Australia will soon roll out the world’s first ban on social media platforms for children under the age of 16. Apart from polarizing views from parents, others say it will only push children toward other, more dangerous platforms and make them afraid to seek help when they’re in trouble online.
00:00And as I say to people, behind my smile is a thousand years.
00:05Australian Mia Bannister is still grieving the loss of her teenage son, Ollie.
00:10After enduring months of online bullying and suffering from anorexia, he took his own life.
00:16She's chosen to commemorate him with tattoos.
00:19I'm living my life for him. That reminds me why I'm here.
00:25Bannister blames Ollie's death squarely on social media.
00:28She's one of many in Australia voicing support for an upcoming ban on platforms like Facebook and TikTok for users younger than 16, the first in the world.
00:39She says if the government can't hold platforms accountable for failing to stop the spread of harmful content, it should at least keep children from using them.
00:47I can't bear seeing another suicide and child death due to online harms.
00:54And I'm sick of the social media giants shirking responsibility because it is their platforms and the unfiltered, unchecked, I guess, content that is absolutely fueling it.
01:07But not all parents in Australia agree on banning social media outright for young teens.
01:12Zoe Jones, whose 12-year-old Ava is an online influencer, says the government should not decide how people parent their own kids.
01:20I would say that, yeah, they are protecting as best that they can.
01:27I mean, they're a platform. I'm her parent.
01:29So I guess it's my responsibility to protect her the best that I can in a manner that she's on social media.
01:36And she's not the only one who thinks the ban is a brute approach to online safety.
01:41One expert warns parents might start letting their guard down about what their kids are engaging with online and that teens will find work around.
01:48It's that young people will then go to other online spaces to connect and that those spaces aren't regulated and there may not be transparency around them.
02:00So potentially creating more risk for young people.
02:05Some young people are already looking at ways to stay on the apps or finding other ones not affected by the ban.
02:11And others, like 15-year-old Noah Jones, are taking action.
02:16He and a fellow student are suing Australia's communication authorities over the ban, calling it unconstitutional.
02:23Jones says some of his peers worry that once the rule is in place, kids will be too afraid to seek help if they find themselves in trouble online.
02:32When kids do things in secret, that's when things can be really harmful.
02:37Say they get, they experience online bullying or they experience predators, how are they going to report that to police or parents?
02:46Because they weren't supposed to be on the social media platforms in the first place.
02:51Jones says that ultimately it's the social media company's responsibility to filter out harmful content,
02:58rather than deactivate teens' accounts or block them from joining.
03:01But tech giants that run the platforms have continually struggled to monitor content safely for all users around the world.
03:09As a result, governments are left with two options.
03:13Stop platforms from collecting children's data or keep kids off them altogether.
03:18Now with just a little over a week until Australia's ban takes effect,
03:22other countries are watching to see whether it works.
03:25But for parents like Mia Bannister, who've seen the toll social media can take on kids,
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