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My frustrations on this topic have been continuing to grow, so I've decided to organise my thoughts explaining why I am against the new legislation that came into effect this week.
Posted 12/12/2025. Last updated 17/04/2026.
Note: I’ve heavily referenced the OECD report How's Life for Children in the Digital Age? (2025). It’s one of the most comprehensive reports I’ve read so far, and I highly recommend it:
How's Life for Children in the Digital Age?
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Freedom of Information requests have revealed into communications at the Office of the Australian Information Commission (OAIC) that contradict public statements made about privacy protections (Wilson, “Privacy watchdog’s concerns were raised during teen social media ban tech trial. They were ignored” 2026). It turns out, the privacy watchdog repeatedly warned about the language used and that technology included in the age verification trial had not been assessed against the requirements of the Australian Privacy Principles. These warnings were ignored.
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Early data (not enough to be conclusive yet) suggests the fears of harms caused by the ban may be materialising:
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The Australian Government has released it’s study protocol for reviewing the impacts of the social media ban and it can be accessed here: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/u5zn6_v1
Early reports suggest this protocol is fairly robust, which hopefully means we will get quality analysis in the future.
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The process has been disgraceful and lacking in sincerity or any evidence of a true commitment to protecting children. If the intent had been to protect children from online harms, the government would have consulted with experts in the field. Not only did they not, but they also did everything in their power to avoid such scrutiny.
This legislation wasn’t driven by expert advice or calls to action. It was instigated by a group (36 Months) of corporate interests who employed shady tactics to discredit experts and stand to profit from the ban (Wilson, ‘Everyone got paid’: How Wippa’s pro-teen social media ban group cashed in on its success 2025), including selling $150k sponsorship packages to gain access and influence (Wilson, ‘This is influence’: Leaked 36 Months sponsorship document reveals promises to sell access to United Nations event 2025).
When the government introduced the legislation to parliament, it did so without meaningful consultation during its development, and only allowed 24 hours for public submissions.
Human rights lawyers called the consultation a mockery of the parliamentary process (Sadler 2024). The Australian Psychological Association wrote a scathing letter explaining why it was impossible to meaningfully respond in such a short time frame, noting “the Bill’s far-reaching implications for child development, mental health, and society, and the impossibility of properly assessing such a complex issue in a single day” (Shvartsman and Menhaji 2025). Researchers from the University of Sydney declared the government had “failed to engage in appropriate consultation processes, and has failed to listen to the recommendations given to them by their own reviews”. They went on to say the proposed act “presents an intolerable risk to children’s online safety”, and that it was “motivated by parental anxieties, and not academic evidence” (Carter, Hardwick and Egliston 2024).
Even the parliament’s own Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society recommended a co-design approach to developing regulatory frameworks (Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society 2024).
Even though the government allowed only 24 hours for responses, it received over 15,000 submissions. Yet despite this overwhelming response, they forced a vote on the legislation just 4 days later, without even reading most (if not all) of the submissions (Truu 2024). The process was so rushed, the legislation was passed before a review could even be started to investigate if the technology required was feasible.