I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven Am. The first report from E Safety on how the government's under sixteen social media ban is going has been released and the early picture is grim. Kids are getting around the ban and E safety says it's seemed no drop in cyber bullying or abuse reports and bolding children on those platforms. So is this just a messy start and the government is right in asking for more patients or is it proven that you can't simply fix platforms built to hook
young people by simply locking them out. Today Krokey Associated editor Cam Wilson on why the band isn't working and whether Australia is focusing on the wrong fix. This Tuesday, April seven, Cam, good to speak with you again three months on Safety has released data and how the under sixteen social media ban is going. So what's the verdict?
I think the first look from the government about how the teen social media ban is going is a red flashing light for the policy. The government released a report at the same time as they announced that they're investigating five of the biggest social media companies for failing to comply to their expectations with the ban. But in the report is the real story, which is that it confirmed how much circumvention there is of the ban, that is kids getting around it. About seventy percent of them said
they still had them after the ban. That is very, very widespread. Also, when you start to think about, well, hey, you know, at the end of the day, the number of kids who are being on or off is actually a kind of you know, it's a means to an end and not the end itself. There was some data from E Safety, which is the regulator who enforces it, but it's also responsible for, you know, protecting young peop
people against range of other harms. They said their number of reports about cyber buoying and image based abuse on those platforms that have been banned from teens in the age group that were meant to be banned had not changed. So we can tell from that that harms that they were hoping would be addressed by the ban so far early days have not actually changed.
A lote time ago in Ganery, the government declared the ban an early success, releasing data showing that roughly four point seven million accounts have been deactivated.
In the first week of our social media ban to four point seven million accounts were deactivated, action decommissioned. Those are incredible numbers.
They said, Was that figure accurate?
CAMP, So to give the context like this is a worldfast policy, the fact that they've done this and managed to get these tech companies to actually enforce this is an accomplishment. You know. I reported weeks before the band was set to coming in mid December that some of the companies were still quibbling about whether there were social media companies at all. So on December ten, when it came in, the ten companies that they had kind of
listed as being in the band all complied. It was, you know, a remarkable achievement to actually like land the plane in that regard. A month later, they had this data from that first week saying these companies removed four point seven million accounts or deactivated them.
Those are incredible numbers. They said. It couldn't be done, but Australia is showing just how we could do it.
But there were some early holes poked in those numbers. You know, I heard from tech company sources that many of those were not active, were duplicates. So you shouldn't look at that number as necessarily proof that all these kids have been removed. But we're seeing that despite that enormous number, there are still clearly many kids who are online.
Many of them have like multiple accounts across platforms. So you've got, you know, you've got a snaptrad account, and you've got a TikTok account, you've got a Facebook account, and they're also reportedly some kids have like deleting their account that they had used for a while and just created a new one with no real identifying information so
that they can continue to be on these platforms. The government has entered into this massive game of whack a mole where kids are actively trying to get around it, and so this number that came out was proof that they had done something, that the tech companies had done something. Now we're kind of coming to terms with the fact that that number doesn't actually necessarily directly prove that kids have substantially been taken off these platforms.
So what's the government said about the fact that this doesn't seem to be going too well at the moment.
Well, I mean, this is a comment that has always stuck in my mind before the ban had even come into effect, Anthony alb Easy said on TV the ban was already a success.
How will you be measuring the success of this?
It is a success already divid because what's happening is that parents are having this discussion with the young ones.
On the day that the ban happened, they celebrated it and I think pretty fairly it was a significant policy. And then a month afterwards they released these numbers and again reason to say this is working. But in the last week the government has now for the first time, started to acknowledge this widespread circumvention. The Communications Minister Anaka Wells,
who's charged with overseeing the policy. Their response so far has been well, now it's time to really step up and crack down on these tech companies and do a better job now of figuring out how they're actually doing ongoing compliance with this.
All of the platforms who are covered by our social media minimum age laws said that they would respect our laws and if these companies want to do business in Australia, they must obey Australian laws.
I reported last year the government was given a report that they didn't release the fourth thing to the public by a research agency that said we believe that if kids thwart the ban, they get around it, it will lead to normalization of circumvention and also we think undermine the ultimate benefits because like, if you're a teen and you are one of the people who are unlucky enough to draw the short straw and get kicked off social media and all your friends are still on there, well,
I mean, like you can think of the dynamics of that. You want to see everyone else and even if you are on there, you're going to think that it's still normal to be on there. So you know, I think this change from the government is the first step to acknowledging this problem. They say they're investigating these major companies and they're turning the screws in the companies because they want the companies to turn the screws on the kids.
The question I think is is to what extent is this ability to get around the band to thwart the certain methods that are being used, To what extent can it be fixed by changing in policy, And to what extent is it kind of intrinsic to the difficulty of trying to prove people's age online?
Coming up why met as terrible week in the US courts could impact our laws here.
As the independent regulator E Safety is actively investigating potential non compliance in relation to five platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. As Jay's world leading social media laws are not failing, but big tech is failing to obey the laws.
A safety is working on a longer term evaluation of the plan. So when it comes to what success looks like actually reducing harms, how is a safety in the government going to measure that?
So there are two ways that the government is currently looking at this, or specifically the e Safety Commissioner is looking at this. The first way is those investigations into how well the companies are enforcing it. They are working with an academic advisory board who is advising them on the best way to study it. And it's a longitudinal study that involves surveys. They're asking for medical health data. They're asking both parents and kids. They took some data
before the ban came in. Now I think they've got like five. I think they call them waves of sections where they're checking in to see, you know, how is it affecting you based on what you say, how is it affecting how you use the phone. They're asking people who are participating to install apps on their phone. So they can actually see what apps that they are using. So there is this really broader evaluation that's being done.
That's where we got this survey data saying that parents say that their kids are largely still on these platforms. Now the Communications Minister that will run a kind of legal evaluation of the war two years after it came into effect. That's part of the law and young people they're wellbeing. Use of technology is a very very complex area. I think it's good to see this scrutinized study that's
being done. It will take a while to going to get some answers, and I don't think we should be holding our breath either to be told yes, no, this has been a.
Success in breaking news out of the US. Now Meta and Google have been found guilty on all counts in a landmark trial that could shape the social media landscape. The social media cam.
Meta itself has been in serious trouble in the US this month. It's lost two major court cases, one in New Mexico and the next day another in Los Angeles. Can you tell me about those cases?
Yeah? Sure. So there were two substantial cases that came down in various US state courts. One that was around the fact that Meta Meta alone, which is the owner of Facebook, Instagram threads What's Up, had not done enough to protect young people from sexual exploitation. Warriors for the case had set up dummy youth accounts and found that they were being exposed to predators and the company wasn't doing enough to protect young users.
The jury woruld tuesday the company violated state law by failing to warn users about the dangers of IT platforms and protect children from sexual predators. Meta was ordered to pay three hundred and seventy five million dollars in damages. The company plans to appeal the decision.
There's separates a little bit more attention that was Meta and YouTube were both found to have been negligent in creating app designs that had led one specific young person to have mental health issues that contributed to her well being.
Outside the California courthouse, families celebrating the outcome of a David Versus Goliath lawsuit one twenty year old woman against two social media giants. The jury found Mata and Google liable on all accounts after she alleged that the addictive design of their platforms kept her hooked and harmed her mental health.
And this was substantial because one of the big legal protections that tech companies had in the US is that content that is served by platforms two users is not the responsibility of the platform as long as they abuided
by some other laws. But essentially, like if you say I was shown eating disorder content on Instagram and I developed an eating disorder, these companies are actually protected by a rule that says, well, we're not actually responsible for the harm that is caused by content on our platform. This lawsuit took a different route. It said, we're not talking about the actual content that is served on the platform.
We are talking about the platform's design itself, and it identified endless scroll, the algorithms that run the recommendation engines. These things, they said were leading users to harm. They caused harm in this one person's case, and this jury in California decided that yes, they were responsible for that.
She will be paid millions of dollars. And that's just one woman. But this case affects millions, if not billions, more people all of us who use social media, because inevitably the product will change to make it safer, and the verdict in this will affect hundreds of other cases.
And one thing this is substantial is we're seeing this distinction here. The distinction is not that like social media inherently is damaging. The issue is how these companies have designed their apps in a way that is linked to
their business practices that is harming users. And I think that is very important to understand because there was this little change made to Australia's teen social media ban last week to roughly coincide with this, that they narrowed the band to say we are focusing on social media companies with these apps that have features that we deem to be harmful and addictive, the same things that were found
to be harmful in this lawsuit. And why that is substantial is because meta like TikTok could actually now release versions of their app to my understanding of the law now in Australia, that could have teams back on it if they get rid of those features. We're now seeing the band narrowed to actually say social media inherently is not the wrong thing, it's actually these features. I haven't
heard anything from social media companies. I don't think that we're going to get like you know, Facebook tomorrow will drop you know Facebook Australia that is like great to use that we're not worried about all this stuff. But it is a change in the WAW that I think is substantial because I think it is a more sophisticated war that gets away from this really blunt ban and some of its unintended consequences.
So when we look at our social media ban and given what you've just said, CAM is Australia trying to solve the problem of protecting kids mainly by excluding them, while courts and others are increasingly saying the deeper problem is how these products were built in the first place. And so through the narrowing of that law, are they opening the door for Meta and other social media conglomerants to serve content to children.
Again, let me put it this way. I don't think court is going to save us, Like, if it does end up holding it up, it will be you know, a cost that metatakes on board. But these things do influence what these companies do, you know, like the way I think for justice, the way for a better you know version of these apps that in particular that Australians say, well, we want them to work this way, you know, the way to that is thinking about regulation that makes these
apps more like the way that we want them. Because companies are like Meta, like TikTok, like Snap, they also see Australian markets as a market that is valuable to them. They want to keep the users, and so that's the leverage that we have over them. There would have to be a lot for someone like to Facebook to withdraw
from the market. So we should use that leverage to say, well, if you want to serve users in our country, we expect you to work like this, and we actually think that certain features are not okay or should we change. That is a leverage that we have, and I hope that this court case gives politicians a courage to know
that there is a broad desire to do something. They've done this social media band that I think, you know, we still don't know, but I think that there is a broad desire fuel to help people and not just young people, but people of all ages to have experiences on these applications that would make them generally happier.
Cam, thanks so much for your time.
Thanks for having me.
Also in the news, Australia has locked in another month's worth of fuel as consumers and motorists browsed for higher prices. Energy Minister Chris Balen says Australia initially had supply until mid April, but that's now being secured until May, with three point seven billion leters of fuel set to arrive this month. Prime Minister Anthony Alberinezi will also travel to Southeast Asia later this week to meet with counterparts about
stabilizing each country's fuel supplies. And US President Donald Trump has rated it up pressure on Iran, threatening in an Easter Sunday social media post to target Iran's power plants and bridges if the strategic Strait of Whole Moves is not reopened. An expletive laden truth social post, President Trump stated the Iranian regime will be living in hell if the strait isn't reopened, following up by giving the deadline
of Tuesday eight pm Eastern time. Iran meanwhile has expanded attacks and golf energy infrastructure, launching drones and missile strugs on petrochemical facilities in Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. I'm Daniel James. You've been listening to seven AM. We'll be back tomorrow