Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: We should consider following Australia in a social media ban

I reckon we might want to consider doing what Australia's planning to do and banning the kids from using social media until they’re 16.

Now at the moment, we don’t have a huge amount of detail on what's being proposed, but we do know that the Australians are planning to put in the highest age limit in the world.

And then put the onus on social media companies to make this work, not parents or kids, or even the Government.

So there will be an age verification tool, either biometrics or government ID, and the social media companies have to use it.

They have to keep the kids off. And if they don’t, they get penalised.

And this is exactly how it should work. Because if they aren’t forced to take responsibility, they won’t take responsibility.

They will simply blame someone else and so oh it's the parents, it's the Government, they're not doing enough, and if there's one thing we can say with certainty, it's that the social media companies are not taking responsibility now.

They know their product is bad for kids, they say they don’t let kids under 13 on, and yet – there are kids under 13 with accounts.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listen, I reckon, we might want to consider doing never mind, No, no, no, no,
not consider I reckon we should I reckon we should
do what the Australians are planning to do and ban
the kids from using social media until they reach the
age of sixteen. At the moment, we don't have a
huge amount of detail on what actually is going to
happen in Australia, but we've got a little bit of
a sketch kind of emerging. And what we know is

(00:22):
the Australians are planning to put in the highest age
limit in the world at sixteen. And then the other
very important thing is they going to put this The
onus on social media companies to make this work, not
on the parents, not on the kids, not on the government,
not on anybody else. It's going to be on the
social media companies to keep the kids off. So there

(00:43):
will be an age verification tool and it will be
an official one, either biometrics or government ID, and the
social media companies have to use it and they have
to keep kids off if they haven't hit sixteen yet,
and if they don't, they get penalized. And this is
exactly how it should work, because if these social media
companies are not forced to take responsibility. They will not

(01:05):
take responsibility. They will simply blame someone else. Ago, it's
not actually our job. It's up to the parents. Oh whoops,
the kid's got on. Wits up to the kids. Oh whoops,
the kids got on. Hits up to the government. Oh whoops,
the kids got on. That's basically how they'll roll, because
that is how they roll at the moment, because I
can tell you with absolute certainty they are not taking responsibility. Now.
They know full well that their product is really bad

(01:28):
for the developing brain. And they also know that they're
supposed to keep the kids off until they're thirteen, and
yet whoops, a whole bunch of kids with age under
the age of thirteen just happen to have social media accounts. Whoops. Now,
I have absolutely zero tolerance for any argument from these
companies that they can't do this. Yes they can. They

(01:48):
are literally tech geniuses. So if they've got an age
verification tool make the tech work. They are extremely wealthy,
so if there's some sort of a penalty that involves money,
they can pay that fine. And they are also some
of the founders and a whole bunch of the employees'
parents as well, so they should be caring what is
happening to caring about what is happening to other people's kids.

(02:09):
And you know what worst case scenario is they do
the thing that they always do and they threaten to leave.
So what be my guest, bugger off leave the country.
I don't care if Facebook or Insta or TikTok or
x pulled out of Australia or if we were to
do the same thing out of New Zealand tomorrow. I
could not give less of a toss. This literally does
not make your life any better. The only people who
I can see he would actually really really be hit

(02:33):
by these guys pulling out are businesses who are impacted
because they advertise on and have business accounts on the
social media companies. We managed to make it work on
the internet beforehand. We will make it work again. We
will simply go back to using Google and finding ways
to advertise and get ahold of businesses through Google. So
the more I see what Australia is doing, the more

(02:53):
I want us to do it. And I'm bloody well
hope we do. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive
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