00:00Long before Australia's social media restrictions took effect,
00:04Sydney father of five, Danny Eladji,
00:07knew his eldest daughter's mobile phone was causing more harm than good.
00:11She constantly would say to us that if we didn't give her a phone,
00:16she'd be the only child in her grade without one.
00:19She would lose all her social connection.
00:21So we did give in and gave her that phone.
00:23Within the space of days, we saw that it ripped her away from the family life.
00:28It completely overwhelmed all her spare time.
00:33She was no longer reading like she was previously.
00:35She was no longer engaging with her siblings.
00:38She wasn't helping with dinner anymore.
00:40Every spare moment was spent attending to those pings and dings.
00:45It was enough to prompt Eladji to start a community group,
00:48Heads Up Alliance,
00:50for Australian parents delaying social media and smartphones for their children.
00:54So when the Australian government announced a landmark new policy...
00:58This is Australia showing enough is enough.
01:03Eladji was relieved.
01:05The social media laws that came into effect in December
01:08was a huge vindication for our movement
01:12because for a long time we were spreading the word through word of mouth.
01:17And, you know, some people thought that we were just being a little bit over the top,
01:22that perhaps we weren't with the times.
01:26If they weren't with the times then, they appear to be now.
01:30Across Australia, polling from Monash University found around four in five adults support the restrictions.
01:36And countries around the world have either implemented or are considering similar rules.
01:42But the rollout has been uneven,
01:44with reports of many kids finding ways around the regulations.
01:48We canvassed opinions of a range of stakeholders
01:51to assess the effect of rules like that in Australia
01:54and their impact on the social media business.
01:58We do not believe that we are within scope of the law
02:01because we are purely a messaging platform.
02:04We nonetheless are complying.
02:06It's displacing their studies,
02:07it's displacing their attention,
02:09and it's displacing their sleep.
02:10When my children are at school,
02:11they appreciate that children are less on their handheld devices.
02:15I've always been 50-50 with the restriction laws.
02:19Australia's social media regulation was a long time coming.
02:23Concerns over youth mental health were growing,
02:25and the role of social media was at the heart of it.
02:29So social media has at least three negative effects on youth.
02:33Ravi Iyer is the research director for the USC Marshall School's Neely Center
02:38and helps manage the Psychology of Technology Institute.
02:42Before that, he led teams at Facebook
02:44working to improve the societal impact of social media.
02:48We know that many youth have these negative experiences.
02:51They see things they're not ready for.
02:52They see unwanted sexual content.
02:55They see graphic content.
02:56They're contacted by strangers.
02:58Sometimes they're groomed.
02:59Then there are these displacements
03:01of all the other things that kids should be doing, right?
03:04So kids should be sleeping.
03:05They're still growing.
03:06They're developing their brains.
03:07They need to get a good night's sleep
03:09in order to do well at school the next day.
03:11And a lot of kids are using these products overnight
03:13at times when they shouldn't be.
03:15They may be using them in schools.
03:17Iyer is in good company, even among teenagers themselves.
03:22In 2022, 32% of U.S. teens said social media is mostly negative.
03:27And that share has gone up to 48%.
03:31Jennifer Park Stout is the senior vice president
03:34for global policy and platform operations at Snap,
03:37best known for its app, Snapchat.
03:40Do you share some of the concerns about social media
03:43apart from messaging,
03:44which is what you identify Snapchat as primarily being?
03:47Look, I think this is a really complicated topic
03:50and one that can't be solved
03:53by just quick fixes or blanket bans.
03:56I think individual choice and parent choice
03:59plays a big role in how young people
04:02should be spending time on social media and technology.
04:05Even though Snap is primarily a messaging platform,
04:09of course, there are a number of choices out there
04:11for young people to be on platforms
04:13where they're consuming content
04:15or they may be interacting with strangers.
04:18That's not what Snapchat is about.
04:20Snapchat really is a messaging platform
04:21where we've built in a tremendous amount of protections
04:24to make sure that the experience they have is safe
04:27and that they're connecting with people
04:29that they actually know.
04:30Is there research that you think is reliable
04:33to really give us a sense
04:34about what the risk might be or not be,
04:36whether it's social media generally
04:37or something more specifically?
04:39Yeah, I think the research is mixed.
04:41There's no research yet that has come out
04:44that can give really any indication
04:46that bans are the right approach
04:48when dealing with teenage well-being and mental health.
04:52However, I think it was the Journal
04:54of American Medical Association that came out recently
04:57that said that, you know, complete removal
05:00of social media for young people
05:03as well as excessive use,
05:05neither are healthy for experiences for teens.
05:08But somewhere around the middle, the sweet spot,
05:11that's what actually can help young people.
05:14It makes them feel connected.
05:15It makes them feel like they belong to a community.
05:19Australia acted decisively
05:21in curbing youth access to social media.
05:24Shortly after the rules went into effect,
05:26close to 5 million accounts
05:28across 10 different platforms were removed
05:31and new users have been barred from signing up.
05:34But that doesn't mean the rollout
05:36has been a sweeping success.
05:38Perhaps unsurprisingly,
05:39over the last three months,
05:40we've heard overwhelmingly
05:42that children have managed to find a way
05:44back onto the platforms,
05:46have not had many obstacles
05:49placed in their path whatsoever.
05:51People can just log in under a new account.
05:54So this is now where we're looking to our government
05:57and to our regulators
05:58to wield the stick
06:01that is written in the legislation itself
06:03of significant fines
06:05for those platforms who don't comply.
06:07That's also the concern for Paul Litherland,
06:10a former police officer
06:12and prominent e-safety advocate in Australia
06:14who founded Surf Online Safe.
06:17He expects the wave of kids
06:19trying to circumvent the restrictions
06:21to be largely confined to those
06:22that have had existing accounts removed.
06:25He believes the trend will die down
06:27in coming years,
06:28but is calling for more compliance
06:30from social media networks.
06:32My concern is once again,
06:35time and time again,
06:36we've seen the networks fail
06:37in regards to response
06:39from government requests
06:40and from legislative changes.
06:42So my main concern was the fact
06:46that the networks probably wouldn't respond.
06:48And as an example,
06:49within our legislation,
06:50there's two words.
06:52The networks must take reasonable steps
06:54to remove or to stop kids
06:56from joining under that age.
06:57So my concern is with their determination
07:00or their interpretation of reasonable steps.
07:03We have worked very hard to meet compliance.
07:06So what that means in practical terms
07:09is that we have worked very hard
07:11to quickly identify the population
07:14of users in Australia
07:15that are under the age of 16
07:17that we had to immediately remove
07:20from our platform.
07:21That's quite a complicated task
07:23in a world where age verification
07:25and age assurance technologies
07:27do not exist in a foolproof way.
07:30We and our operations team
07:32worked very hard to quickly identify
07:35those that were under the age of 16
07:37as well as those that we may have inferred
07:41to be under the age of 16.
07:42And by that,
07:43we then remove those users
07:45from our platform
07:46and are continuing to work
07:48to verify the ages of these users
07:51to make sure that they are not
07:53on our platform.
07:54As you describe it,
07:55it is a complicated process
07:56that you have to go through.
07:58But as you've gone through it,
08:00is that a material portion
08:01of your clients or customers in Australia?
08:05I wouldn't say that
08:06it's a material portion, right?
08:08It's those that are on the platform
08:11between the ages of 13 and 15.
08:13So we've been public about those figures.
08:16It's over 400,000 people
08:18that fall in that age category
08:20that we have removed from Snapchat.
08:24And how many users do you have
08:26in Australia overall?
08:27We have roughly 8 million
08:30daily active users in Australia.
08:33For social media companies,
08:35teenagers are an important demographic.
08:37Late last year,
08:39the Washington Post reported
08:40on internal memos
08:41from the head of Instagram,
08:43telling its teams in 2024
08:45to be, quote,
08:46laser focused on teens.
08:49If we had age limits around the world,
08:52along the lines of what Australia has done,
08:53how materially would it affect
08:55the bottom line
08:56of the social media companies?
08:57So, you know,
08:59social media companies will say
09:00that they don't monetize youth
09:01that much now,
09:03which is, you know,
09:04I would think is true.
09:06I don't know 100%.
09:07But I think what would happen
09:08is that over time,
09:10people would get less in the habit
09:11because you could develop
09:12these habits younger.
09:14And so there'd be less in the habit
09:15of using social media
09:16as they get older.
09:17You'd have fewer of these network effects.
09:19So I think over the long term,
09:21it would be detrimental
09:22to the growth of these platforms.
09:23Now, these companies
09:24are wildly profitable.
09:25They could have amazing businesses
09:27not doing these things.
09:28So in the grand scheme of things,
09:30these companies would do fine.
09:31They'd be wildly profitable.
09:33But they wouldn't be the growth engines
09:34that drive their stock price.
09:36And so they would just have to be
09:37like regularly profitable companies
09:39as opposed to the super profitable companies
09:42that they are today.
09:43Does it have a substantial effect
09:45on your revenue on advertising?
09:48You know, we're not focused on revenue
09:50or advertisers when it comes
09:52to the safety and well-being
09:53of young people.
09:54And we understand
09:55that they're a very sensitive cohort.
09:57And so we care more about
09:59their experience online,
10:00all of the safety protections
10:03and measures we put in place
10:04to ensure that when they are on Snapchat,
10:07those that are eligible
10:08to be on Snapchat,
10:09that they have the safest
10:11and most positive experience
10:12they can have.
10:14Society has long taken steps
10:16to restrict the activities of youth,
10:18be it watching movies,
10:19drinking, or the right to vote.
10:22Social media may just be
10:24the latest extension of that.
10:26It's important we give that analogy
10:28in regards to alcohol and driving.
10:30There's education there.
10:32There's rules around the release
10:34of these products to kids and to humans.
10:37That's what I've been really frustrated
10:39and why I left the police,
10:41because there were no rules.
10:43Everything in our physical world has rules.
10:46Look at a car manufacturer.
10:48You can't release a car into Australia
10:50unless it's a five-star rated,
10:53unless it's got airbags,
10:55brakes, we need brakes, okay?
10:57So, but social media,
10:58we haven't had that.
11:01Parents like Danny Eladji
11:02hope Australia's social media restrictions
11:05are a step toward doing just that.
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