November 24, 2025 • 23 mins
Peter Malinauskas, the Premier of South Australia, was the politician who got the ball rolling on the Australian under 16 social media ban. Today he discusses the dual nature of social media's impact on children, and weighing the benefits of healthy relationships against the risks of reliance on social media for information, particularly for vulnerable groups like the LGBTIQ community.
Meet the Australian teen influencers with thousands of followers. In December, they'll lose it all
'Social media has given our family so many opportunities. Australia's ban could take it all away.'
And in headlines today, Controversial One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has been labelled a "racist" and suspended from the Senate after wearing a burqa into the chamber for a second time; BoM CEO revealed the website redesign budget was approved by the Turnbull government and was for much more than the just the site overhaul; The bravery of the police officer who ended the deadly Bondi Westfield attack is expected to receive acclaim today as the inquest into the tragedy draws to a close; A woman in Thailand has shocked temple staff when she started moving in her coffin after being brought in for cremation
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Hosts: Claire Murphy
Guest: SA Premier Peter Malinauskas
Audio Producer: Lu Hill
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to a Muma Mea podcast. Hi, I'm Claire Murphy.
This is Mumma MIA's twice daily news podcast, The Quickie.
How's the social media band for under sixteens going down
at your place? Some parents of kids whose accounts are
about to be deleted are confused about what will happen
(00:28):
and when, about what platforms will be impacted, and how
they can manage their children's expectations. Others can't wait for
the band to arrive, the move possibly giving them another
tool in the back pocket, forcing device addicted kids off
their screens. Today we're speaking with Say Premier Peter malanowskis,
the politician whose framework started this whole ball rolling, and
(00:49):
get you across what you need to know, including whether
you was an over sixteen will have to prove your
age with just a little over two weeks to d day.
But first, here's the letters from the Quickie newsroom. Tuesday,
November twenty five. Controversial One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has
been labeled a racist and suspended from the Senate after
wearing a burker into the chamber for a second time.
(01:10):
Shortly after Senator Hanson failed to move a bill banning
the Islamic head covering from public places. On Monday, the
seventy one year old entered the chamber wearing a burker
during a vote on a separate motion. She pulled the
exact same stunt in twenty seventeen. Her appearance was met
with a furious reaction from Greens and Independent senators, including
Fatima Payman and Marine Ferruki, both of whom are Muslim.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
It's almost ten years since Senator Hanson's bathedic stunt where
she wore a burka in the Senate, and there were
no Muslim women at that time in the Senate. Well,
we are here now, we are here to stay, and
we will make sure that no Muslim woman is policed
for what she wears.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
The majority of Senators voted in favor of emotion by
Labour's Penny Wong to suspend Senator Hanson from the Senate
After it was revealed that the new Bureau of Meteorology
website cost was twenty times more than the original four
million dollar price tag. The Bureau's boss has explained exactly why.
CEO Stewart Minchin revealed yesterday that the budget was approved
by the Turnbull government back in twenty seventeen, but it
(02:13):
was to upgrade much more than just the front end website,
which is the four million dollars. Doctor Minchin explained that
after a cyber attack in twenty fifteen, they needed to
strengthen the system, and that the website redesign was just
the tip of the iceberg. The entire system requiring upgrades
extends from data flowing from tens of thousands of pieces
of equipment in the field, to the supercomputer that does
(02:34):
all the modeling, to the systems that actually then forecast
the weather and then feeds that into the website. The
site's redesign, which has been slammed by users as being
much harder to navigate and read, was delayed by COVID
and experienced a fifteen percent cost blowout, the final price
tag for the entire system upgrade coming in at ninety
six point five million. The bravery of the heroic police
(02:55):
officer who ended a deadly stabbing rampage at Bondi Westfield
in April twenty twenty four is expected to receive a
claim today as the inquest into the tragedy draws to
a clause. Inspector Amy Scott rushed into Bondi Junction Westfield
shopping Center without back up. After panic shoppers begged her
to help, she confronted the knife wielding Joel Cauchi, who
(03:16):
was experiencing psychotic symptoms as he launched an indiscriminate attack
that killed six people and injured ten others, including a baby.
As Couchie ran at her, Inspector Scott made sure all
civilians were out of range before shooting him twice. From
the moment she entered the center to ensuring the public
was safe and neutralizing Couchi as a threat, it took
her just eighty five seconds. The inquest into the mass
(03:39):
stabbing is expected to hear today that her response was
entirely justified and appropriate. A woman in Thailand has shocked
temple staff when she started moving in her coffin after
being brought in for cremation. The woman's brother reportedly said
that his sister had been bedridden for about two years
when her health deteriorated and she became unresponsive, appearing to
(04:00):
stop breathing two days ago. He'd tried to take her
to a local hospital as she'd expressed wish for her
organs to be donated, but they refused to take the
body as there was no formal death certificate. He instead
then took her to the temple, where they offer free
cremation services, but they too refused without the certificate. It
was during that conversation that they heard a faint knocking
(04:20):
coming from inside the coffin. The temple's general and financial
affairs manager asked for the coffin to be opened, where
they found the sixty five year old woman, opening her
eyes and knocking on the side. They assessed her and
sent her to a nearby hospital, the abbot saying that
the temple would cover her medical expenses. That's what's happening
in the world today. Next, the social media ban is looming.
We'll tell you exactly what you need to know. In
(04:48):
November last year, the Social Media Minimum Age Bill was
introduced to Federal Parliament. By December it had passed, giving
Ozzie families twelve months to figure out a plan to
firstly inform their under sixteens that come December tenth, twenty
twenty five, their accounts would be deleted and that from
that point on age verification would come into play. So
here's a rundown on exactly what this is going to
(05:10):
look like the minimum age required to have an account
on social media platforms TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Snapchat, x YouTube, Reddit,
Kick and Twitch from December ten will be sixteen. The
platforms that are not included include Discord, GitHub, Google, Classroom, Lego, Play, Messenger, Pinterest, Roadblocks,
(05:34):
although they've announced recently they will be bringing in age
verification two, Steam and steam Chat, WhatsApp, and YouTube Kids.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Now.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
The platforms themselves will be in charge of deleting any
accounts that are being held by anyone under the age
of sixteen with meta. The owners of Facebook, Instagram, and
threads last week sending out emails and dms letting anyone
with one of those accounts know that they had two
weeks left to delete or download any info they have
on them, deciding to do so a little earlier than
the December ten deadline. We're also asking for contact details
(06:07):
so that the accounts that have been deactivated can be
reactivated after the holder turn sixty, but there's no guarantee
that that will happen. That's why they've been asking you
to delete or download anything before then. There will be
an appeals process for anyone caught up in the changes
who are actually over the age threshold, with age verification
(06:29):
tools being deployed, including third party entities like Yoti, that
will require the user to take a video selfie, which
will then be put through AI technology to provide an
age estimation. If this fails, however, a government issued ID
can be used. The platforms and third party entities cannot
use age verification information for any other purpose, and they
(06:52):
must destroy all the data once age has been verified.
At this stage, there will be no legal penalties for
any parents or children found to be accessing these platforms
under age. The owners is on the platforms to remove them.
The social media platforms will also have to attempt to
prevent any workarounds that could allow under sixteens to bypass
the restrictions, like using VPNs or older siblings' IDs, which
(07:16):
may include monitoring whether activity coincides with school schedules, membership
of youth focused groups, even identifying the device or the
language being used. If the platforms don't take reasonable steps
to prevent underage users, they will cop some serious fines
up to forty nine point five million dollars. Now, this
won't stop kids from seeing online content. They can access
(07:39):
pretty much everything. On YouTube, for example, even if they
don't have an account, they just won't be able to
see private users content On some platforms like Facebook or
Instagram that they may have been friends with before, they
can't interact with it or have the algorithm continue to
feed them anything either. For fourteen year old dancer, singer,
and actor Ella Lucia, who has her social media accounts
linked with her mum Anna which she's maybe hoping we'll
(08:01):
go some ways to circumvent the upcoming ban, has nearly
thirty thousand followers on TikTok. She's not impressed with the move,
which will stifle her creative outlet, remove her from the
community she's built, and impact her earnings with brand partnerships
set to dry up.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
What is the.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Difference between a thirteen year old reposting a video and
a seventeen year old reposting a video.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I don't think any of the methods that have been
said are actually going to work.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
The social media joants are also arguing that this will
just push teens to darker corners of the Internet where
there's even less moderation, while also removing their voices from
the conversation. ESA premier Peter Melanowskis was the one who
started the bill rolling on the social media ban in
twenty twenty four. Premier, how does it feel to be
hated by almost every kid under the age of sixteen
(08:48):
come December ten?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
All I can say is I'm very grateful that kids
under the age of six said, who will wake up
on December eleven and not have access to social media can't.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Vote for the Yeah, that's probably a good thing, right,
But I guess to be serious, they might hate us
for a minute, parents, politicians for a moment, But we'll
talk about why do you feel this is necessary at
this point? But I'd like to understand what started you
on this road, because the bill that was put to
Parliament and passed last year is modeled on the framework
(09:18):
legislation prepared by former Chief Justice of the High Court
Robert French at your request. So what kicked that off
for you?
Speaker 4 (09:25):
My wife and I were parents of four kids.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Our artist is ten, our daughter, and we've spoken in
a range of different barbecues and events with family and
friends who have got a kids that are a bit
older about the challenges of mobile phone use and particularly
social media uses having on kids, particularly young girls.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
But also boys as well.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
My wife read a book called The Anxious Generation by
Jonathan Hate.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
She was explaining to me what she was reading us.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
She was going through the book over a few days
and at the end of the book, I'll never forget it.
We're lying in bed and you've really got to do
something about this. And I stopped and I thought about it.
I thought, well, I knew that the Koma had the
power for communications under the Constitution, and I thought to myself,
you know what, I'm going to go away and do
a better work. We mapped out a bit of a
plan and a strategy about how we would make this change.
(10:11):
One of the best decisions we made with hindsight was
when I first announced this, I didn't say we're going
to look into it.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
I said we're going to do it.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
I wasn't going to have some review or some report
whether or not there was a need. Instead, we had
just announced that we're going to do it, and we
commissioned the former Chief Justice of the High Court of
the Nation to procure a piece of work about how
a state parliament could give effect to a band. But
in the back of my mind I did have the
hope that it would result in a lot of community
support that then might precipitate other states getting on board,
(10:41):
and then in turn eventually the federal government. But none
of my wildest dreams was that going to happen in
less than twelve months, But indeed it did.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Do you think you have a better understanding now from
when your wife mentioned this to you to now about
just how harmful social media can be for these younger
digital generations we're talking gen Z and Olfers.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
The short answer is yes.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Before we announced our effort and what we were going
to do in South Australia, I was aware of the
problem though, because speak to any teacher of adolescent kids
anywhere in the country and they will tell you about
the impacted is having speak to parents, but speak to
kids to themselves, and you learn pretty quickly from them
that although they use social media often, they're doing it
(11:21):
through a sense of necessity to be able to maintain
or have relationships with their peers.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
But since then, more people I've.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Spoken to them, more I've read and learned about it,
the more resolute I am about the necessity of this
reform and this change. Probably one of the best conversations
I had though over the journey was with Vivic Murphy.
He is the former Surgeon General of the United States
of America under the both the Obama administration and the
Biden administration. I met him after I announced that we
(11:50):
were going to chase this down, but before the federal
government committed to it, and he had issued a nationwide
advisory encouraging both parents but also legislators to do something
more about regulating the access of social media four kids.
And he did that on the back of information he
had received from whistleblowers from social media platforms in the
(12:13):
US about how much effort and energy they put into
industrializing and profiting from algorithms designed explicitly to get kids addicted.
He went into a bit of detail about the information
that he had cleaned. When I heard that, I thought,
we just have to make this happen, because whenever you
see companies or for profit operations having addiction amongst children
(12:36):
as part of their business model, you know that that's
when governments have a responsibility to act.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Can I ask you how you respond though, to people
who are pushing back on this. So the social media
giants have all kind of come together and said, look,
all this is going to do is push kids to
darker corners of the Internet that's less moderated, that's going
to be more difficult for us to monitor and understand.
Or there are young teens who are making money from
these accounts already, so it'll cut off their financial benefits
(13:04):
from using social media. There are parents who are like
they're no longer going to be part of their communities
that they have found beneficial. How do you respond to
those kinds of arguments against this?
Speaker 3 (13:15):
I heard a lot of these arguments. There's a different
response to them individually. The overall response, though, is whatever
the downfalls are about restriction to social media, they are
outweighed by the benefits of children having more healthy relationships
and a more human understanding of what good interactions look like. Take,
for instance, though the argument around children from vulnerable minority
(13:38):
groups might not get access to information they otherwise get
through social media. I would simply pose the question, do
we really want kids relying upon social media platforms to
be able to get information about their set of circumstances.
Take young people from the LGBTIQ community. At what point
does society think that the best way to be able
(13:58):
to engage children and those circumstances is through a social
media platform.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
There are better ways to do these things.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
But I would simply say this, what's the worst thing
that could happen here. What's the worst consequence of kids
not getting access to social media? Well, it means that
to go right back to where we were a decade ago,
where people find out information through talking to one another
or going to a mentor or a loved one or
(14:26):
a teacher, to be able to have conversations to understand
how the world works. I've seen TikTok putting out advertisements
suggesting that kids need TikTok to learn how to fish.
Most people learn how to fish from a mom or dad,
an uncle, or a mate or wherever. And if that's
the worst thing that happens here, then that's not a
bad place to be, particularly if we know that we're
(14:48):
increasingly depriving children from some of the pitfalls of social
media that have devastating consequences.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
One of the arguments that I've been reading a fair
bit about too, is that yes, they'll no longer have
access to their own social media accounts, but that doesn't
mean they no longer have access to the Internet, and
you can still see everything on YouTube. You can still
scroll through TikTok. You can still scroll through Instagram without
an account, Like, what is it actually stopping?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
So what we're seeking to do is just regulate it. Now,
Another thing I hear is, oh, well, kids will find
a way around it, guaranteed, no matter how good a
job our federally Safety commissioner is does, or even the
platforms themselves, if they decide to be diligent and application
of the law, you can guarantee kids will find.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
A way around it.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
But that's true for every piece of regulation we do
to moderate what young people do to kids under the
age of eighteen. Drink, you better believe it. I did,
do kids smoke? Yes, and so forth? But do we
do it a lot less as a result of having
clear standards that society says we should abide by. It
of course, But what people misunderstand this is not really
(15:55):
just a piece of law that seeks to regulate the
relationship between young people and social media platforms. What it
really is is a tool of empowerment in terms of
the relationship between the parent and the child, so that
they can say, he's a standard that we're all going
to abide by and what we're doing in this law,
more specifically to your question, is trying to avoid the
(16:19):
circumstances of saying constant bullying. Does bullying happen in schools? Yes,
Has it always happened, of course? Will it continue in
the future unfortunately, yes, but we should put a bit
of effort into make sure that it doesn't. The thing
about bullying in schools is that school finishes at three
point thirty and the kids go home. But if they've
got a social media account, it's game on right up
(16:39):
until when they go to a sleep. When you are
interacting on social media, we know that there are very
deliberate calculations, very deliberate elements of having an account that
is also deployed for the purposes of profiteering and addiction.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
The best example, well, one example.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I can give you is there was that evidence that
appeared before the US Senate inquiry. I think it was
where a whistleblow from Meta spoke about how the data
they sell to advertisers. So, for instance, a young girl
who takes a selfie and then deletes that selfie, Meta
knows that, ah, that girl is particularly vulnerable at the
moment about her self image and therefore now is the
(17:19):
time for a beauty product advertiser to push their product
down the line and meta give that detail to the
beauty product firm.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
I mean, what an.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Absurd and obscene abuse of that young person's private moment
where they deleted a selfie. I mean, so we're depriving
by taking the account away from the child, We're depriving
the social media platform from profiteering out of that sort
of vulnerability, taking.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
It away from the actual argument about whether this is
going to be a good thing or about thing, depending
on which camp you're in. What about how the rollout
has been handled, because at this point in time, with
the band now just over two weeks away, there's a
lot of people concerned that they don't really know what's
going to happen come semb ten, Like, are they get
to wake up on that morning and everyone's accounts are
going to be gone? The one point, however, many million
(18:11):
young people's accounts that currently exist in Australia, will they
just be wiped off the face of the earth on
that day? Will it be a slow process? And then
there's conversations about which platforms are actually involved and which
are not, and how the age verification is going to work.
There seems to be a lot of questions that have
come up that hasn't had a really clear communication process.
Do you think the rollout's been handled well or do
you think we could have done that a bit better.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
I think you'll always be able to do things better
with the value of hindsight.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
But I think by and large it's kinde as well
as it could given the timeframes that everyone's been working towards.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
But let me guarantee you something things are going to
go wrong.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
There will be controversies, and there will be a massive
elevation in the public discourse of every last instance of something.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
Not being handled appropriately.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
You are going to hear lots of stories in the
media about how this is a.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Catastrophic failure of process and rollout.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
And the reason why I know that is true one
is because whenever you have a reform like this, there
are a problem and they get elevated. But also too,
social media platforms have an extraordinarily large and material interest
in this not going well, and of course they are
probably the most significant player at the table to determine
how the role out goes. They have a material interest
(19:23):
in it not going well because if it does go
well or too smoothly, then of course it becomes all
too easy for every other jurisdiction around the world to adopt.
And we know that there is a lot of global interest.
Brace yourselves. You're going to hear lots of noise about
this and lots of complaints, but none of it, in
my view, will outweigh the net benefit to implementing this reform.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Just finally, premiere, What are your hopes in the next
year or two after this band comes in? Like, what
are you hoping to see happen?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Young kids finding themselves engaging with one another in a
slightly healthier way than what was the case previously. I
don't think this reform ends all social ills. I don't
think it.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Removes the dangers of the Internet.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I think there'll be challenges with it, but it just
makes a modicum of a difference to the way that
young kids interact with one another and their sense of
self worth then are reworth it, we know globally. Ever,
since we saw mobile phones with front facing cameras at
the same time of having the power to be able
to operate social media platforms, the moment that happened, we
(20:28):
saw massive spikes in youth suicide, youth anxiety, youth depression,
and a whole range of other mental health conditions. I
think that's not just a coincidence. So if we just
make a little bit of a difference, that'll be a
good thing. I don't think social media is all bad.
I'm not anti social media. I think it can be
a very powerful tool. But with young people with their
particular vulnerabilities, I think we've got a responsibility to keep
(20:50):
an eye out for them.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
I think this particular issue has been a bit like
a frog and bowling water.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
It sort of just heat it up over time, and
then all of a sudden we realize, hang on a second.
These platforms have now become so ubiquitous that are now
the central agent for the way people communicated with each
other at a young age, to the extent has become unhealthy.
If it happened overnight, you would have seen a quicker response.
It happened gradually. Do you want to hear an anecdote? Sure,
(21:16):
So we were the first date of the country to
put a mobile phone band in place from the start
of the school day to the end of the school day.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
So any kid going to a public school in South Australia.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
You've right up to school with the phone, you put
it away and you can't get it till the end
of the day. We had to invest in lockers and
pouches and all sorts. But anyway, so we put this
in place a few years ago. There was a cohort
of teachers and principals who really thought it was.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
A bad idea.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
A couple of weeks after band came into her feet,
I got a letter from a principal whose school is
just outside of my electric and she was an opponent
of the mobile phone band and said, you know, Peter,
I just wanted you know I was wrong. She goes,
I heard a sound I hadn't heard for years, and
that was the audible noise of kids screaming and playing
(21:58):
at lunchtime. She said, the school oval is being used.
Rather than the kids sitting on the oval in a circle,
all looking at their phones, they're up doing things, they're
talking to one another, and she's forgot how loud the
school yard can be when kids are actually playing normally.
I don't see it downside to that. I think that
can be true here for the social media band too,
and I hope that parents around the country just feel
(22:20):
a little bit empowered.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
For some more info on the social media band, you
can find the links to the e Safety Commission articles
and articles written by Mumma MEA's editorial team on the
subject in the show notes. If you do have a
second though, would you mind giving us a quick rate
and review in your favorite podcast app. It helps us
understand how you feel about the show first and secondly
(22:42):
it does help us get into more ears. So if
you wouldn't mind and don't forget. If you do have
a story you'd like us to check out in more
detail for you, send us an email the Quickie at
mummamea dot com, dot at you. The Quikie is produced
by me Claire Murphy with audio production by Lou Hill.
Mumma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
(23:04):
that this podcast is quoted on.
You're listening to a Muma Mea podcast. Hi, I'm Claire Murphy.
This is Mumma MIA's twice daily news podcast, The Quickie.
How's the social media band for under sixteens going down
at your place? Some parents of kids whose accounts are
about to be deleted are confused about what will happen
(00:28):
and when, about what platforms will be impacted, and how
they can manage their children's expectations. Others can't wait for
the band to arrive, the move possibly giving them another
tool in the back pocket, forcing device addicted kids off
their screens. Today we're speaking with Say Premier Peter malanowskis,
the politician whose framework started this whole ball rolling, and
(00:49):
get you across what you need to know, including whether
you was an over sixteen will have to prove your
age with just a little over two weeks to d day.
But first, here's the letters from the Quickie newsroom. Tuesday,
November twenty five. Controversial One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has
been labeled a racist and suspended from the Senate after
wearing a burker into the chamber for a second time.
(01:10):
Shortly after Senator Hanson failed to move a bill banning
the Islamic head covering from public places. On Monday, the
seventy one year old entered the chamber wearing a burker
during a vote on a separate motion. She pulled the
exact same stunt in twenty seventeen. Her appearance was met
with a furious reaction from Greens and Independent senators, including
Fatima Payman and Marine Ferruki, both of whom are Muslim.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
It's almost ten years since Senator Hanson's bathedic stunt where
she wore a burka in the Senate, and there were
no Muslim women at that time in the Senate. Well,
we are here now, we are here to stay, and
we will make sure that no Muslim woman is policed
for what she wears.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
The majority of Senators voted in favor of emotion by
Labour's Penny Wong to suspend Senator Hanson from the Senate
After it was revealed that the new Bureau of Meteorology
website cost was twenty times more than the original four
million dollar price tag. The Bureau's boss has explained exactly why.
CEO Stewart Minchin revealed yesterday that the budget was approved
by the Turnbull government back in twenty seventeen, but it
(02:13):
was to upgrade much more than just the front end website,
which is the four million dollars. Doctor Minchin explained that
after a cyber attack in twenty fifteen, they needed to
strengthen the system, and that the website redesign was just
the tip of the iceberg. The entire system requiring upgrades
extends from data flowing from tens of thousands of pieces
of equipment in the field, to the supercomputer that does
(02:34):
all the modeling, to the systems that actually then forecast
the weather and then feeds that into the website. The
site's redesign, which has been slammed by users as being
much harder to navigate and read, was delayed by COVID
and experienced a fifteen percent cost blowout, the final price
tag for the entire system upgrade coming in at ninety
six point five million. The bravery of the heroic police
(02:55):
officer who ended a deadly stabbing rampage at Bondi Westfield
in April twenty twenty four is expected to receive a
claim today as the inquest into the tragedy draws to
a clause. Inspector Amy Scott rushed into Bondi Junction Westfield
shopping Center without back up. After panic shoppers begged her
to help, she confronted the knife wielding Joel Cauchi, who
(03:16):
was experiencing psychotic symptoms as he launched an indiscriminate attack
that killed six people and injured ten others, including a baby.
As Couchie ran at her, Inspector Scott made sure all
civilians were out of range before shooting him twice. From
the moment she entered the center to ensuring the public
was safe and neutralizing Couchi as a threat, it took
her just eighty five seconds. The inquest into the mass
(03:39):
stabbing is expected to hear today that her response was
entirely justified and appropriate. A woman in Thailand has shocked
temple staff when she started moving in her coffin after
being brought in for cremation. The woman's brother reportedly said
that his sister had been bedridden for about two years
when her health deteriorated and she became unresponsive, appearing to
(04:00):
stop breathing two days ago. He'd tried to take her
to a local hospital as she'd expressed wish for her
organs to be donated, but they refused to take the
body as there was no formal death certificate. He instead
then took her to the temple, where they offer free
cremation services, but they too refused without the certificate. It
was during that conversation that they heard a faint knocking
(04:20):
coming from inside the coffin. The temple's general and financial
affairs manager asked for the coffin to be opened, where
they found the sixty five year old woman, opening her
eyes and knocking on the side. They assessed her and
sent her to a nearby hospital, the abbot saying that
the temple would cover her medical expenses. That's what's happening
in the world today. Next, the social media ban is looming.
We'll tell you exactly what you need to know. In
(04:48):
November last year, the Social Media Minimum Age Bill was
introduced to Federal Parliament. By December it had passed, giving
Ozzie families twelve months to figure out a plan to
firstly inform their under sixteens that come December tenth, twenty
twenty five, their accounts would be deleted and that from
that point on age verification would come into play. So
here's a rundown on exactly what this is going to
(05:10):
look like the minimum age required to have an account
on social media platforms TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Snapchat, x YouTube, Reddit,
Kick and Twitch from December ten will be sixteen. The
platforms that are not included include Discord, GitHub, Google, Classroom, Lego, Play, Messenger, Pinterest, Roadblocks,
(05:34):
although they've announced recently they will be bringing in age
verification two, Steam and steam Chat, WhatsApp, and YouTube Kids.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Now.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
The platforms themselves will be in charge of deleting any
accounts that are being held by anyone under the age
of sixteen with meta. The owners of Facebook, Instagram, and
threads last week sending out emails and dms letting anyone
with one of those accounts know that they had two
weeks left to delete or download any info they have
on them, deciding to do so a little earlier than
the December ten deadline. We're also asking for contact details
(06:07):
so that the accounts that have been deactivated can be
reactivated after the holder turn sixty, but there's no guarantee
that that will happen. That's why they've been asking you
to delete or download anything before then. There will be
an appeals process for anyone caught up in the changes
who are actually over the age threshold, with age verification
(06:29):
tools being deployed, including third party entities like Yoti, that
will require the user to take a video selfie, which
will then be put through AI technology to provide an
age estimation. If this fails, however, a government issued ID
can be used. The platforms and third party entities cannot
use age verification information for any other purpose, and they
(06:52):
must destroy all the data once age has been verified.
At this stage, there will be no legal penalties for
any parents or children found to be accessing these platforms
under age. The owners is on the platforms to remove them.
The social media platforms will also have to attempt to
prevent any workarounds that could allow under sixteens to bypass
the restrictions, like using VPNs or older siblings' IDs, which
(07:16):
may include monitoring whether activity coincides with school schedules, membership
of youth focused groups, even identifying the device or the
language being used. If the platforms don't take reasonable steps
to prevent underage users, they will cop some serious fines
up to forty nine point five million dollars. Now, this
won't stop kids from seeing online content. They can access
(07:39):
pretty much everything. On YouTube, for example, even if they
don't have an account, they just won't be able to
see private users content On some platforms like Facebook or
Instagram that they may have been friends with before, they
can't interact with it or have the algorithm continue to
feed them anything either. For fourteen year old dancer, singer,
and actor Ella Lucia, who has her social media accounts
linked with her mum Anna which she's maybe hoping we'll
(08:01):
go some ways to circumvent the upcoming ban, has nearly
thirty thousand followers on TikTok. She's not impressed with the move,
which will stifle her creative outlet, remove her from the
community she's built, and impact her earnings with brand partnerships
set to dry up.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
What is the.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Difference between a thirteen year old reposting a video and
a seventeen year old reposting a video.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I don't think any of the methods that have been
said are actually going to work.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
The social media joants are also arguing that this will
just push teens to darker corners of the Internet where
there's even less moderation, while also removing their voices from
the conversation. ESA premier Peter Melanowskis was the one who
started the bill rolling on the social media ban in
twenty twenty four. Premier, how does it feel to be
hated by almost every kid under the age of sixteen
(08:48):
come December ten?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
All I can say is I'm very grateful that kids
under the age of six said, who will wake up
on December eleven and not have access to social media can't.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Vote for the Yeah, that's probably a good thing, right,
But I guess to be serious, they might hate us
for a minute, parents, politicians for a moment, But we'll
talk about why do you feel this is necessary at
this point? But I'd like to understand what started you
on this road, because the bill that was put to
Parliament and passed last year is modeled on the framework
(09:18):
legislation prepared by former Chief Justice of the High Court
Robert French at your request. So what kicked that off
for you?
Speaker 4 (09:25):
My wife and I were parents of four kids.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Our artist is ten, our daughter, and we've spoken in
a range of different barbecues and events with family and
friends who have got a kids that are a bit
older about the challenges of mobile phone use and particularly
social media uses having on kids, particularly young girls.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
But also boys as well.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
My wife read a book called The Anxious Generation by
Jonathan Hate.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
She was explaining to me what she was reading us.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
She was going through the book over a few days
and at the end of the book, I'll never forget it.
We're lying in bed and you've really got to do
something about this. And I stopped and I thought about it.
I thought, well, I knew that the Koma had the
power for communications under the Constitution, and I thought to myself,
you know what, I'm going to go away and do
a better work. We mapped out a bit of a
plan and a strategy about how we would make this change.
(10:11):
One of the best decisions we made with hindsight was
when I first announced this, I didn't say we're going
to look into it.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
I said we're going to do it.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
I wasn't going to have some review or some report
whether or not there was a need. Instead, we had
just announced that we're going to do it, and we
commissioned the former Chief Justice of the High Court of
the Nation to procure a piece of work about how
a state parliament could give effect to a band. But
in the back of my mind I did have the
hope that it would result in a lot of community
support that then might precipitate other states getting on board,
(10:41):
and then in turn eventually the federal government. But none
of my wildest dreams was that going to happen in
less than twelve months, But indeed it did.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Do you think you have a better understanding now from
when your wife mentioned this to you to now about
just how harmful social media can be for these younger
digital generations we're talking gen Z and Olfers.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
The short answer is yes.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Before we announced our effort and what we were going
to do in South Australia, I was aware of the
problem though, because speak to any teacher of adolescent kids
anywhere in the country and they will tell you about
the impacted is having speak to parents, but speak to
kids to themselves, and you learn pretty quickly from them
that although they use social media often, they're doing it
(11:21):
through a sense of necessity to be able to maintain
or have relationships with their peers.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
But since then, more people I've.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Spoken to them, more I've read and learned about it,
the more resolute I am about the necessity of this
reform and this change. Probably one of the best conversations
I had though over the journey was with Vivic Murphy.
He is the former Surgeon General of the United States
of America under the both the Obama administration and the
Biden administration. I met him after I announced that we
(11:50):
were going to chase this down, but before the federal
government committed to it, and he had issued a nationwide
advisory encouraging both parents but also legislators to do something
more about regulating the access of social media four kids.
And he did that on the back of information he
had received from whistleblowers from social media platforms in the
(12:13):
US about how much effort and energy they put into
industrializing and profiting from algorithms designed explicitly to get kids addicted.
He went into a bit of detail about the information
that he had cleaned. When I heard that, I thought,
we just have to make this happen, because whenever you
see companies or for profit operations having addiction amongst children
(12:36):
as part of their business model, you know that that's
when governments have a responsibility to act.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Can I ask you how you respond though, to people
who are pushing back on this. So the social media
giants have all kind of come together and said, look,
all this is going to do is push kids to
darker corners of the Internet that's less moderated, that's going
to be more difficult for us to monitor and understand.
Or there are young teens who are making money from
these accounts already, so it'll cut off their financial benefits
(13:04):
from using social media. There are parents who are like
they're no longer going to be part of their communities
that they have found beneficial. How do you respond to
those kinds of arguments against this?
Speaker 3 (13:15):
I heard a lot of these arguments. There's a different
response to them individually. The overall response, though, is whatever
the downfalls are about restriction to social media, they are
outweighed by the benefits of children having more healthy relationships
and a more human understanding of what good interactions look like. Take,
for instance, though the argument around children from vulnerable minority
(13:38):
groups might not get access to information they otherwise get
through social media. I would simply pose the question, do
we really want kids relying upon social media platforms to
be able to get information about their set of circumstances.
Take young people from the LGBTIQ community. At what point
does society think that the best way to be able
(13:58):
to engage children and those circumstances is through a social
media platform.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
There are better ways to do these things.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
But I would simply say this, what's the worst thing
that could happen here. What's the worst consequence of kids
not getting access to social media? Well, it means that
to go right back to where we were a decade ago,
where people find out information through talking to one another
or going to a mentor or a loved one or
(14:26):
a teacher, to be able to have conversations to understand
how the world works. I've seen TikTok putting out advertisements
suggesting that kids need TikTok to learn how to fish.
Most people learn how to fish from a mom or dad,
an uncle, or a mate or wherever. And if that's
the worst thing that happens here, then that's not a
bad place to be, particularly if we know that we're
(14:48):
increasingly depriving children from some of the pitfalls of social
media that have devastating consequences.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
One of the arguments that I've been reading a fair
bit about too, is that yes, they'll no longer have
access to their own social media accounts, but that doesn't
mean they no longer have access to the Internet, and
you can still see everything on YouTube. You can still
scroll through TikTok. You can still scroll through Instagram without
an account, Like, what is it actually stopping?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
So what we're seeking to do is just regulate it. Now,
Another thing I hear is, oh, well, kids will find
a way around it, guaranteed, no matter how good a
job our federally Safety commissioner is does, or even the
platforms themselves, if they decide to be diligent and application
of the law, you can guarantee kids will find.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
A way around it.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
But that's true for every piece of regulation we do
to moderate what young people do to kids under the
age of eighteen. Drink, you better believe it. I did,
do kids smoke? Yes, and so forth? But do we
do it a lot less as a result of having
clear standards that society says we should abide by. It
of course, But what people misunderstand this is not really
(15:55):
just a piece of law that seeks to regulate the
relationship between young people and social media platforms. What it
really is is a tool of empowerment in terms of
the relationship between the parent and the child, so that
they can say, he's a standard that we're all going
to abide by and what we're doing in this law,
more specifically to your question, is trying to avoid the
(16:19):
circumstances of saying constant bullying. Does bullying happen in schools? Yes,
Has it always happened, of course? Will it continue in
the future unfortunately, yes, but we should put a bit
of effort into make sure that it doesn't. The thing
about bullying in schools is that school finishes at three
point thirty and the kids go home. But if they've
got a social media account, it's game on right up
(16:39):
until when they go to a sleep. When you are
interacting on social media, we know that there are very
deliberate calculations, very deliberate elements of having an account that
is also deployed for the purposes of profiteering and addiction.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
The best example, well, one example.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I can give you is there was that evidence that
appeared before the US Senate inquiry. I think it was
where a whistleblow from Meta spoke about how the data
they sell to advertisers. So, for instance, a young girl
who takes a selfie and then deletes that selfie, Meta
knows that, ah, that girl is particularly vulnerable at the
moment about her self image and therefore now is the
(17:19):
time for a beauty product advertiser to push their product
down the line and meta give that detail to the
beauty product firm.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
I mean, what an.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Absurd and obscene abuse of that young person's private moment
where they deleted a selfie. I mean, so we're depriving
by taking the account away from the child, We're depriving
the social media platform from profiteering out of that sort
of vulnerability, taking.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
It away from the actual argument about whether this is
going to be a good thing or about thing, depending
on which camp you're in. What about how the rollout
has been handled, because at this point in time, with
the band now just over two weeks away, there's a
lot of people concerned that they don't really know what's
going to happen come semb ten, Like, are they get
to wake up on that morning and everyone's accounts are
going to be gone? The one point, however, many million
(18:11):
young people's accounts that currently exist in Australia, will they
just be wiped off the face of the earth on
that day? Will it be a slow process? And then
there's conversations about which platforms are actually involved and which
are not, and how the age verification is going to work.
There seems to be a lot of questions that have
come up that hasn't had a really clear communication process.
Do you think the rollout's been handled well or do
you think we could have done that a bit better.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
I think you'll always be able to do things better
with the value of hindsight.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
But I think by and large it's kinde as well
as it could given the timeframes that everyone's been working towards.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
But let me guarantee you something things are going to
go wrong.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
There will be controversies, and there will be a massive
elevation in the public discourse of every last instance of something.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
Not being handled appropriately.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
You are going to hear lots of stories in the
media about how this is a.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Catastrophic failure of process and rollout.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
And the reason why I know that is true one
is because whenever you have a reform like this, there
are a problem and they get elevated. But also too,
social media platforms have an extraordinarily large and material interest
in this not going well, and of course they are
probably the most significant player at the table to determine
how the role out goes. They have a material interest
(19:23):
in it not going well because if it does go
well or too smoothly, then of course it becomes all
too easy for every other jurisdiction around the world to adopt.
And we know that there is a lot of global interest.
Brace yourselves. You're going to hear lots of noise about
this and lots of complaints, but none of it, in
my view, will outweigh the net benefit to implementing this reform.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Just finally, premiere, What are your hopes in the next
year or two after this band comes in? Like, what
are you hoping to see happen?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Young kids finding themselves engaging with one another in a
slightly healthier way than what was the case previously. I
don't think this reform ends all social ills. I don't
think it.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Removes the dangers of the Internet.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I think there'll be challenges with it, but it just
makes a modicum of a difference to the way that
young kids interact with one another and their sense of
self worth then are reworth it, we know globally. Ever,
since we saw mobile phones with front facing cameras at
the same time of having the power to be able
to operate social media platforms, the moment that happened, we
(20:28):
saw massive spikes in youth suicide, youth anxiety, youth depression,
and a whole range of other mental health conditions. I
think that's not just a coincidence. So if we just
make a little bit of a difference, that'll be a
good thing. I don't think social media is all bad.
I'm not anti social media. I think it can be
a very powerful tool. But with young people with their
particular vulnerabilities, I think we've got a responsibility to keep
(20:50):
an eye out for them.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
I think this particular issue has been a bit like
a frog and bowling water.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
It sort of just heat it up over time, and
then all of a sudden we realize, hang on a second.
These platforms have now become so ubiquitous that are now
the central agent for the way people communicated with each
other at a young age, to the extent has become unhealthy.
If it happened overnight, you would have seen a quicker response.
It happened gradually. Do you want to hear an anecdote? Sure,
(21:16):
So we were the first date of the country to
put a mobile phone band in place from the start
of the school day to the end of the school day.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
So any kid going to a public school in South Australia.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
You've right up to school with the phone, you put
it away and you can't get it till the end
of the day. We had to invest in lockers and
pouches and all sorts. But anyway, so we put this
in place a few years ago. There was a cohort
of teachers and principals who really thought it was.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
A bad idea.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
A couple of weeks after band came into her feet,
I got a letter from a principal whose school is
just outside of my electric and she was an opponent
of the mobile phone band and said, you know, Peter,
I just wanted you know I was wrong. She goes,
I heard a sound I hadn't heard for years, and
that was the audible noise of kids screaming and playing
(21:58):
at lunchtime. She said, the school oval is being used.
Rather than the kids sitting on the oval in a circle,
all looking at their phones, they're up doing things, they're
talking to one another, and she's forgot how loud the
school yard can be when kids are actually playing normally.
I don't see it downside to that. I think that
can be true here for the social media band too,
and I hope that parents around the country just feel
(22:20):
a little bit empowered.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
For some more info on the social media band, you
can find the links to the e Safety Commission articles
and articles written by Mumma MEA's editorial team on the
subject in the show notes. If you do have a
second though, would you mind giving us a quick rate
and review in your favorite podcast app. It helps us
understand how you feel about the show first and secondly
(22:42):
it does help us get into more ears. So if
you wouldn't mind and don't forget. If you do have
a story you'd like us to check out in more
detail for you, send us an email the Quickie at
mummamea dot com, dot at you. The Quikie is produced
by me Claire Murphy with audio production by Lou Hill.
Mumma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
(23:04):
that this podcast is quoted on.
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