Grattan on Friday: Albanese’s social media ban is bold reform, but it will take years to judge its real success

Among those cheering Wednesday’s start of the Albanese government’s groundbreaking ban on social media accounts for under-16s was former Liberal MP David Coleman, who lost his seat in May.

Coleman, who’d been assistant minister to Prime Minister Scott Morrison for mental health and suicide prevention, was communications spokesman under Peter Dutton. Pushed by Coleman’s advocacy, the Dutton opposition adopted the idea of a ban, which also was being pursued by the South Australian Labor government.

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas had been spurred into action by his wife, Annabel West, who’d just read Jonathan Haidt’s seminal 2024 book The Anxious Generation, documenting the devastating effect of the “great rewiring of childhood”.

The Murdoch media lent its considerable heft to the campaign for action.

The Albanese government took up the issue, and legislated a year ago.

While the current opposition seems to be looking for problems as the ban takes effect, Coleman tells The Conversation, “I’m really glad it’s happening. It’s a very significant change”. Obviously there will be implementation issues, Coleman concedes, but “a lot of kids won’t be on social media and it will strengthen the hand of parents”.

The Albanese government cops flak for not being reformist enough. Whatever the case in general, the ban goes against that narrative. This is certainly a bold move, into largely uncharted territory. It also has the government facing challenges on several fronts – and that’s apart from the High Court case that’s being brought against the ban.

An Essential poll published this week had 57% support for the ban – but only 43% of those aged 18–34 – and 22% opposed. (In July 2024, 69% were in favour.) Only 14% believed it would be effective in stopping most children using social media; 52% said it would be somewhat effective, stopping some children while others would find loopholes, and 34% said it wouldn’t be at all effective.

But what about those who are being stripped of an “entitlement”?

The ABC in an online survey of 17,000 under-16s asked whether they planned to stop using social media when the ban came in. Three-quarters of those who were social media users said they didn’t plan to stop using it when it was banned.

This should be taken with a grain of salt, given the survey was self-selecting and done ahead of the ban. Nevertheless there is certainly a youth insurgency out there.

On the ban’s first day, kids were flocking to platforms not covered by the ban. Many kids will have both the know-how and the desire to get around it. But will this insurgency diminish over time, when many younger kids who’ve never had accounts replace those who’ve lost accounts, as the latter move beyond the age limit?

Will the insurgency have any political ramifications? Obviously kids immediately affected are not current voters. Many parents will thank the government for giving them more agency in dealing with the family discussion about social media. But it’s hard to see the issue being a vote-changer, positively or negatively. Remember, penalties under the legislation fall on tech companies, not parents or young people.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant promises not to be deterred by “those isolated cases of teenage creativity” in escaping the ban. “We’re playing the long game,” she said.

Inman Grant is issuing information notes to ten major platforms, and will report publicly before Christmas “on how these age restrictions are being implemented and whether, preliminarily, we see them working”. The ten sites are Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, X (formerly twitter), Twitch and YouTube.

This will give a “baseline” for measuring ongoing compliance. Inman Grant promises to “target systemic failures after rigorous investigation”.

The short term questions around the ban will include, in particular, how willingly and successfully platforms implement it.

The more significant question goes to the long term. Some experts have opposed the ban on the grounds it will isolate young people who are disadvantaged or otherwise vulnerable. The strongest counterargument is that it will protect many young people from harm that can, at worst, lead to catastrophic outcomes.

It will take years to weigh those results, which will be the true measure of how important this reform will turn out to be.

From the government’s point of view, this week’s launch was against a nightmare background. By Wednesday the expenses controversy surrounding Communications Minister Anika Wells had spread to touch a welter of politicians.

The issue of Wells’ overuse of entitlements – all said to be within the “rules” – spread like wildfire to disclosures about both sides of politics and the Greens, with the provisions about “family reunion” yielding some eye-watering amounts funded by the taxpayer.

Awkwardly, the debate about big spending MPs comes just ahead of next week’s budget update, which will include some cuts and a message about tightening government outlays.

Albanese spent the week reminding people the rules were made during the Coalition’s time in office, after a travel controversy that forced Sussan Ley to quit the Turnbull ministry. While declining to acknowledge they need to be tightened – as they obviously do in relation to family reunions – he has a way open for that to be done.

The Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority is reviewing Wells’ spending, after her self-referral. If it makes some recommendations for bringing the guidelines closer to community expectations, the government can, and should, use that peg to alter them.

Albanese himself hasn’t escaped the entitlements firestorm. The Australian Financial Review reported that in August the prime minister held a Sydney meeting of ministers just before an upmarket Labor Party fundraiser. In a workaround, this allowed the ministers attending the fundraiser to get taxpayer funding for flights and accommodation. Then on Wednesday night this week, the same thing happened with a ministry meeting in Sydney followed by end-of-year drinks for members of Labor’s Business Forum.

This was just another example of how politicians can drive a semi-trailer through their entitlement rules. It’s not just the kids who are good at finding ways to get around things.