Mark Riley: Staying abreast of social platforms in wake of ban will be like playing ‘whack-a-mole’

Emma Mason had world leaders in tears as she recounted how the cruel use of a “nudify” app drove her 15-year-old daughter Tilly to suicide. Another kid used the app to create a fake nude photo of Tilly and shared it with other students on the school bus. Within three hours it had been viewed by 3,000 kids online. The ridicule and bullying were relentless. Emma told the leaders it robbed her daughter of her dignity. It then robbed her of her life. Among those wiping their eyes in that meeting room during the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September was European Union President Ursula Von der Leyen. In a speech at the EU just a few days later, Von der Leyen said that parents felt powerless against “the tsunami of big tech flooding their homes” and the algorithms “that prey on children’s vulnerabilities with the explicit purpose of creating addictions”. Just two weeks ago, the EU passed a resolution declaring that children should be banned from using social media until they were 16, unless they had specific parental consent. The agreement won’t be legally binding. It is a statement of principle that would have to be given force by the member states’ individual parliaments. But it is evidence that the scourge of social media bullying is a universal problem. The heartbreaking experience of a 15-year-old girl in the NSW country community of Bathurst is now helping change the lives of younger generations around the world. Tilly’s story helped encourage Anthony Albanese and his Communications Minister, Anika Wells, to move against the social media giants. They both readily conceded this week that the under 16s social media ban that officially begins on Wednesday won’t be perfect. But Wells says: “It is worth a crack.” The big question everyone is asking is “Will it work?” We got an answer yesterday from someone who should know. And it is encouraging. Stephen Scheeler was the Australian CEO of Meta from 2013 to 2017. He told Seven’s Sunrise that there will be “a lot of noise around the edges” and that some kids will manage to slip the ban. But if a reasonable measure of success is the ban’s ability to keep underage kids in general off the platforms, then he says “it probably will work”. Scheeler says Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg would be watching developments in Australia very closely. He wouldn’t be worried about the $50 million fines for breaches. That’s barely a bee sting for the social media behemoth. It makes that sort of money every couple of hours. What Zuckerberg and the other tech titans would be worried about is that the Australian ban will soon become the norm internationally. Scheeler sees a world in which under-16-year-olds are banned or severely restricted from using social media platforms in most developed countries within just a couple of years. The tech titans see the same thing. And it scares every little byte in their bodies. Losing that young audience will cost their companies billions of dollars in advertising revenues. That is why some are already trying to get around it. As Meta began freezing underage accounts yesterday, little-known platforms Lemon8 and Yope were rocketing to numbers one and two in the App Store and Google Play download lists. Lemon8 was advertising itself on its sister platform TikTok as a ban-free alternative for under-16s who were looking for new ways of staying connected. It even boasted that it would allow users a way of cross-posting content on sites that are included in the ban. That immediately caught the eSafety Commission’s eye. Wells says the commission will continue to assess the new sites and if they do seek to get around the ban: “I won’t hesitate to act”. She and eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant have described the task of keeping up with all the new sites as like playing a game of “Whack-a-Mole”. The new sites will keep popping up. And the eSafety Commission will have to keep whacking them down. Albanese told 7News this week that he doesn’t feel any great pressure as the first national leader to take on the tech titans. He says he feels pride and that parents should feel the same. A big part of this ban’s success will be determined by how it is enforced in the home. “This is us taking back control,” Albanese says. He insists it will save lives. And it will save others from enduring the living hell Emma Mason and parents like her endure every day. Surely, that is worth doing.