Should we ban social media for under-16s, or should parents step up? Online safety experts are divided

In a matter of months, children under the age of 16 in Australia will be banned from social media, with the federal government confirming this week that YouTube would be included in the tough new laws coming into effect in December.

The laws passed late last year following a concerted effort by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who was reacting to a campaign by parents and interest groups, including 36 months, which is led by radio host Michael 'Wippa' Wipfli.

But while many Aussies are in favour of the new age limits, which will be the toughest in the world, not even our leading cyber safety experts can agree if they will work.

So should it be up to the government to police what children do on social media or should it be up to parents, who, according to some, are just not doing their jobs?

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Susan McLean is a former Victorian Police officer of 27 years who now runs CyberSafety Solutions. She delivers cyber safety talks at schools, both for students and parents.

She believes parents are failing in their responsibility when it comes to their children's use of social media.

"If your kid is spending seven hours a day in their room on a smartphone, that is not my problem, or [anyone else's] problem but yours," she said.

McLean also had a scathing view of the federal government's new laws that will lift the age children can access some social media platforms from 13 to 16, labelling them 'rubbish'.

"They are ill-conceived and delusional," McLean said, "It's not going to work."

McLean said with figures showing 86 per cent of children under the age of 13 were already using social media with their parents' backing, there was no reason to think they would not help them skirt the new laws.

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Instead, she believes the government should have stuck to the existing age limit of 13 and helped educate parents about how to make social media safer for their children.

"I am not saying that at 13 the internet is all sunshine and happiness, but you would be better off working with the platforms than this whack-a-mole approach."

McLean said the answer was not to "lock children away until they are 21" but empower them, and criticised parents who shirk their responsibilities.

"I am speaking to parents who can't wait for the new laws to come in [because] they want Mr Albanese to say no to their kids."

Instead, she said "if you don't want your kid to have a smartphone, don't give it to them".

McLean's view could not be any different to that of another cyber safety expert Kirra Pendergast, who runs CTRL SHFT Global.

She believes the "parent shaming" needs to end.

"It's not parents' fault. Parents can't compete with trillion-dollar companies. These apps are killing kids," she said.

While she at first thought the ban was a mistake and spoke out against it, she has since reversed her view.

"It's giving parents an important back-up. It's helping them have a conversation with their children and say, 'Look, darling, I can't let you have it because it's against the law'," she says.

"Yes, it is going to be difficult to wind back children who already had access to social media, but for parents of primary school-age children they can turn around and say, 'It's illegal, you can't have it until you're 16'.

"It's about protecting that next generation of young people coming through. If you start with this you can sort of buy some time.

"Yes, it will be difficult to police, but it will delay young children seeing porn every five minutes because of an algorithm."

McLean agreed social media platforms could definitely do more when it comes to algorithms, "so they child can control what they see and what they engage with".

But she believes parents are failing in their responsibilities.

"I speak to hundreds and sometimes thousands of parents a week and I will say to them, 'Do you know about these changes last week or this new parental control?' and most say 'No'."

McLean was recently asked by Snapchat to speak on new research it commissioned that found 57 per cent of Australian parents were not using online safety parental controls on apps and online platforms.

This was despite 82 per cent revealing they were aware of the controls designed to help keep young people safe.

The survey of 1007 Australian parents of children aged 17 and younger found that of those who did use controls, parents of teens were far less likely to use them than those whose children were aged five to 12 (65 per cent compared with 76 per cent). 

Snapchat said its in-app hub Family Centre allowed parents to see who their teens were interacting with, set content controls, share locations and confidentially report concerns.

Earlier this month, Snapchat announced a collaboration with the Australian Federal Police-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCE) on a new educational initiative to help protect teens from online grooming and 'sextortion' – the act of deceiving someone into sharing a sexual image of themselves and then blackmailing them for more images or money by threatening to share them publicly.

McLean said Meta – owners of Facebook and Instagram – last year launched its teen accounts to automatically implement privacy and safety features to provide a safer online experience for users under the age of 18.

While she said social media providers could do more, parents need to educate themselves about keeping their children safe online.

She said the eSafety Commissioner's website was one good source of information.

"The more that you know, the more you educate yourself, the safer your kids will be," she said.

"The answer is to help parents to do better and empower parents to understand social media and know what their children are doing, and empower children to understand the dangers."

What is the social media ban?

The federal government introduced the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 legislation to enforce a minimum age of 16 for social media use in Australia.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it would address the harm social media was doing to children.

"We want Australian children to have a childhood, and we want parents to know the government is in their corner," he said at the time.

"This is a landmark reform. We know some kids will find workarounds, but we're sending a message to social media companies to clean up their act."

The Online Safety (Age-Restricted Social Media Platforms) Rules 2025 was tabled this week and followed advice from the eSafety Commissioner.

It included a new definition of age-restricted social media platforms and aimed to set out the social media platforms that would be banned and those that would be exempt.

Among those included in the ban are Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, X and as of this week, YouTube.

Digital platforms will face fines of up to $49.5 million for failing to stop age-restricted account holders from accessing their services when the changes come into effect in December.

Mr Albanese said this week there was "no doubt that Australian kids are being negatively impacted by online platforms, so I'm calling time on it".

"Social media is doing social harm to our children, and I want Australian parents to know that we have their backs."

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