Australia has enacted a world-first ban on social media for users aged under 16, causing millions of children and teenagers to lose access to their accounts.

Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Kick, Twitch and TikTok are expected to have taken steps from Wednesday to remove accounts held by users under 16 years of age in Australia, and prevent those teens from registering new accounts.

Platforms that do not comply risk fines of up to $49.5m.

There have been some teething problems with the ban’s implementation. Guardian Australia has received several reports of those under 16 passing the facial age assurance tests, but the government has flagged it is not expecting the ban will be perfect from day one.

All listed platforms apart from X had confirmed by Tuesday they would comply with the ban. The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said it had recently had a conversation with X about how it would comply, but the company had not communicated its policy to users.

Bluesky, an X alternative, announced on Tuesday it would also ban under-16s, despite eSafety assessing the platform as “low risk” due to its small user base of 50,000 in Australia.

Parents of children affected by the ban shared a spectrum of views on the policy. One parent told the Guardian their 15-year-old daughter was “very distressed” because “all her 14 to 15-year-old friends have been age verified as 18 by Snapchat”. Since she had been identified as under 16, they feared “her friends will keep using Snapchat to talk and organise social events and she will be left out”.

Others said the ban “can’t come quickly enough”. One parent said their daughter was “completely addicted” to social media and the ban “provides us with a support framework to keep her off these platforms”.

“The fact that teenagers occasionally find a way to have a drink doesn’t diminish the value of having a clear, ­national standard.”

Polling has consistently shown that two-thirds of voters support raising the minimum age for social media to 16. The opposition, including leader Sussan Ley, have recently voiced alarm about the ban, despite waving the legislation through parliament and the former Liberal leader Peter Dutton championing it.

The ban has garnered worldwide attention, with several nations indicating they will adopt a ban of their own, including Malaysia, Denmark and Norway. The European Union passed a resolution to adopt similar restrictions, while a spokesperson for the British government told Reuters it was “closely monitoring Australia’s approach to age restrictions”.

  • stickly@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I’m trying to “use my damn brain”, I want genuine research showing this as a benefit that outweighs the numerous and well documented negatives that social media causes in children and young adults (depression, social isolation, body image issues, extremist and regressive worldviews, sleep and concentration issues, and on and on…).

    If you can actually show me that it saves queer kids from oppression in a way that couldn’t be done via other methods (school programs, library funding, safe and child friendly neighborhoods, media representation, etc.) then maybe we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Otherwise this is keeping the baby by voluntarily flooding your house with sewage.

    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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      3 days ago

      If you can actually show me that it saves queer kids from oppression in a way that couldn’t be done via other methods (school programs, library funding, safe and child friendly neighborhoods, media representation, etc.) then maybe we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

      No, the onus is on you to prove your points before you assert something you potentially have no sufficient alternative for should be denied.

      Here is a place for you to start educating yourself!

      This review identified LGBTQ youths’ uses of social media to connect with like-minded peers, manage their identity, and seek support. In the few studies that considered mental health outcomes (5/26, 19%), the use of social media appeared to be beneficial to the mental health and well-being of this group [11,34,44,55,60]. In this systematic review, we identified the various important beneficial roles of social media, but the findings were limited by weaknesses in the evidence base. This information may be useful for professionals (eg, educators, clinicians, and policy makers) working with LGBTQ youth to consider the appropriate use of social media in interventions as it provides an evidence base for the role of social media in the lives of LGBTQ youths. These findings help further understand how LGBTQ youths use social media and its positive and negative impacts on their mental health and well-being. Further research is required to provide stronger evidence of how social media is used for connectivity, identity, and support and determine causal links to mental health outcomes. We recommend larger, representative, and prospective research, including intervention evaluation, to better understand the potential of social media to support the health and well-being of marginalized LGBTQ young people. It is imperative that social media is understood and its beneficial use is supported to ensure improved outcomes.

      https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9536523/

      Edit here is another

      Just as the American Academy of Pediatrics has called for rethinking the shame-based narrative of a developmentally appropriate use of social media [33] clinicians might consider both the risks and benefits that social media use can have for youth and adults. Clinicians can work closely with local community organizations and advocate for positive policy change to better support LGBTQ + youth. There is a need for more research on BIPOC LGBTQ + adolescents as the intersectionality of their identities brings nuance to the interactions on social media and the impact this has on those populations [3, 4, 13, 15, 29]. There is also a shortage of research involving LGBTQ + youth of intersectional backgrounds, including rural, racial/ethnic minority, gender minority, and neurodivergent youth. Researchers are developing new tools like the Social Media Benefits Scale (SMBS) that can be used as a clinical tool to help develop and implement a social media strategy to give a new multidimensional way for professional practitioners to develop strategies for interventions [34]. Additionally, there are increasing digital modalities to mitigate the disproportionate high rate of online victimization and suicidal risk for LGBTQ + youth. At the University of Pittsburgh, an app called Flourish is being developed through codesigning to augment schools and mental health services for LGBTQ + youth who face online victimization [35]. Other digital interventions are being designed with LGBTQ + youth feedback, and concluded that tech-based tools, such as apps and chatbots, offer immediate, non-judgmental feedback but can feel impersonal [15]. Understanding informal learning and non-clinical contexts that can help shape the mental wellbeing of LGBTQ + youth will be critical. For instance, virtual camps during the COVID-19 pandemic that celebrated the LGBTQ + identity development and supported social network development reported longitudinally reduced depressive symptoms, friendship formation, and positive changes in self-esteem [36, 37]. This is an initiative that could be specialized to outreach underserved LGBTQ + communities such as rural BIPOC adolescents.

      https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40124-024-00338-2

      Edit 2 another

      Social media can provide benefits for some youth by providing positive community and connection with others who share identities, abilities, and interests. It can provide access to important information and create a space for self-expression.9 The ability to form and maintain friendships online and develop social connections are among the positive effects of social media use for youth.18, 19 These relationships can afford opportunities to have positive interactions with more diverse peer groups than are available to them offline and can provide important social support to youth.18 The buffering effects against stress that online social support from peers may provide can be especially important for youth who are often marginalized, including racial, ethnic, and sexual and gender minorities.20, 21, 22 For example, studies have shown that social media may support the mental health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, intersex and other youths by enabling peer connection, identity development and management, and social support.23 Seven out of ten adolescent girls of color report encountering positive or identity-affirming content related to race across social media platforms.24 A majority of adolescents report that social media helps them feel more accepted (58%), like they have people who can support them through tough times (67%), like they have a place to show their creative side (71%), and more connected to what’s going on in their friends’ lives (80%).25 In addition, research suggests that social media-based and other digitally-based mental health interventions may also be helpful for some children and adolescents by promoting help-seeking behaviors and serving as a gateway to initiating mental health care.8, 26, 27, 28, 29

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK594763/#ch1.s1

      This is complicated, you can’t just take away a thing that for many vulnerable people may be a lifeline and just handwave and say “well we should be solving the problem with other methods anyways!”, these are problems now that need addressing now, your dismissal is irrelevant to the people who are isolated and who could find connection through the internet that you are advocating for denying because it isn’t the right way to solve the problem in your opinion.

      • stickly@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        something you potentially have no sufficient alternative for should be denied.

        Not having an obvious alternative ready doesn’t change the cost/benefit weight for society at large. Just because cars are the only way we have to navigate suburban sprawl doesn’t absolve them of being one of the worst modes of transport for safety, the climate, passenger efficiency, etc… We should be talking about radically restricting their use, not shrugging and trying a driver education bandaid.

        For a laugh, a scoping review of social media and adolescent risks through 2022. Sure, plenty of questions on causality, but also quantitative articles on direct impacts to physical health and harmful exposure to constant ads. In dozens of articles, just 1 (one) article finding a positive socializing impact… I’m certainly leaning towards denial by default…

        • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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          3 days ago

          For a laugh, a scoping review of social media and adolescent risks through 2022. Sure, plenty of questions on causality, but also quantitative articles on direct impacts to physical health and harmful exposure to constant ads. In dozens of articles, just 1 (one) article finding a positive socializing impact… I’m certainly leaning towards denial by default…

          Wait… why would a scoping review of risks necessarily include evidence of a positive socializing impact? It is by definition a review of risks…?

          • stickly@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Sorry, wording was unclear. Their methodology was pulling everything in pubmed on “social media” or “social network”, “health”, and “pediatrics”. Nothing particularly biasing in either direction.