Technologies

Australia’s Bold Move: No Social Media Access for Those Under 16

Countries around the world will be watching to see how well the new ban works … or doesn’t.

Australia is going where no country has gone before, and many countries around the world are watching. On Wednesday, Australia institutes a social media ban for anyone under the age of 16.

Banned apps include TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Snapchat, YouTube, Reddit, Kick and Twitch. Exempt apps include the popular gaming platform Discord, Messenger Kids, WhatsApp, Pinterest, Kids Helpline, Google Classroom and YouTube Kids. AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, OpenAI’s Sora and Google Gemini are not included in the ban.

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Australia will be the first country to launch this kind of age-restricted social media ban. Several other countries, including China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Turkey, Uganda, Saudi Arabia and India have full or partial social media bans, typically for political and security reasons.

Other countries, including Denmark, France, Norway and Malaysia, are considering similar bans to Australia’s and will be monitoring the effectiveness of the Australian ban over the coming months.

Although many studies have been conducted worldwide about the psycho-emotional effects of social media usage on children, the idea for the Australian ban took its spark from The Anxious Generation, a book by US psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Annabel West, the wife of South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas, encouraged her husband to consider a ban after reading Haidt’s book in 2024.

Tech companies must enforce it, or else

Apps can utilize age-assurance technology, such as facial and voice analysis, to verify that a consumer is at least 16 years of age. Social-media companies can also check how long an account has been active and assess age by language style and community memberships.

Kids being kids, they will find workarounds — such as one 13-year-old who held up a photo of her mother’s face to fool the age verification. The Australian government said it will prevent kids from using false identity documents, AI tools or VPNs to fake their age and location.

Tech companies will face a $33 million fine, as outlined in the legislation, if they fail to enforce the under-16 ban.

Two 15-year-old Australians, supported by the Digital Freedom Project, are challenging the social media ban, and the country’s High Court could hear their case as early as February. They argue, in part, that the ban «will have the effect of sacrificing a considerable sphere of freedom of expression and engagement for 13-to-15-year-olds in social media interactions (including communications on personal and governmental matters, and the benefits to those young people of such interactions).»

TikTok said it will comply with the new laws, although noting that the restrictions «may be upsetting» to customers. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has already begun removing accounts of users under 16. Snapchat is ready to boot nearly half a million Australian kids from their accounts. Not surprisingly, X boss Elon Musk has criticized the change, writing in 2024 that the law «seems like a backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians.»

Some praise the ban

Donna Rice Hughes, president and CEO of Enough is Enough, a nonprofit with a mission to «make the Internet safer for children and families,» praised Australia for «taking a proactive stick approach to protect children from social media harms.»

Enough is Enough, which launched in 1992, has documented the myriad pitfalls of social media for children, including overuse, sexting, online exploitation, bullying, depression and more. The organization has published several internet safety guides and safety settings for social media apps.

«This ban should be an incentive for social media and other online platforms and services to be proactive in implementing safer-by-design technologies and default parental management tools before rushing to market with products that are potentially dangerous for children and teens,» Hughes told CNET.

Hughes added that Big Tech has only itself to blame for governmental intervention such as Australia’s.

«They’ve failed to do the right thing by our children from the start,» she said. «The carrot approach of voluntary industry efforts to prioritize child safety over profits hasn’t worked. A historic reality is that the first social media platforms to take off in the US and abroad, Facebook and Myspace, were developed for college-age students and older.»

The US does not have a sweeping age limit like Australia’s, but 12 states are working on laws to regulate and restrict teens’ access to social media.

Technologies

AI Trusted Less Than Social Media and Airlines, With Grok Placing Last, Survey Says

More Americans are concerned about the loss of personal interaction from AI than they are about potential job loss.

Google Gemini is the most trusted AI platform among its competition, but many people still have concerns about the technology, according to an American Customer Satisfaction Index poll released Thursday.

In ACSI’s results, AI scored an overall customer satisfaction score of 73 on a scale of 0 to 100, which the authors noted was slightly below social media (74), airlines and mortgage lenders, but in line with energy utilities.

Of the five platforms mentioned in the survey, Google Gemini led with 76, followed by Microsoft Copilot (74), Claude and ChatGPT (both 73), and Grok and Perplexity (both 71). Meanwhile, TikTok (77) and YouTube (78) both scored better than the AI platforms.

Gemini is one of the most prolific AI services, with access via smart speakers, TVs, phones and computers, while most ChatGPT users access the AI tool via the ChatGPT website or mobile app, and Grok via social media platform X.

The ACSI poll found that 43% of respondents said reduced human-to-human interaction is their main concern, followed by job loss for future generations (37%) and their own job risk (31%), based on interviews with 2,711 US adults.

Baby Boomers were the most skeptical generation in the poll, with 35% saying they are very concerned about AI’s effects, compared to just 6% who view it extremely favorably.

Disconnect between AI adoption and perception

While platforms such as ChatGPT have up to 1 billion weekly users, there is still a disconnect between AI’s adoption and public perception of it, which is driven by concerns over privacy, the spread of misinformation and the loss of jobs.

«Consumers spent the last decade learning to distrust how social media platforms handle their data, and AI’s privacy scores suggest they’re carrying that skepticism forward,» said Forrest Morgeson, associate professor of marketing at Michigan State University and director of research emeritus at the ACSI.

21% reported an «extremely favorable» outlook toward AI, while an equal 21% said they are «very concerned about the consequences.»

These results were in line with another poll published by YouGov this week, which found that only 29% think the positive effects of AI outweigh the negative ones, while 36% think its net effects are negative.

It’s worth noting that more than half of the people interviewed (56%) had no recent experience with AI, but of the 44% who did, half of them use AI at least once a day, and the usage went up with people who earned over $100,000 a year.

Last month, an NBC poll suggested that AI was one of the least-liked things in America, but it was still more popular than the Democratic Party.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for April 18, #1042

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for April 18, No. 1,042.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle features a fun purple category that’ll require you to spot certain beverage names. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Wow!

Green group hint: Plug it in.

Blue group hint: Cinderella team.

Purple group hint: Drink up.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Look at with awe.

Green group: Basic electricity terms.

Blue group: Unexpected winner.

Purple group: Starting with soda brands.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is look at with awe. The four answers are goggle, marvel, stare and wonder.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is basic electricity terms. The four answers are AC, DC, power and voltage.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is unexpected winner. The four answers are dark horse, long shot, sleeper and underdog.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is starting with soda brands. The four answers are crushworthy, Fantagraphics, frescade and pepsinogen.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for April 18, #572

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for April 18, No. 572.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Hockey fans, today’s Connections: Sports Edition is for you. All four categories are hockey-related. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Fire it into the net!

Green group hint: Lord Stanley’s hardware.

Blue group hint: Where hockey teams play.

Purple group hint: Put the biscuit in the basket.