Tom Elliott on 3AW interviewed our CEO, Dr Andre Oboler, on the draft legislation to ban children under 16 from social media.
Tom highlighted that the legislation does not require social media companies to check ID and questioned how it could work without that. Dr Oboler explained that no one wants social media companies to be collecting details from government issued ID of children, such a move would be very problematic. That said, it is still possible to use the Basic Online Safety Expectations, delegated legislation decided by the Minister, to require platforms to take reasonable steps to comply with the law. Doing so may require third parties, perhaps even the government, to provide a service that can verify someone’s ID and simply send a confirmation to a social media platform that a person has been verified.
Elaborating further on what was said in the interview: This would be similar to how you log in using Google to other non-Google sites, in this case Google does not give your password to those other sites, they just get it from you, check it against their own records, then simply confirm to the site that you have been authenticated. In the case of a Google login it would using provide additional details such as your name and photograph, but in the case of an age check it doesn’t need to share any of this, not even your age,. simply that a person is over age 16. The service providing this check could verify it using government ID, organisations that already know children and their age, for example schools or doctors, could provide the verification, or the government could provide it themselves.)
Dr Oboler also suggested that many under 16s, but obviously not all, would stay away from social media platforms it is unlawful for them to use. This would create space in the market for new platforms (perhaps from the same companies) that are suitable for younger people. As some move across to these platforms, others would follow. People will want to be on the platform their friends are on.
Elaborating further on what was said in the interview: These platforms might be limited to those below a certain age, they might not collect data on their users, they not engage in practice designed to keep people in front of the screen as long as possible, and they might not allow targeted advertising – or potentially any advertising. Certain kinds of content (permitted on regular social media) might not be permitted on these platforms. The number of trust and safety staff handling user complaints might be higher. There might be a role for complaints to be handled by a school if the person complaining and the person complained about are from the same school. Going to an extreme (which is probably not viable) a platform might have parents connected to a person’s account and allow others to flag content posted by the young person for their parent’s attention. There are many approaches and some would be more appropriate than others for different sorts of content and for use by people of different ages.
Tom raised the question of VPNs and whether they would allow people to circumvent any technical restrictions put in place. Dr Oboler said they would as a VPN makes redirects the traffic via another country. If someone was entering a social media platfrom from what looks like a US based address, and there is no requirement for restrictions in the US, then a platfrom might let someone in without applying the same process as they woudl for a person from Australia. Note: Platforms can block people joining from addresses associated with VPNs they know about, but they may or may not wish to do this as there are legitimate reasons for accessing social media via a VPN.
It will take time to develop safer platforms that are suitable for younger people, but doing so will make the online world safer for them, and potentially for everyone else as new models are developed that are shown to be viable and are less exploitative of social media users. The proposed law could end up driving new products that are more ethical and safer for everyone (but potentially with higher cost and less income, so lower margins for platforms). That’s not a bad thing for society. The current state of play a bit like the mining sector before environmental regulation. That change was needed, and so is this one.
Other news on this topic:
A new survey from YouGov found 77% of Australians are in support of the ban on under-16 using social media (and only 23% oppose it). This has increased since August. While the social media companies are in the media opposing the change, which will obviously cut into their business, the Australian public seems not to be buying it. In fact, it seems the opposition is backfiring, at least in Australia. Meantime, the ABC interviewed a number of young people, most of whom saw the harms and weren’t particularly opposed to the ban, though noted it may make communication between friends harder as they mostly communicate through social media e.g. with friends at other schools. Given no one is proposing SMS messages or phone calls be banned, even without dedicated social media platforms suitable for younger people, digital communications are unlikely to stop and people will still find a legal away to communicate with their friends.