Australia to take teen social media ban plan global, despite Wiggles’ complaints
By Olivia Ireland
Australia will take its social media ban to New York to push world leaders to protect children online despite the Trump administration’s defence of US tech companies and attacks on digital censorship.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed on Wednesday he would hold an event in New York in September to coincide with a United Nations meeting, after the government defied threats from YouTube’s parent company to sue if the site was included in the ban.
Wiggles management lobbied against the government’s social media ban including YouTube, but were largely rejected.Credit: Marija Ercegovac
Communications Minister Anika Wells confirmed the chief executive of children’s music superstars The Wiggles, Kate Chiodo, was brought in to advocate against barring children under 16 from logging in to the platform.
“For clarity, it was the black skivvies, Wiggles Inc, Wiggles management, not individual members of our cherished national icon the Wiggles,” Wells said on Wednesday.
The prime minister added: “We’re not here to sledge the Wiggles. Let’s be very clear, my government is pro-Wiggle”.
YouTube Kids will escape the social media ban, but the main platform will be included in the ban along with sites such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X and Snapchat. The ban is set to start on December 10.
The prime minister said advocacy groups that campaigned for the ban, including 36 Months and Let Them Be Kids, would be part of the event in New York in September.
“We will continue to advocate, this is our position, it is up to other nations what they do, but I know from the discussions I have had with other leaders, that they are looking at this,” he said.
Albanese remained unfazed when asked about US President Donald Trump’s close relationship with the tech giants, confirming the social media ban had not come up in conversations between him and the president.
“I want everyone to get on board because this is not an ideological issue, this is an issue about looking after young people,” he said.
“The media bargaining code has come up in discussions with the United States. This issue has not been raised by them, but I have certainly asserted Australia’s position because we are not doing this slowly, or discreetly, we are doing this in a transparent way.”
Trump issued an executive order in January attacking social media platforms efforts to fact-check and moderate content on their websites. “Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society,” the order reads.
His administration has also taken with Australian government laws requiring social media sites to pay for news content from local publishers.
On Sunday, Albanese dismissed Google’s legal threat to Wells, telling ABC Insiders the minister would make assessments independent of threats made by social media companies.
“I say to them that social media has a social responsibility. There is no doubt that young people are being impacted adversely in their mental health by some of the engagement with social media and that is why the government has acted,” he said.
The ban passed as law in November last year, requiring tech platforms to take reasonable steps to ensure children under 16 are not using their services. YouTube received an exemption at the time after former communications minister Michelle Rowland deemed it had significant educational purposes.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant delivered formal advice to Wells in June recommending YouTube be removed from the carve out because research showed four in 10 young teenagers had been exposed to harmful content on the platform.
Wells has since accepted Inman-Grant’s advice, saying in a statement kids would be given a reprieve from the “persuasive and pervasive pull of social media”.
“We want kids to know who they are before platforms assume who they are,” she said.
YouTube Kids, which offers a restricted version of the video service with clips that are appropriate for young users, is not caught by the ban because children cannot upload videos or comment on videos among other safety restrictions. That could provide a path for other platforms to create restricted versions of their services and get similar treatment.
Under the law, platforms will face fines of up to almost $50 million for failing to take reasonable steps to prevent underage account holders from using their services.
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