Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: We need the teen social media ban, because the companies won't enforce it

I've got an update for you on the social media ban for kids situation - over in Australia, the social media companies have now admitted they can kick underage kids off their platforms, and they've admitted that they will start enforcing the ban when the ban in Australia comes into effect on December 10th.

Now, this is not a surprise to me that they can actually do it, because I never believed the nonsense when they said: “Oh, it's impossible to age verify, we couldn't possibly.” Because guess what? They can.

Reddit over in the UK does this - it age verifies and stops people seeing content. It's completely possible to do. And it's pretty obvious that they already have a rough idea of how old the kids are, because that's why they feed teenage content to teenage people.

What I think we should take from this, though, is that we should never believe the social media companies when they say they can't stop kids using their products.

What I think you should do is kind of take the approach of treating them a little bit like the tobacco companies of old - completely untrustworthy, want to peddle their product, do not want to stop peddling their product.

In fact, I think, to be honest, that there is a useful parallel here with the way that we treat ciggies and how we should be treating social media companies.

We ban kids under the age of 18 from buying ciggies, we ban them from buying booze because we know it's bad for them.

When they're older, they can use it. Hopefully, they use it wisely, but not when their little brains and their little bodies are still developing. And I think the same is true of social media.

And yes, like the ciggies and the booze, the kids are gonna find a way to get around it and get their hands on it. On a New Year's Eve when they're 16, they're gonna get completely drunk. But hopefully it'll be a rare occasion, not an every weekend type of thing.

And in the case of banning the booze and the ciggies, we could have left that up to the parents. We could have said: “Nah, it's okay, you decide if your kids want to smoke and drink under the age of 18.”

And parents should play a role, right? But I think we all decided as a group that this was worth banning, and I think we need to do the same thing with social media.

And I think we need to do it mainly for the social media companies, because they are not prepared to do it themselves until they're forced to - just like in Australia.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listen, I've got an update for you on the social
media ban for kids situations. So over in Australia, the
social media companies have now admitted they can kick underage
kids off their platforms, and they've admitted that they will
they will start enforcing the band when the band in
Australia comes into effect on December tenth. Now, this is
not a surprise to me that they can actually do it,
because I never believe their nonsense when they said, oh,

(00:20):
it's impossible to age verify. How we couldn't guess they
can read it over in the UK. Does it it
age verifies and stops people seeing content. It's completely possible
to do. And it's pretty obvious that they already have
a rough idea of roughly how old the kids are,
because you know, that's why they feed teenage content to
teenage people. What I think we should take from this, though,

(00:41):
is that we should never believe the social media companies
when they say they can't stop kids using their products. Well,
I think you should do is kind of take the
approach of treating them a little bit like the tobacco
companies of old, completely untrustworthy, want to peddle their product
do not want to stop peddling their product. In fact,
I think, to be honest, that there is a useful
parallel here with the way that we treat Siggi's and

(01:01):
how we should be treating social media companies. We bann
kids under the age of eighteen from buying Siggis, We
ban them from buying booze because we know it's bad
from them. When they're older, they can use it, hopefully
they use it wisely, but not when their little brains
and their little bodies are still developing. And I think
the same is true of social media. And yes, like
the Siggi's and the Booze, the kids are going to
find a way to get their get around it and

(01:21):
get their hands on it. On in New Year's Eve
when they are sixteen, they're going to get completely drunk,
but hopefully it'll be a rare occasion, not in every
weekend type of thing. And in the case of banning
the Booze and the Siggies, we could have left that
up to the parents. We could have said, nah, it's okay,
you decide if your kids want to smoke and drink
under the age of eighteen, and parents should play a role,
right but I think we all decided as a group

(01:42):
that this was worth banning, and I think we need
to do the same thing with social media. And I
think we need to do it mainly for the social
media companies because they are not prepared to do it
themselves until they're fulls to just like in Australia. For
more from Heather Duplessyellen Drive, listen live to News Talk
sai'd Be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

(02:02):
on iHeartRadio.