What the US can learn from Australia’s new social media ban on children

The road to hell is paved with good intentions – and so is the road to a potential surveillance state.

After losing its high-profile case in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last week, TikTok is now one step closer to being banned outright in this country.

If the Chinese-owned app fails to find a political ally in the incoming Trump administration by January 19 (or new local ownership), mind-numbing roller coaster sessions and moronic viral stunts will soon be unavailable to 170 million its American users.

While many may see the Biden administration’s actions as overreach, a ban on TikTok would be an act that many American parents are desperate to see: limiting social media for their children.

The harmful effects of predatory algorithms on young people are now as evident as the link between smoking and lung cancer.

Last year, the US Surgeon General warned the nation that young people who engaged in “more than 3 hours a day on social media faced a double risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, including depressive symptoms and anxiety”.

However, protecting our children from Silicon Valley (and China) is not as simple as banning cancerous apps. It is a reality that is now being demonstrated in Australia.

Late last month, the Land Down Under passed groundbreaking legislation to completely ban social media for anyone under 16.

The new rules throw TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram on the barbie and fine those companies up to AUD$50 million (about $33 million) for not restricting their content to children.

Parents cheered the law, with polls showing 77% of Australians approve of the government’s new rules. In theory, too. I immigrated to Australia from the USA in 2022 and am now the father of a true blue Aussie roo. Like many parents, my wife and I began planning our family’s approach to “screen time” in conception—and a world where moving just isn’t an option seems like a better one.

Unfortunately, Australia’s “fair dinkum” (or politically cynical) attempts to attract parents like me are not as straightforward as they may seem. And they won’t even be in the US.

“I think a lot of parents are struggling,” says Lisa Given, an information studies researcher at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. “They see [the ban] while the government tries to do something. But at the end of the day, the question is, ‘How will this be controlled?’ “

In fact, no one knows how Australia’s ban will work in practice once it kicks in next year. All social media users can now be required to identify themselves with a government-issued ID, such as a driver’s license (which the government has said it will not require).

Or worse, and perhaps even more likely, social media companies will start using facial recognition or biometrics to confirm a user’s age (although initial reports suggest this approach is less successful for children who are not Caucasian).

The third approach is “pattern recognition” – tracking a user’s overall online activity to make a guess at their age. This would require a high level of overall Internet surveillance and open the door to privacy issues a la mode. Welcome to China.

“I don’t think it’s going to be successful if you think of it as a way to protect children from harm,” Given says. “Many children will still be able to access content whether they use a technical solution such as a VPN, or simply a shared device at home. . . What we actually have to fight are things like image-based abuse, we have to target algorithms.”

And, of course, where there’s a will, there’s a way: Teens still drink, they still sneak, and they’ll still find a way to get thick.

It is hard to believe that the ban is not, at some level, a ruse to monitor and censor the internet activity of every Australian. Even if it isn’t, the ban leaves the door wide open to government snooping.

Worse yet, we already know there’s a better way: Tech companies have the ability to modify their algorithms so they don’t force-feed negative content to their users.

But they won’t unless the government, specifically the US government, forces them to.

Otherwise, it’s business as usual, greed over good. Sorry Australia, the dingo ate your baby.