Some Australian teens ‘insulted’ by social media ban, as others praise a ‘good thing’ – live updates

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Many social media firms affected by Australia’s new rules have spent a year loudly protesting, saying the ban could actually make children less safe online, impinge on their rights and would be difficult to enforce.

“Australia is engaged in blanket censorship that will make its youth less informed, less connected, and less equipped to navigate the spaces they will be expected to understand as adults,” says Paul Taske from NetChoice, a trade group representing several big tech companies.

Meta, which began removing Australian children from its Instagram, Facebook and Threads platforms around a week ago, said that while the company was committed to its legal obligations, “we’ve consistently raised concerns about this law”.

“There’s a better way: legislation that empowers parents to approve app downloads and verify age allows families – not the government – to decide which apps teens can access,” it said in a statement.

Snapchat has claimed that “disconnecting teens from their friends and family doesn’t make them safer” and YouTube has said “rushed” new laws will mean parents “lose their ability to supervise their teen or tween’s account”.

But former Facebook Australia chief Stephen Scheeler says this new era feels like a “seat belt moment” for social media – referring to car safety innovations of the 20th Century.

Scheeler, who left the company in 2017, says that while there are “lots of good things about these platforms, but there’s just too much bad stuff.”

“Some would argue that bad regulation is worse than no regulation, and sometimes that’s true. But I think in this instance, even imperfect regulation is better than nothing, or better than what we had before,” he says.