December 1, 2024 • 16 mins
In the last hours of Parliament for 2024, Australia became the first country to ban under-16s from social media. The ban is set to come into effect within the next year and will include Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook, and Reddit. In today’s deep dive, we explore how the ban will work, and why the Government has pushed ahead with this world-first measure.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is this is the daily This is
the Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning
and welcome to the Daily OS. It is Monday, the
second of December.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm Billy, I'm Zara.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
In the very late hours of Thursday night, the Australian
Senate passed a social media ban for children under sixteen.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Social media is doing harm to our children. Today parents
can have a different discussion with their young ones, a
different discussion that will result in better outcomes and less
harm for young Australians.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
It means Australia is now the first country to ban
children under sixteen from using social media. It was a
huge move and one that has triggered a tsunami of praise, criticism,
and also curiosity from around the world. Zara. Pretty much
every single major media publication around the world has covered
(01:06):
this with a lot of intrigue.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I always feel this air of self importance when I
see overseas. Yeah, let's talking about Australia. I was like
New York Times, the whole tile dedicated to us.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yes, I was going to say the New York Times
as well, but there was also Washington Post.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Everywhere, and I think that goes to as you said,
the fact that we are the first country in the
whole world to do something like this, and it is
very major.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Just to point out, we're actually not the first to
have an age related restriction. So in France, for example,
they actually have a national band for teens under fifteen,
but we are the first to have the age of sixteen.
So that's why it's the strictest social media band because
of the age.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Of sixteen, gotcha. And that was in itself the whole
discussion that the Albanezi government had to have about what
that age was going to be, because some of it
says fourteen, some of it says sixteen. As you said,
France is in between there. I do want to just
before we get into that, just take it back a
second and really just focus in on what the bill
actually was, and then perhaps we can go to as
(02:04):
we spoke about that response around the world.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, so essentially this will make it illegal for children
under sixteen to access certain social media platforms. I say
certain social media platforms because it's not all of them.
So the ones that will be impacted are Snapchat, Reddit, Instagram,
TikTok x, and Facebook. The ones that won't be affected
include YouTube and WhatsApp. There's also been some discussion about
(02:30):
the platforms that don't require you to have an account,
but you can still watch the content on those platforms,
for example, YouTube, you don't that is I like app?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, and then with WhatsApp, messaging apps were completely precluded
from this bill, So that's why that is there. Can
you just talk me through, Billy a bit about what
the reasoning, at least the reasoning that the alban Easy
government gave for introducing and then passing this bill was.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, Just before we came into the studio, I was
just reading the explanatory memorandum, which is just an explainer.
It's a document that explains the reasoning behind every single
bill that is introduced in Parliament. And the big thing
that kept coming up is that this is a bill
to help parents, and that's also been very consistent in
Prime Minister Anthony Alberanesi's messaging about this, Yeah, that they
(03:15):
are wanting to help parents with this huge issue what
they see as a huge issue with social media. So
in their explanation of the bill, they said that parents
feel unsupported to make choices about when their children should
be on social media, and many are overwhelmed. That was
another word that kept coming up with the word overwhelmed
by the pressure from their children and other families. So
(03:37):
the idea that we're in uncharted territory. We've never dealt
with this digital era where everyone is on social media,
and this bill is designed to help parents. And they
compared it to alcohol bands and cigarette bands that there
are bands out there already that do limit what young
people do and this is just another example of that.
(03:57):
And they said that setting this minimum age removed ambiguity
for parents about when the right time. Is what I
was thinking of when I was reading this is that
when I was younger, my parents had rules that was
separate to all of my friends about when I could
get a phone.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I was about to say yes, my mum was so
strict and it ended up that my best friends bought
a phone for me for my twelf birthday because they
went around twelfth birthday.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Wow, I wasn't allowed one till I was fourteen.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Well, I wasn't allowed one went around my parents.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
It was that an ear piercings was not allowed. It
used to there are no babies with me. Yeah, it
was very act about that one. But this is basically
saying that there will be no difference in when young
people can be on social media. Now there are the parents'
choice exactly, it's the government's shows and for why they
don't think children should be on social media, they talked
(04:45):
about the harms experienced by young people. There was a
big focus on mental health, which I think is well
document that there is this big concern that young people
being on social media is really bad for their mental health.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, and I mean I think that part is fairly
self expres planetary. Anyone that is around a young person
can see what happens when they spend a lot of
their lives online. But I guess the gray area emerges
when we talk about enforcement. You're referred there to alcohol bands.
When you are under the age of eighteen, you're not
allowed to drink alcohol, the reality being a lot of
(05:19):
people drink alcohol under the age of eighteen. How I've heard,
I've been told, So how is this sort of a
bill being imposed when it's not actually something that physically
can be restricted by, say the police.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So basically what this bill does is say that there
is going to be this ban, but it doesn't exactly
lay out how they will enforce that yet, and that's
because they're saying that this law won't come into effect
for another twelve months, at least another twelve months, so
they're saying that we've got the time to figure out
exactly how to enforce this. I kind of thought about
it as like, think of them as the architect and
(05:56):
then laying out the plans, and they've now locked in
that plan, but now they have to figure out how
to actually build the house that they've just locked in.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I mean. An interesting part to that, as with any
bill that passed last week, is that the Labor government
could lose power at the next selection and so it
could be a different interior designer filling out that home.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Although the only difference I guess is that the Coalition
is in support of this. Yes, But what we do
know is that the responsibility will fall on social media
companies to enforce the ban. So it will be up
to Instagram, for example, to ensure that they don't have
people under sixteen on their platform in Australia, and if
they're caught not complying, we know that it will result
in a fifty million dollar fine up to a fifty
(06:38):
million dollar fine. Another thing to note is that the
government is very clear that, of course, just like any law,
the rules will be broken, just like you mentioned with alcohol.
You know, obviously a lot of people do still drink
under eighteen, and they're saying this is no different. We
are very aware that there will be many people who
break this law, but think of this as us just
setting the guard rails, and also holding social media companies
(06:59):
to a ca but setting the guardrails there for parents
again to take away the ambiguity behind the choice.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I think one of the big things when we talk
about how long it's going to be until it's actually enforced,
that perhaps is important to touch on is the fact
that the technology that's going to sit behind this ban
hasn't actually been finalized. So the government have said that
it will be supported by age verification technology that's currently
still in its trial stages, and so in terms of
(07:28):
how it will be enforced in a very material sense,
we still don't really have that either. So that will
have to play out of the next twelve months as
we see the results of those trials exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And that's what I was saying with that they have
the twelve months now to figure out exactly what this
will actually look like for the tech companies.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
And I guess there is one of the points of
criticism that have emerged, and I won't jump the gun.
I know you want to talk about that a bit later.
But the fact that should the government have waited until
all of those things were in place in order to
pass that legislation. Clearly they decided and that this was
worthwhile to pass now. And part of that, as you said,
was the fact that it is supported by not just
(08:07):
the Labor government but also the opposition. In a rare
moment of bipartisanship. It passed the Senate with almost all
of the Coalition supporting. There were two coalition senators who
crossed the floor. Why don't you tell me a bit
about where the coalition stands on this issue.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, So they have been very strong in pushing for
the government to introduce this ban. So the Opposition leader
Peter Dundon in June actually he said that he would
introduce a band himself within one hundred days of coming
to power if the Coalition was to win the next election,
which is due by May next year. So they again
were really pushing for this to happen. Like you said,
(08:42):
there were two Coalition senators who opposed the bill. Zara,
you were just talking about how the companies will do
this with the technology and what kind of technology they
will build. I was just watching an interview that Peter
Dunnon did with The Today Show on Friday, and he
said something that piqued my interest. He said, the companies
have the technology now without collecting any of your data,
(09:04):
they can identify your face as being under or over sixteen,
and they should deploy that technology as they do across
a number of their other platforms. So basically, he's saying
that the platforms themselves should be literally looking at the
faces of their users through the cameras on their phone
and determining whether you're over or under sixteen.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
That is certainly one way to do it. It seems
like the government will look at a bunch of different options.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, I'm not sure if that one will get through it.
From my reading from the explainers on the bill, what
they are suggesting is more uploading documentation like photo ID
to you determine the age.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Of the users, not just looking at the face of
someone or using AI to assess the age of someone. No, Yeah,
who doinating.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Where the technology will take us though, so.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Dude and clearly a big proponent of this ban. But
it wasn't all smooth sailing for the government's bill in
the Senate. In almost as rare a demonstration of unity,
the entire cross Bench voted together against this bill. So
just a quick refresher that when we talk about the
cross bench, we're talking about minor parties and independence, So
(10:10):
the whole cross bench includes the Greens and then those
independent and other smaller minor parties. The Greens were the
most vocal in their criticism of this bill. What did
they say.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah, they're calling it the boomers social Media Ban, which
I think gives you a pretty good idea of their
thoughts on this. In a statement, they said this ban
would have serious negative consequences for young people and they
say that whilst they see and admit that there are
already negative consequences to social media, they're saying that this
ban will make it even worse. So the Greens spokesperson
(10:42):
for Communications, Senator Sarah Hanson Young said they agree that
something needs to be done, but they argued that this
is not the way to do it. She said it
won't make young people safer online, and it doesn't make
social media safer for anyone. She went on, young people
will be pushed to darker space is on the web,
and regional, marginalized and vulnerable kids will be further isolated.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And that's the point that we've heard reflected in some
of the expert commentary that's come out from child psychologists
and from others in this space, who are suggesting that
those who find community online and especially on social media,
if they are from a diverse group, might have that
gone tomorrow, and that that could be a big risk
factor for those young people. I think I know what
(11:28):
the next sentence is going to be, but I'll ask
it anyway. Did the tech platforms like this band?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
It will shock you to know that they are against it.
Meta who owns Instagram and Facebook and also WhatsApp, who,
like we said, are not affected, but Instagram and Facebook
certainly are. They said that they respect the laws of Australia,
but also our concern the process was rushed and that
the government didn't properly consider the evidence. We touched on
(11:54):
the point about this legislation being rushed a little earlier,
but I do think it's worth mentioning that this was
I think you can pretty objectively say that this legislation
went through a lot quicker than many other pieces of
legislation that the Government has introduced before.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah, and in part of course that's because they knew
they had the support of the opposition. But another part
of that is that usually a piece of legislation will
be referred to committee and that committee can take anywhere
from a week to seven months to respond back with
their recommendations. That was all done within a day.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yes, the hearings for that inquiry was all done within
a day, which by any measure is very quick in
terms of what evidence Metal was referring to when they
said that the government hadn't properly considered the evidence. They
said that the Parliament's own committee, which we were just
talking about. So the causal link with social media appears
unclear with respect to the mental health of young Australians.
(12:49):
So basically they're saying that there isn't enough evidence to
directly link negative mental health consequences with young people from
social media. We've also heard from Elon Musk, who owns X.
He said it seems like quote a backdoorway to control
access to the Internet by all Australians.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Again a fairly unsurprising comment there from the owners of
these huge platforms.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
He is quite critical of this Australian government. There's been
quite a few instances.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, to the point of us being a tiny country
on the other side of the world. Elon Musk has
spent quite a bit of his time recently focusing in
on us. Billy, I do want to just finish up,
because if our comment section is anything to go by,
there is a lot of support for this bill around
the world. How has it been received?
Speaker 1 (13:38):
You mentioned our comment section. We did poll our audience
about whether they were in support of this and I
think it was something like ninety percent.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yep, it was overwhelmingly in support. We did do that
before the actual legislation had been introduced, but we knew
pretty well what it was going to be. And yeah,
a lot of support from our audience of young people.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah, so as well as that, there are also many
parents who are in support of this. But if we
look at the global landscape, in particular, international governments seem
to be in support of the Australian government's move. The
French Education Minister An Genote has said that the EU
should follow Australia's lead. Like we said before, France actually
already has a band that keeps people under fifteen off
(14:20):
social media, but they are pushing for the rest of
Europe to also implement a similar ban. So the French
Education minister said, we absolutely urgently need something to be
put in place, and that was off the back of
Australia's ban. The Danish Prime Minister also wants an age
related ban for social media, as well as Norway. So
there are a whole list of countries that are in
(14:40):
support of what Australia is doing.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
It will be fascinating to watch and see if other
countries follow suit. You know, clearly Australia has shown that
it can move quickly on a matter like this, so
I suspect that if there is the will and the
desire to do so, other governments around the world might
follow and we might see the further bands across the world.
Thank you, Billy, and thank you for listening to another
(15:05):
episode of The Daily Odds.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
And before we go, Zia. Today is the second of
December somehow, so November is over and I quickly just
want to say that November was our biggest month for
podcast downloads ever, our highest listenership ever, and we want
to say a big thank you to every single one
of you who has been supporting the Daily Ods listening
to us every day and also every afternoon. Now your
(15:29):
support means the world to us and we really appreciate it.
Thank you so much and have a great day. My
name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Adunda Bungelung
Kalkuttin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily os acknowledges that
this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl
people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait
(15:51):
Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first
peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Already and this is this is the daily This is
the Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning
and welcome to the Daily OS. It is Monday, the
second of December.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm Billy, I'm Zara.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
In the very late hours of Thursday night, the Australian
Senate passed a social media ban for children under sixteen.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Social media is doing harm to our children. Today parents
can have a different discussion with their young ones, a
different discussion that will result in better outcomes and less
harm for young Australians.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
It means Australia is now the first country to ban
children under sixteen from using social media. It was a
huge move and one that has triggered a tsunami of praise, criticism,
and also curiosity from around the world. Zara. Pretty much
every single major media publication around the world has covered
(01:06):
this with a lot of intrigue.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I always feel this air of self importance when I
see overseas. Yeah, let's talking about Australia. I was like
New York Times, the whole tile dedicated to us.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yes, I was going to say the New York Times
as well, but there was also Washington Post.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Everywhere, and I think that goes to as you said,
the fact that we are the first country in the
whole world to do something like this, and it is
very major.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Just to point out, we're actually not the first to
have an age related restriction. So in France, for example,
they actually have a national band for teens under fifteen,
but we are the first to have the age of sixteen.
So that's why it's the strictest social media band because
of the age.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Of sixteen, gotcha. And that was in itself the whole
discussion that the Albanezi government had to have about what
that age was going to be, because some of it
says fourteen, some of it says sixteen. As you said,
France is in between there. I do want to just
before we get into that, just take it back a
second and really just focus in on what the bill
actually was, and then perhaps we can go to as
(02:04):
we spoke about that response around the world.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, so essentially this will make it illegal for children
under sixteen to access certain social media platforms. I say
certain social media platforms because it's not all of them.
So the ones that will be impacted are Snapchat, Reddit, Instagram,
TikTok x, and Facebook. The ones that won't be affected
include YouTube and WhatsApp. There's also been some discussion about
(02:30):
the platforms that don't require you to have an account,
but you can still watch the content on those platforms,
for example, YouTube, you don't that is I like app?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, and then with WhatsApp, messaging apps were completely precluded
from this bill, So that's why that is there. Can
you just talk me through, Billy a bit about what
the reasoning, at least the reasoning that the alban Easy
government gave for introducing and then passing this bill was.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, Just before we came into the studio, I was
just reading the explanatory memorandum, which is just an explainer.
It's a document that explains the reasoning behind every single
bill that is introduced in Parliament. And the big thing
that kept coming up is that this is a bill
to help parents, and that's also been very consistent in
Prime Minister Anthony Alberanesi's messaging about this, Yeah, that they
(03:15):
are wanting to help parents with this huge issue what
they see as a huge issue with social media. So
in their explanation of the bill, they said that parents
feel unsupported to make choices about when their children should
be on social media, and many are overwhelmed. That was
another word that kept coming up with the word overwhelmed
by the pressure from their children and other families. So
(03:37):
the idea that we're in uncharted territory. We've never dealt
with this digital era where everyone is on social media,
and this bill is designed to help parents. And they
compared it to alcohol bands and cigarette bands that there
are bands out there already that do limit what young
people do and this is just another example of that.
(03:57):
And they said that setting this minimum age removed ambiguity
for parents about when the right time. Is what I
was thinking of when I was reading this is that
when I was younger, my parents had rules that was
separate to all of my friends about when I could
get a phone.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I was about to say yes, my mum was so
strict and it ended up that my best friends bought
a phone for me for my twelf birthday because they
went around twelfth birthday.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Wow, I wasn't allowed one till I was fourteen.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Well, I wasn't allowed one went around my parents.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
It was that an ear piercings was not allowed. It
used to there are no babies with me. Yeah, it
was very act about that one. But this is basically
saying that there will be no difference in when young
people can be on social media. Now there are the parents'
choice exactly, it's the government's shows and for why they
don't think children should be on social media, they talked
(04:45):
about the harms experienced by young people. There was a
big focus on mental health, which I think is well
document that there is this big concern that young people
being on social media is really bad for their mental health.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, and I mean I think that part is fairly
self expres planetary. Anyone that is around a young person
can see what happens when they spend a lot of
their lives online. But I guess the gray area emerges
when we talk about enforcement. You're referred there to alcohol bands.
When you are under the age of eighteen, you're not
allowed to drink alcohol, the reality being a lot of
(05:19):
people drink alcohol under the age of eighteen. How I've heard,
I've been told, So how is this sort of a
bill being imposed when it's not actually something that physically
can be restricted by, say the police.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So basically what this bill does is say that there
is going to be this ban, but it doesn't exactly
lay out how they will enforce that yet, and that's
because they're saying that this law won't come into effect
for another twelve months, at least another twelve months, so
they're saying that we've got the time to figure out
exactly how to enforce this. I kind of thought about
it as like, think of them as the architect and
(05:56):
then laying out the plans, and they've now locked in
that plan, but now they have to figure out how
to actually build the house that they've just locked in.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I mean. An interesting part to that, as with any
bill that passed last week, is that the Labor government
could lose power at the next selection and so it
could be a different interior designer filling out that home.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Although the only difference I guess is that the Coalition
is in support of this. Yes, But what we do
know is that the responsibility will fall on social media
companies to enforce the ban. So it will be up
to Instagram, for example, to ensure that they don't have
people under sixteen on their platform in Australia, and if
they're caught not complying, we know that it will result
in a fifty million dollar fine up to a fifty
(06:38):
million dollar fine. Another thing to note is that the
government is very clear that, of course, just like any law,
the rules will be broken, just like you mentioned with alcohol.
You know, obviously a lot of people do still drink
under eighteen, and they're saying this is no different. We
are very aware that there will be many people who
break this law, but think of this as us just
setting the guard rails, and also holding social media companies
(06:59):
to a ca but setting the guardrails there for parents
again to take away the ambiguity behind the choice.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I think one of the big things when we talk
about how long it's going to be until it's actually enforced,
that perhaps is important to touch on is the fact
that the technology that's going to sit behind this ban
hasn't actually been finalized. So the government have said that
it will be supported by age verification technology that's currently
still in its trial stages, and so in terms of
(07:28):
how it will be enforced in a very material sense,
we still don't really have that either. So that will
have to play out of the next twelve months as
we see the results of those trials exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And that's what I was saying with that they have
the twelve months now to figure out exactly what this
will actually look like for the tech companies.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
And I guess there is one of the points of
criticism that have emerged, and I won't jump the gun.
I know you want to talk about that a bit later.
But the fact that should the government have waited until
all of those things were in place in order to
pass that legislation. Clearly they decided and that this was
worthwhile to pass now. And part of that, as you said,
was the fact that it is supported by not just
(08:07):
the Labor government but also the opposition. In a rare
moment of bipartisanship. It passed the Senate with almost all
of the Coalition supporting. There were two coalition senators who
crossed the floor. Why don't you tell me a bit
about where the coalition stands on this issue.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, So they have been very strong in pushing for
the government to introduce this ban. So the Opposition leader
Peter Dundon in June actually he said that he would
introduce a band himself within one hundred days of coming
to power if the Coalition was to win the next election,
which is due by May next year. So they again
were really pushing for this to happen. Like you said,
(08:42):
there were two Coalition senators who opposed the bill. Zara,
you were just talking about how the companies will do
this with the technology and what kind of technology they
will build. I was just watching an interview that Peter
Dunnon did with The Today Show on Friday, and he
said something that piqued my interest. He said, the companies
have the technology now without collecting any of your data,
(09:04):
they can identify your face as being under or over sixteen,
and they should deploy that technology as they do across
a number of their other platforms. So basically, he's saying
that the platforms themselves should be literally looking at the
faces of their users through the cameras on their phone
and determining whether you're over or under sixteen.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
That is certainly one way to do it. It seems
like the government will look at a bunch of different options.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, I'm not sure if that one will get through it.
From my reading from the explainers on the bill, what
they are suggesting is more uploading documentation like photo ID
to you determine the age.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Of the users, not just looking at the face of
someone or using AI to assess the age of someone. No, Yeah,
who doinating.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Where the technology will take us though, so.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Dude and clearly a big proponent of this ban. But
it wasn't all smooth sailing for the government's bill in
the Senate. In almost as rare a demonstration of unity,
the entire cross Bench voted together against this bill. So
just a quick refresher that when we talk about the
cross bench, we're talking about minor parties and independence, So
(10:10):
the whole cross bench includes the Greens and then those
independent and other smaller minor parties. The Greens were the
most vocal in their criticism of this bill. What did
they say.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah, they're calling it the boomers social Media Ban, which
I think gives you a pretty good idea of their
thoughts on this. In a statement, they said this ban
would have serious negative consequences for young people and they
say that whilst they see and admit that there are
already negative consequences to social media, they're saying that this
ban will make it even worse. So the Greens spokesperson
(10:42):
for Communications, Senator Sarah Hanson Young said they agree that
something needs to be done, but they argued that this
is not the way to do it. She said it
won't make young people safer online, and it doesn't make
social media safer for anyone. She went on, young people
will be pushed to darker space is on the web,
and regional, marginalized and vulnerable kids will be further isolated.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And that's the point that we've heard reflected in some
of the expert commentary that's come out from child psychologists
and from others in this space, who are suggesting that
those who find community online and especially on social media,
if they are from a diverse group, might have that
gone tomorrow, and that that could be a big risk
factor for those young people. I think I know what
(11:28):
the next sentence is going to be, but I'll ask
it anyway. Did the tech platforms like this band?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
It will shock you to know that they are against it.
Meta who owns Instagram and Facebook and also WhatsApp, who,
like we said, are not affected, but Instagram and Facebook
certainly are. They said that they respect the laws of Australia,
but also our concern the process was rushed and that
the government didn't properly consider the evidence. We touched on
(11:54):
the point about this legislation being rushed a little earlier,
but I do think it's worth mentioning that this was
I think you can pretty objectively say that this legislation
went through a lot quicker than many other pieces of
legislation that the Government has introduced before.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah, and in part of course that's because they knew
they had the support of the opposition. But another part
of that is that usually a piece of legislation will
be referred to committee and that committee can take anywhere
from a week to seven months to respond back with
their recommendations. That was all done within a day.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yes, the hearings for that inquiry was all done within
a day, which by any measure is very quick in
terms of what evidence Metal was referring to when they
said that the government hadn't properly considered the evidence. They
said that the Parliament's own committee, which we were just
talking about. So the causal link with social media appears
unclear with respect to the mental health of young Australians.
(12:49):
So basically they're saying that there isn't enough evidence to
directly link negative mental health consequences with young people from
social media. We've also heard from Elon Musk, who owns X.
He said it seems like quote a backdoorway to control
access to the Internet by all Australians.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Again a fairly unsurprising comment there from the owners of
these huge platforms.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
He is quite critical of this Australian government. There's been
quite a few instances.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, to the point of us being a tiny country
on the other side of the world. Elon Musk has
spent quite a bit of his time recently focusing in
on us. Billy, I do want to just finish up,
because if our comment section is anything to go by,
there is a lot of support for this bill around
the world. How has it been received?
Speaker 1 (13:38):
You mentioned our comment section. We did poll our audience
about whether they were in support of this and I
think it was something like ninety percent.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yep, it was overwhelmingly in support. We did do that
before the actual legislation had been introduced, but we knew
pretty well what it was going to be. And yeah,
a lot of support from our audience of young people.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah, so as well as that, there are also many
parents who are in support of this. But if we
look at the global landscape, in particular, international governments seem
to be in support of the Australian government's move. The
French Education Minister An Genote has said that the EU
should follow Australia's lead. Like we said before, France actually
already has a band that keeps people under fifteen off
(14:20):
social media, but they are pushing for the rest of
Europe to also implement a similar ban. So the French
Education minister said, we absolutely urgently need something to be
put in place, and that was off the back of
Australia's ban. The Danish Prime Minister also wants an age
related ban for social media, as well as Norway. So
there are a whole list of countries that are in
(14:40):
support of what Australia is doing.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
It will be fascinating to watch and see if other
countries follow suit. You know, clearly Australia has shown that
it can move quickly on a matter like this, so
I suspect that if there is the will and the
desire to do so, other governments around the world might
follow and we might see the further bands across the world.
Thank you, Billy, and thank you for listening to another
(15:05):
episode of The Daily Odds.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
And before we go, Zia. Today is the second of
December somehow, so November is over and I quickly just
want to say that November was our biggest month for
podcast downloads ever, our highest listenership ever, and we want
to say a big thank you to every single one
of you who has been supporting the Daily Ods listening
to us every day and also every afternoon. Now your
(15:29):
support means the world to us and we really appreciate it.
Thank you so much and have a great day. My
name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Adunda Bungelung
Kalkuttin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily os acknowledges that
this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl
people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait
(15:51):
Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first
peoples of these countries, both past and present.
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