On 10th June, the BBC’s Dharshini David interviewed Australian communications minister, Annika Wells on Radio 4’s Today Programme. Listen in full below:
Photo: Sarah Hodges / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
The Minister argued that resistance from major technology companies was entirely predictable. If Australia’s social media restrictions are seen to work, other countries may follow. If they are seen to fail, policymakers elsewhere may think twice.
That observation underpinned a revealing interview about the first six months of Australia’s under-16 social media restrictions.
The policy was introduced because the Australian government concluded that parents were being left to fight an unwinnable battle against highly engaging social media platforms. As the Minister put it, you cannot “fence the ocean”, but you can “police the sharks”.
Six months on, Australia considers the policy broadly successful. More than five million accounts have reportedly been deactivated. At the same time, Wells openly acknowledged that many children remain on social media. She said this was anticipated from the outset. Policymakers expected some children would attempt to circumvent the restrictions and that some platforms would seek to resist or undermine them – the latter being the conclusion of our own Lessons Learned report. (https://avpassociation.com/thought-leadership/australia-lessons-learned-from-the-implementation-of-the-social-media-minimum-age-act/)
That is why enforcement remains central to the Australian approach. The eSafety Commissioner is currently investigating several platforms for potential systemic breaches, with penalties of up to A$49.5 million available where non-compliance is found.
The interview also highlighted an important policy disagreement. Wells rejected the argument that app stores should bear primary responsibility for age verification, maintaining that platforms themselves must remain accountable for complying with the law.
She further emphasised that Australia’s measures are directed at specific social media features that policymakers believe contribute to harm, including recommendation algorithms, infinite scrolling, popularity metrics such as likes and disappearing messages.
The minister confirmed many of the conclusions in our own Lessons Learned report.