governments. Please don't do it. There's a lot of better ways to fix the content and problems on social media and one of those ways is not silencing free speech. Yet other countries are following Australia's lead. The government will ban access to social media. The UK's law should kick in next year and Norway, Spain and Canada are all working on similar legislation. Australia's E-Safety Commissioner claims the country's ban has become a global test case. She told us some social media platforms may not be enforcing Australia's law to their full abilities because they want to stop it from succeeding. They were lobbying D.C., they were lobbying capitals all over the world to say that it was

never going to work. They spent more time trying to convince other governments not to follow suit than they did to try and comply and implement the technologies in the right way. They were going to other governments around the world, what Australia is doing is a failure. It's not working. Absolutely. But you're saying they were the ones trying to make it a failure.

And arguably they still are. We reached out to some of the tech companies impacted by Australia's social media ban. Meta told us it's complying with the Australian law, but said blanket social media bans are ineffective because they push teens to unregulated corners of the internet. The company says it's working to. to protect child safety with measures built in to its social media platforms. Snap told us it's taking the Australian law seriously

and rejects claims that its product is designed to addict children or that it places profit over safety. TikTok said that its platform is built with safety at its core in order to foster a safe and positive space. Peter Malinouskas, who pushed for the social media ban in the first place, told us tech companies have no excuse for not implementing the law. The duty is on them. Let's be clear about this.

These companies have demonstrated that they are some of the most innovative, clever, well-resourced companies in human history. If they know what breakfast cereal I'm eating, if they know what my regular run in the morning looks like, I'm pretty sure they can work out who's 13 and who's 16 pretty easily. arguing has become our new national pastime. We argue about politics. We argue about why gas is so damn expensive and whether you should recline your airplane seat. You should not. We argue about sports too, but in sports, arguing is half the fun. The NBA season began this past week, which means we can and will debate whether the New York Knicks will repeat his champions and whether a man nearing age 42 the oldest in the league is playing his final season for the Philadelphia 76. That's LeBron James. Next week, though, we bring you a story about a very different basketball star who is considerably

taller than LeBron, to say nothing of the rest of us, and nearly two decades younger. Victor Weimbaughamma, the San Antonio Spurs' seven-foot four-inch center, can dunk without jumping, dribble like a point guard, and tickle the net with his three-point shooting. He's extraordinary, singular even, and on this point, there's not much room for dispute. not that that will stop Nick's fans from arguing. I'm John Wertheim. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes. Paramount Plus is your streaming home for the NFL on CBS every Sunday.

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