Stephen Scheeler: former Facebook CEO for Australia and New Zealand on the Government's bid to ban social media for under-16s

The Prime Minister is hoping to get bipartisan support for banning under-16s from social media.

MP Catherine Wedd is putting the Member's Bill proposal in to Parliament's Biscuit Tin - the repository for such bills that are then randomly selected.

It follows similar to moves in Australia, and puts more responsibility on social media companies.

Former Facebook CEO for Australia and New Zealand, Stephen Scheeler, says social media is difficult to regulate - and there's lots of ways to get around a potential ban.

"We've all been teenagers before - you're not supposed to buy alcohol or buy tobacco, and many kids get around this...but with social media, it's the same. There's lots of ways to get around these prohibitions."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now on another subject altogether, the National Party has revealed
that it wants to ban social media for under sixteen
year olds. One of the MP's took he took emp
Katherine wood Weed is submitting submitting rather a member's bill
that would put the responsibility of age verification on the
social media companies and this is supported by the Prime Minister.
Stephen Sheeler is the former CEO of Facebook for Australia

(00:21):
and New Zealand. Has Stephen hither good idea to ban
the under sixteens.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
I think it's a good idea in principle. I think
the challenge is going to be doing it in practice.
But I do think that evidence shows that younger people
there's harm to them. I think that they need to
be protected from and as we know, we kids kids
younger than thirteen are not allowed on social media. I
know if money find it away around that, but I

(00:50):
think there's a good, strong evidence to show that sixteen
is a good age for that sort of level.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
What's the practical problem? Is it difficult for the social
media guys to actually confirm the kid's age.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, there's there's a lot that these platforms can do
in terms of using a I other verification methods to
try to discern what your real age is. However, I
think when you come to these levels where there's sort
of penalties that apply and there's going to be a
bigger regime, you then then set to ask question, well, okay,

(01:21):
well how is this going to be verified? Most kids
don't have Many kids don't have ID that you know,
that's that's that has their not like adults to a
driver's license and passports and things, So how they can
confirm their age or not confirm their age? What happens
when that there's a deception? What do the platforms do?
What do the platforms do in terms of storing this data?

(01:42):
Do we really want them to have this data? There's
a there is complexity in making it work. And look,
we've all been teenagers before. You know, you're not supposed
to buy alcohol or buy tobacco, and many kids get
around this, maybe some of us have on the who
we're listening today, But with social media it's the same
and that there's there's lots of ways trying to get
around these these prohibitions. So I think it's it's good

(02:03):
in theory, but it's always the devil's off in the
detail of how the government proposes to enforce this and
what penalties are proposing to put on the platforms if
it's not enforced.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Steve, and you have Kidzi, I do, yeah, and so
what are your rules around social media use.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
For good or for bad? My kids are are probably
too young to even quite know what social media is.
I want, but we've and this has come into a
lot of folks who've worked at the big social media platforms.
I think I'm not unusual in this that there is
a there's a realization that for all the good that

(02:41):
the internet and for social media and that AI have
done for the economy, the society, for you know, for
all kinds of good benefits that come from these platforms,
the challenges are for certain people, particularly vulnerable folks in
our society, such as kids or young social media may
be simply an overwhelming technology that their brains simply and

(03:05):
involved enough to be able to deal with. And we've
done this with tobacco and with alcohol and other things,
to try to even driving a car, right, you restrict
it to a certain age and then we ease people
into it, and I think the time has come with
social media. So I'm a big believer that the thirteen
is too young. I think the limits should be higher.
I've seen evidence of success. Sixteen is about is a

(03:26):
good number. Some have advocated even higher, sort of eighteen twenty.
I think there you get into practical challenges that we
treat people as adults when they turn eighteen. For most
of us society, it's probably gonna be hard to restrict
social media past a certain age. But I think sixteen
sounds like a reasonable number. With my kids, you know,
we do in a way. They're more aware about social

(03:48):
media's challenges than I am, because they come home and
tell me, you know, you know, these are the reasons
why we need to control our social media usage. And
I think that's some of the things that are being
taught in scorch I think is good. There's a lot
more awareness at their age now about the challenges of
some of these platforms, the good things and the bad things.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Steven, it's really good to talk to you. I really
appreciate your time. Thanks so much, as Steven Sheila, former
Facebook Australia New Zealand CEO.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
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