The Current - What Canada can learn from Australia’s social media ban

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

Australia has banned kids under 16 from social media, but critics say the new law doesn’t engage with the underlying risks of online platforms — and won’t actually stop kids from using them. As Quebec considers a similar ban, what can Canada learn from efforts down under? 

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. Angus Lidham is a 12-year-old Australian facing down the reality of life without social media. I'll be annoyed. I'd like to keep using it. It'd be a weird feeling to not have it. I'll find a way.

And so will my other friends. Annoyed but resolute. Last week, Australia passed a law banning kids under 16 from social media. This law is a world first, the strictest of its kind. Platforms now have a social responsibility to ensure the safety of our kids is a priority for them. We've got your back is our message to Australian parents. That's Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

He says the ban is necessary to protect kids from the harms of social media. Under this move, social media platforms must show they are taking reasonable steps to keep out users under 16 or face fines of up to $44 million. 11-year-old Elsie Arkenstall is sceptical that this is all going to work. I honestly think that they shouldn't ban it. I think that they should just put restrictions on it instead of banning it altogether because teens, they're just going to go behind their parents' backs. All the parents are just gonna be chill about it they're like they're gonna get onto it somehow julia powell is a law professor director of the tech and policy lab at the

university of western australia and she's one of 140 experts who signed a letter asking the australian government to reconsider this ban she's in perth australia jul. Hi, great to speak with you. I'm really glad to have you here. We'll get to your concerns in just a moment, but as you understand it, what do we know about how this ban on social media for people under 16 is going to work? The big question, how will it work, has been rather under-discussed. That it will happen, you've heard from the Prime Minister's announcement is really the main message. The details, as can happen with last-minute legislation, are still to be worked out.

But essentially the obligation is on social media platforms to figure out a way to make sure that in Australia their services are only available to people who can verify that they're 16 and above. So this is age-gating, as people call it. Exactly, Exactly right. Do we know which, I mean, social media is this kind of blanket term, do we know which platforms this is actually going to apply to? So the platforms that have been named are

TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, X, and Reddit. Interestingly, platforms that have been excluded include YouTube and WhatsApp. So there's some interesting categories that are emerging. But I think those first categories are the ones that are really the familiar social media platforms. I want to come back to that. That is interesting in part because of the prevalence and the popularity of YouTube. This law says that platforms have to take reasonable steps to block users under the age of 16. How do you define what reasonable is? Yes. So this is going to be the crunch of the law. And the point probably to make is that this isn't going to come into effect for nearly two years. So the details will emerge over that time. But I think that the two safeguards

that have been put in place is that it's not necessarily through a typical government ID, that was a last minute amendment to the law. So somehow these platforms have to figure it out based on who their users are. And some of the concern I would say is that will be more privacy invading because the platforms will do this by essentially building profiles of the concern I would say is that we'll be more privacy invading because the platforms will do this by essentially building profiles of the kind of people that are under 16 or over 16. What do you know about, there's some sort of age checking technology that looks at the wrinkles on your face to try to figure out how old you are. What do you know about that? Yeah, so facial recognition is an obvious candidate for being able to identify the age of

users. Importantly, this will be on all users in Australia, not just those under 16. Of course, to verify that you are a legitimate user, the proposal is that everybody would be age-gated, and that's been verified by the government in response to questions from concerned senators, particularly. And there's going to be a trial in place, this test run involving, what, 1,200 Australians? That's right. So the eSafety Commissioner, which is a model for your online harms regulator in Canada, has actually held at bay proposals for some years about an age verification measure.

And the concession that she made to the federal push for this was that there would be a trial over the course of 2025. to the federal push for this was that there would be a trial over the course of 2025. And that trial will use various technologies to ascertain the reliability of age verification and particularly their intrusiveness into other aspects of privacy. Why do you think this is happening now? I mean, there's a large conversation and the conversation is happening around the world, but why has Australia moved on this now in this way? I think that's the real question. And I hope that it's one that every jurisdiction that is looking at this really spends some time on. I think that there is legitimate concern about social media and the harms that it causes, but that has been merged with what I'd call political opportunism. So it is a very popular proposal. 77% of Australians polled support a ban on social media.

This is a bill that has bipartisan support as we enter an election cycle in Australia. So I think those are the political values. And it's been driven by competitive federalism. Two states this year have announced that they would like to move on social media bans and that drove the federal government to initiate this action in a really rapid time frame quite unprecedented to have this level of novel legislation that was pushed through in the final hour of the final day of the sitting year in parliament so quite a remarkable domestic reality that I think gives a lot of pause internationally. And I think the reasons behind it, everybody's filling that with their own predictions about

the fears and anxieties that accompany social media. Well, and the open letter that you signed to the Australian government acknowledged the risks that social media can pose on children and young people. And yet, your concern in part is that you think this is a blunt instrument. What do you mean by that? Yeah, that's it. So I think that those young people that you captured at the beginning really articulated the implementation challenge. Will this even work to have an age verification measure? We see those in other contexts. There already is one on social media for under 13s, and it's not very effective. So there's just a practical reality of the implementation. I think the core of the expert

critique is that the underlying scientific basis for the bans is really not made out. And that's because the link between accessing social media and broad harms to young people are being claimed in rather an overstatement of the links between harm to mental health harm particularly and social media use and it's a much more complex picture the evidence tells us that there is for example for many young people they find community online and to completely ban access could actually drive people to much less safe aspects of the internet. It would fail to improve the standards that apply to all Australians or all people who access these social media platforms by purely restricting in this is quite blunt way a section of the population. Can we go back to the issue of harm, though? I mean, and it's not just this best-selling

book, but The Anxious Generation is one of those books, Jonathan Haidt's book, that galvanized in many ways the feelings that a lot of parents have, that their kids are being messed up by this technology that they are immersed in. What's wrong with those sentiments, as you understand them? with those sentiments, as you understand them? Well, I must say it is in large part this one book. Really? In fact, the politicians that have driven this have said it was their home conversations between partners saying, I've read this book, you need to act, is the reason that the Premier of South Australia and New South Wales gave for driving this.

And that's really concerning because, of course, there is very critical scholarship of that particular publication and the broad narrative. I agree, there are some really significant concerns. I'm one of the people who has been very outspoken against the harms of social media. And I do want to really remark on the fact that this has such broad appeal. It is a moment where we are looking really critically at social media and we need radical solutions. I think, though, that there's an absolute unwillingness to look at the features that drive harm to young people, in particular, that they're vulnerable to the ad-based business

model of these platforms, which target ads, which make recommendations, which drive addictive design. And those are not features that are all part of a ban like this. So if not using a blunt instrument, and that that instrument doesn't cover something like YouTube, which is insanely popular among young people, what is it the government should do to minimize the harms that you admit exist? Yeah, so I think that it really needs to interrogate these predatory business practices should do to minimize the harms that you admit exist? Yeah, so I think that it really needs to interrogate these predatory business practices that these platforms engage in. It's very relevant, I'm not sure in Canada, but here in Australia, we have refused to

ban the direct targeting of gambling advertising to young people. So that is a pronounced harm. We lose more than any other nation to gambling, and yet there's an unwillingness to regulate in that domain. So I think that that detail, how do these predatory business practices that, for example, will match young people in random matches, engage in social mapping of people within their environment that they do not know, these sorts of features are not actually reviewed at all in a bill like this. So there's a lot that researchers who have studied harmful impacts of social media

have identified as harmful features. And I think those would be a really valid regulatory target. There's a lot to be done there. Even within the companies themselves, there have been trust and safety teams pointing out for years many of these features that cut against the business model, of course, but would provide really significant protections that aren't currently present for young people. I guess just finally, I mean, there have been efforts, and to your point, I mean, the call has come from inside the house from some of those social media companies saying what you're doing, what the algorithm is doing is hurting kids. None of that has changed anything. So is it not incumbent on governments, if you can't

sway the behavior of these multi-billion dollar companies and how they operate, to say, you know what, until you figure it out, you're out of the country? Yeah, so I think that would be something I would like to see, the sort of raise it to the ground philosophy, if we had any kind of attention to what we're building instead. had any kind of attention to what we're building instead. So for example, that we had the kinds of empowering digital platforms that we would want people to have for health and education, which is the reason why you'll be surprised, Matt, that's the justification for including YouTube in the exempted services. The claim is that it's primarily used for health and educational support. I mean, it does help me with plumbing techniques, but I don't know that I'm the target market there. Yeah. So, look, I think that we need to build alternatives. I've been conversing this week with

the researcher and writer Maria Farrell, who talks about how we need to rewild the internet. We need alternative platforms. And the really dangerous thing, I think, is to only focus on limiting access in this way that doesn't have any kind of intervention on the business model of these platforms without building any viable alternative. And I think all you'll have is young people going in much less safe ways to find alternate ways that they can present on these platforms when we're not offering them alternatives that really meet the curiosity, the exploration, the need for connectivity that young people have. I'm really glad to talk to you about this, Julia. Thank you very much.

My pleasure. Thanks, man. Julia Pallas is a law professor, director of the Tech and Policy Lab at the University of Western Australia. She was in Perth, Australia. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Teens in Canada, as you can imagine, have thoughts on Australia's social media ban, and our colleagues at CBC Kids spoke with some teens on the streets of Toronto. I do think that the younger kids shouldn't be on it. It is a waste of time. It really is. Like, I spend my time a lot on TikTok. 12 and under, they should be banned from social media because they're just stuck on their phones instead of doing something outside,

which is benefiting them, like playing a sport, going out. I think, like, a ban is good, but just for just for like younger ages. I mean, I only started using social media when I was like 13. But like when I was a kid, I was never like that. The parents are asking them to go outside. When I was a kid, they were asking me to come inside. It's not just the teens paying attention. Quebec is looking at a similar ban to Australia's. The provincial government in that province is studying the possibility of setting a minimum age for social media. The youth wing of Quebec's governing party, the CAQ, is leading the push. Alexandre Cadotte is 20 years old. He's on the executive of that youth wing. We welcome this development very positively, and we are very hopeful that this will push

legislators in Quebec and throughout the world to bring this idea forward. We're still young and we were teenagers not so long ago, and we realized that social media has very serious and real impacts on, especially young people, teenagers who are not ready to cope with all the problems and the issues that may arise from using social media. Carmi Levy is a journalist and tech analyst. He's in London, Ontario. Carmi, good morning to you. Good morning, Matt.

Great to be with you. Great to have you here. You have called what's happening in Australia an imperfect solution. What did you mean by that? Well, because the tech industry has essentially moved forward over the last 20 years. The social media age unimpeded. There have been no regulations that have compelled tech companies to behave in a more moral or ethical manner. And so they've essentially done what they've want. You know,

your previous guest talked about that model. That is a model without any limitations whatsoever. The algorithm can essentially serve up whatever it wants, and our kids are vulnerable to that. And so what we're seeing now really is a correction of years of inaction. And so the fact that it's an imperfect law is almost irrelevant. It's an important pivot point in history that a government has finally decided to draw a line in the sand to tell these technology companies, the way you do business, the way you target our kids, the damage that it's causing to them is unacceptable to us and to society. And we're finally going to do something about it.

We're not going to wait until we dot every I, cross every T, get the law perfect, get everybody on board. We'll start with this, and then we'll see where it goes. But at least it's something, and I frankly prefer an imperfect something to a nothing. You've also said the momentum is for Canada in some ways to do something. Do you feel, I mean, you take a look at what's happening in Quebec, would you be surprised that Quebec or another province would enact something similar to what we're seeing in Australia? Not at all. And I think it's important that subnational governments, I'm glad to see Quebec taking the lead on this, subnational governments should be initiating this action, sort of pulling up that feedback from the grassroots, which is exactly what is happening with the CAQ in Quebec. And then as that pressure builds, it puts that

additional pressure on the federal government to do something on a national basis. I don't think any of us are harboring any belief that just because Quebec enacts its own law, if it does, that that's going to send Silicon Valley scurrying to its caves. However, if it does push Ottawa to move in that direction and make a comprehensive national program, I think that certainly is a positive thing. I think it also telegraphs a message to these tech companies, countries are increasingly taking this seriously, and you need to start behaving a little bit more effectively. I mean, it's interesting. The tech companies have responded. Meta, which operates Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, said in a statement to CBC News that Australia, in the words of Meta,

rushed the legislation through while failing to properly consider the evidence. TikTok said in a separate statement, the new law ignored the advice of many mental health, online safety, and youth advocacy experts who strongly opposed the ban, adding that could see people pushed to the darker corners of the internet. Do you think those tech companies are spooked by what they see in Australia? I think they are. I think they're unhappy that this open playground is about to become a little bit more closed, a little bit more regulated. And certainly, I don't think there's broad, there's certainly not broad consensus that a ban is the answer. But the fact that something is coming, that's going to make their life more complex, more difficult, I don't think they're happy about it. And certainly, every time you see an announcement like this hit the headlines, it affects their bottom line. Shareholders get spooked too. And they don't want to see that happen either. We heard this from Julia, and you called this an imperfect solution. If a ban isn't the right way to deal with the impact of social media on young people, what is the solution, do you think?

Continued research to explain the correlation between these technologies and harms to the general population, particularly younger users. As that data piles up, we are seeing a correlation between kids' unfettered use of these technologies and mental health harms. And that is rippling out through society. That is largely one of the reasons why school boards, for example, in Ontario have sued these companies for $4.5 billion. We also need more resources devoted to parents, to schools, to community organizations to understand the impact of social media and give us, give parents and kids the tools that they need to use these tools more effectively. Many of our kids are being thrown to the digital wolves without having access to the kinds of

resources that would allow them to recognize the threats that they see on these platforms and respond to them accordingly. If you ban something, you're not exactly, you're certainly not preparing the users of these technologies for appropriate use. You're simply delaying the inevitable and then they will get to the age of 16. What do we do then? We just have a minute or so left. We've heard from a lot of teens, not just in Quebec, but beyond, who said that they want some sort of protection from social media. They understand what it's doing to them. What does that tell you about these teens that have grown up in this ecosystem? They're probably smarter than the rest of us. They recognize it. They're digital natives. They've never known any other way. You know, we lived with this technology,

without this technology before it came along. Our kids have not. And so I think they understand it. They appreciate it. We should listen to them. But also when the mics turn off, they're going to go back to using these tools. And if they're banned from using tool A, they will use tool B. So I think we need to give them more than just a ban.

Give them those resources so that when they shift everything over to YouTube, they're still not as vulnerable as they are on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. We owe them more than just one ban. It's always really good to talk to you about this world. Carmi, thank you very much. Appreciate it, Matt.

Thank you. Carmi Levy is a journalist and tech analyst. He's in London, Ontario. Your thoughts on this. Should social media be banned for people under the age of 16? How would you go about doing that? And do you worry that if you just do that, the kids are going to end up somewhere else that perhaps is even more dangerous?

You can email us thecurrent at cbc.ca. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.