The Josh Innes Show - Australia With A Brilliant Idea

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

Australia is banning kids from social media until they are 16 years old. This is solid. The odds are it won't catch on in many places, particularly America. But, we need to seriously explore age restrictions on social media. It could save the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Let's see here. I like what Australia is doing. Hello, Australia. Not only do you produce smoking hot gals like, you know, old school Nicole Kidman and what's her name? Hot Australian actresses. Who am I thinking? How am I drawing a blank on Homegirl's name?

Oh, let's see. Oh, Margo Robbie. That's what I was thinking of. But yes, Australia just produces hot chicks. That's just what Australia does. There's a skill involved. I don't know what it is, but like Australia, wait, is this chick Australian? Wait, okay.

So this gal, there's a gal that's in a movie that I watched. And forever I thought it was Kristen Stewart. It is not Kristen Stewart. So what was the movie called? Oh, it was this 1980s movie with Tofer Grace, something tonight. take me home tonight, might have been what it was called. And the entire time I thought the chick in the movie was Kristen Stewart. It was not Kristen Stewart. It was just this really hot Australian chick that looks just, I think it's Teresa. Is it Teresa Palmer? Yes, her name is

Teresa Palmer. I don't think she does much anymore. I don't know. This movie is a lot older than I thought it was. But Teresa Palmer, apparently she is Australian. And it makes sense because Australian chicks are just the hottest. And I thought that she was Kristen Stewart the whole time. She's hotter than Kristen Stewart. That's why I found baffling. I'm like, wait a minute. Like, when did Kristen Stewart get so hot?

But it wasn't Kristen Stewart. Rose Byrne is Australian, apparently. And Rose Byrne had her moment when she was really hot. Like, dude, I'm telling you, Isabelle Lucas. I'm telling you, the chicks are just hot. It's a different world, Australia. This Australia, they're just hot chicks in Australia. But anyway, what is Australia doing that has my attention?

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please contact Connects Ontario at 1866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. All right, so Australia is enacting a world-first nationwide social media band for teens. On Wednesday, Australia became the first country in the world to implement a nationwide ban on social media use by children under the age of 16. Under the new law, 10 major platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook must block access for minors or face fines up to 33 million bucks. The government frames the move as a major push to protect youth mental health, targeting risks such as cyberbullying, harmful content, and privacy, Though critics argue it could limit free expression and may drive teens toward unregulated platforms. The rollout is being closely watched worldwide with some nations reportedly exploring similar age-based restrictions. Well, one thing, that will not happen here.

People are too dependent upon social media and addicted to social media, and these kids' lives are wrapped up in social media. So there ain't no way they're going to put some sort of age restriction and say, hey, you have to be 16 years. years old to use it. But they should. And I've talked about this before. What we need is we need an age floor and an age ceiling for social media use. I would argue even internet use. But let's just go with social media. Old people and young people should not be allowed on social media because they are the most vulnerable on social media and the most susceptible to scams. You know, you look at old people. This is one of my favorite topics. We talk about this all the time. Old people who get scammed by fake celebrities on social media.

The number of people who thinks some guy who stars in general hospital is in love with them because they've been messaging with them on Facebook. The number of people who believe, oh, my wife is under arrest and the cops need $10,000 in Home Depot gift cards to get her out of jail. These are old people that fall for these things, right? Old people are easily scammed. What you need to do is create a universe. where 16 is the age to get on the internet or get on social media,

and then once you hit like 70, you are no longer allowed unless you pass a test. And I would argue that, well, really, I'd argue that you should have to pass a test no matter what. It's like driving. I would make the argument that social media is just as dangerous to a young person as driving. And a lot of the time those people who are driving are on social media while they're driving, thus making it even more dangerous. But I would make the case that social media is as dangerous to the youth of the country as driving a car is. Or maybe even worse than cigarettes or worse than alcohol.

Social media is the great poison. Social media has poisoned so many people's minds and is crippling people. And it's terrible, right? So I'm all in favor of some sort of test. that you have to pass when you're 16, just like you have to get a driver's test or a learner's permit. Maybe like you get a learner's permit so you can get on social media when you're like 14, but you have to have like an adult with you or you only get like an hour a day. And then like a limit goes off. Like you can use it for an hour like there's a timer. Every time you

log on to a social media, and again, none of this is possible. But every time you log on to a Facebook, a Twitter or whatever, a timer starts. And like say you get on at 10 in the morning and you decide, all right, it's 10 in the morning. I want to just check Instagram really quick. You scroll through Instagram for five minutes. You have 55 minutes left in the day to use social media as long as you want. That would be like the learner's permit stage of this whole thing. So the learner's permit is your 14, 15, whatever. You don't have a full on Instagram or Twitter license, but you can be on it as long as it's only for an hour a day. Then once you pass the test and you get your license to be on social media, then you

have full access to it when you're 16. I also don't understand how 16 is the number. here. So it's 18 for you to vote or go to war. It's 21 to drink, but we've decided that 16 is a solid number for you to be on social media. Not 18, not 21, not 12, not 13. No, the number is 16. Like, how much smarter are you at 17 than you are at 16? Or how much smarter are you at 16 than you are at 14? Not really that much smarter. So, like, I make it 18. Fuck it. Screw 16. I'm going 18. Once you graduate high school, you can get to social media. How about that? How about once you graduate high school, then you can go and start using social media because social media is poison.

It is 100% poison and it is one of the main reasons why the world is decaying and there is rot. We are all rotting because of social media. And then you look at the old people. So the young people get on there and that starts warping their mind early, right? And they start living in this world that isn't the real world because social media isn't the real world, yet we act like it is because people are so addicted to it and caught up in it, right? It's not the real world. The real world is outside. The real world is out that window that I'm looking out right now where there's like snow and nasty sleet and shit. That's the

real world. The real world is the people who are in this office that you talk to. That's the real world. The fake world is social media, right? So we want to start teaching people at a young age to not bury your head in your phones and not, and we're all addicted to them, right? So like we want to start treating people and telling people, hey, don't start or don't continue to treat social media like its reality because it is not reality. And the best way to do that is ban them from this shit. Now, that's not to say there's not some workaround on it. Like you're supposed to be 18 years old to watch Pornhub, right? You know what happens when you go to Pornhub? It asks, hey, are you 18? And you're like, sure, I'm 18. They're like, oh, now let's watch

some fat videos. So I'm sure there are workarounds. But for the young people aspect of it, I think it is huge for the mental health of people and just the overall happiness in people and the social stability of people to be off of social media at a young age, and I'm all in favor of that. Now, as it relates to old people, old people are the easiest scammed people. I think that there are a lot of old people who've been ruined by social media as well, mostly Facebook and Keith Oberman. People get just wrecked by this shit and they get deep into political shit and then it ruins lives. There's no good that comes out of doing shit on Facebook, right? But old people are the ones that are duped the easiest because for whatever reason, they believe that Neil Diamond or Neil Patrick Harris or Neil DeGrasse Tyson or Lorenzo Neal is talking to them on social media.

I don't know why they believe that. I think part of it is they're lonely shut-ins and they want to believe that it's true, even though it's clearly not true. There is no universe where Neil Diamond would ever reach out to you and be in love with you, yet these people live in a land of this delusion. you know, loneliness, old people loneliness, and to a degree I kind of get it because old people are basically shut out of society and treated like shit and made fun of all the time. So maybe, you know, you get lonely and you want to believe something good is coming to this and you want to believe that good things are coming for you and that, wow, like, but good things are like, hey, my family came to visit.

Good things are not, hey, Neil Diamond wants to fuck. That is not a realistic good thing that can happen. Yet these people want to believe that and they're so sad and so lonely and they are shut-ins so then it's just easy for them to believe that you know victor from the young and the restless wants to put a baby inside of them i like people are fucked up you know we've played the audio from deaf leopard before where the guy joe elliott from deaf leopard is like i don't need money i'm not broke i'm not going through a divorce i will not ask you for money stop sending me fucking requests for you for money it's just wild to me that people fall for

shit you know we talk about scams all the time like the other day I don't know if I talked about this or not. I may have. But the other day, I got a very convincing scam voicemail. It was from Missouri. And it was claiming to be the sheriff's department. Some guy like deputy such and such from the St. Louis County Sheriff's Department. I need you to call me back immediately. And it was a voicemail. The guy's voice sounded legit. And you have to really look at it and do a little digging to see. Right? It's really not that hard. The first thing I did was Googled like scam sheriff department scams. Then I Googled like, hey, what would be a sign that this is a scam? My first thought was there's something weird that the guy calls, says he's a, you know, from the sheriff's department in St. Louis, and never says at all why he's calling, right? Never once said, hey, I'm calling because we have an issue here involving your car. We have an issue here involving something like there's a ticket you didn't pay.

there was nothing. It was completely vague. It was just a vague message. It said, please call us back at this number. So then I googled it and I was like, do you think this is a scam? And AI is like, yeah, it's a fucking scam. Don't call this number back. Like that's how easy that shit is to avoid those types of scams. Even when they're that convincing and they sound legit and it's sort of believable. Actually, you know what the number one tell tell was? The thing that gave it away the most was that no name popped up on the phone. Like even if you don't have a name saved, a number will pop up and usually if it's a business it'll say like you know maybe dominoes or something there was no you know st louis county police department st louis county sheriff's department none of that

shit so you just knew it was fake i got a call i guess i never told my sister this but i can i guess i'll say it on here i think she listens so but so this will be how she finds out but i got some message from some random number from someone that was looking for my sister like first of all That was the first dead ringer that this was not real. Why would I get a phone call for someone who needed collections from my sister for some reason? There's no reason for that, right? And I'm like, well, that's odd, whatever. So then I go in and I Google the scam.

And I don't know if I still have the voicemail or not, but it was just like a call that was like, we're looking for an Emily, Ennis, Perrant, whatever. and I think the terminology that was used was something about collections or you owe something. And it was some terminology that seemed bullshit and fake. So I googled the bullshit fake terminology. And like the scam was online down to the name that was used, you know, as the person calling. So like that's why there's no excuse to ever get scammed. Right. Now, I can see, again, we've talked about this, that if somehow you get fucked up with like a bank thing or someone hacks your information,

and steals your identity or something that's different. But there's never a reason to fall for a scam, a person leaving you a voicemail, a person claiming to be a cop, a person claiming to be David Hasselhoff and wanting to fuck you on Facebook. There is no reason for any of that. That goes back to the original point of this. And the original point is the discussion about age limits and restrictions on social media. Once you hit a certain age, you should have to pass a test almost on a monthly basis.

and you should have to take like psychological exams and make sure your brain still works because you know one false move and all of a sudden you're sending you know fucking I don't know Don Draper fucking 50 grand because you're fucking stupid you're falling for scams

so young people should have to take a test and old people should have to take a test you start doing that and then maybe people get scammed a little bit less now you can argue a little bit of freedoms let me tell you something if the argument is you're you're repressing free expression by not letting

some 15 year old on social media here's a fun fact about 15 year olds no one gives a fuck what they have to say they are children the only people who care what a 15 year old or 13 year old or 9 year old has to say is the liberal people that want them to be able to vote when they're like

seven years old so they can tell them to vote for fucking gender confirming surgeries and shit that's the only people who claim to give a fuck what a 7 year old or 8 year old or 10 year old or 14 year old has to say. I'm an adult man. I'm 39 years old and I don't give two fucks about the opinion of a 14 year old. So the idea that we're styming their expression by banning them from social

media. Like, I think that's fucking dumb too. Now, the only argument I would make is that people have become celebrities on TikTok and become famous at a young age and that makes them money. That I could see being a case. But big picture, who gives a shit what some dickhead 13 year old kid has to say about the world? They don't have a fucking clue. So no one's going to be missing their inputs on social media. But I think everybody should have to take a test on social media. Fanbases should have to take a test. You should have to take like cognitive tests and everything to be allowed on social media

because people are imbeciles. More to come.