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.Â
“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.Â
Technologies
Bessent reportedly tells Russia it won’t get economic relief until it ends Ukraine war
The meeting underscored Washington’s willingness to reopen diplomatic talks with Moscow, as Europe intends to isolate the nation while the war continues.
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Technologies
Venezuela awards 100-year concessions across 17 oil fields to U.S.-backed company NABEP, according to the White House
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Technologies
Tehan Calls for Return to June Agreement, Crude Climbs as Trump Pledges to Strike Iran Forcefully
Oil prices climbed Tuesday amid fears of escalation after fresh U.S.-Iran military strikes and unrest in the Strait of Hormuz, as Tehran urged Washington to return to the June interim deal and Trump promised to hit Iran hard.
Oil prices extended gains Tuesday as traders mulled the threat of escalation, following the resumption of U.S.-Iran military strikes and more turmoil in the Strait of Hormuz.
A tanker was struck by three unknown projectiles while transiting Hormuz on Monday, according to an incident report from the the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations Centre.
Brent
The tanker was sailing in the southern shipping lane close to the Omani coast, the UKMTO said, adding that no casualties were reported.
Iran launched an attack on two American bases in Jordan on Monday in retaliation for the U.S. strike on its Larak Island. American forces targeted two Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island on Sunday, reportedly killing three, saying that Tehran intended to launch rockets carrying sea mines into the Hormuz Strait.
The small island, located in the strait, has been a critical military and shipping control point for Iranian forces, helping them keep a firm grip on vessel traffic through one of the world’s most critical maritime routes.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit on Tuesday that Tehran would immediately reciprocate if Washington agreed to return to its commitments under the interim deal signed in June, according to the Iranian Student News Agency.
The back-and-forth hostilities marked the first time that the U.S. and Iran traded strikes in over a month.
While neither side appeared to be seeking a return to full-scale war, both signaled they were prepared to respond to further attacks. “We are going to hit them hard,” President Donald Trump told Fox News on Monday, saying that “there will be a response” to Iran’s attacks on U.S. military bases in the region.
Analysts largely view the U.S. strike on Larak Island as an attempt to break a deadlock rather than a shift in strategy. “By hitting the launchers rather than broader Iranian military infrastructure, the U.S. appears to be punishing a specific behaviour rather than, at least for now, broadening its war aims,” said Ali Vaez, deputy program director at International Crisis Group.
“It is enforcing the blockade,” said Jason Brodsky, policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran, adding that the Trump administration’s goal was to further degrade Tehran’s capabilities to mine the Strait of Hormuz, while focusing on economic coercive measures as the midterm elections approach.
Washington has ramped up pressure to squeeze Iran’s already-torn economy with “secondary sanctions” that punish nations and businesses buying Iranian crude oil. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 finance ministers gathering, that Iran was “lashing out kinetically” because the new sanctions were taking a toll on its economy.
Speaking from the Oval Office on Monday, Trump reportedly said Iran’s financial systems, armed forces, and governing body have been largely degraded. “It doesn’t mean we won’t smack them to see what happens,” the president said.
The war, now stretching into its seventh month, has disrupted global energy supplies and sent shock waves through global financial markets.
“This is fundamentally an endurance contest,” said Brodsky, as Trump has demonstrated an “unpredictability” that should concern the Iranians, and Tehran may lash out more aggressively militarily as the economic pressure mounts.
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