Greg Attwells, director of the 36 Months campaign that led to legislation restricting children under 16 from setting up social media accounts, explains why YouTube should not be included and the likes of Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat should.
Australian legislation to raise the legal age teenagers can set up social media accounts has received wide community support, particularly from parents, but there is one aspect that has caused controversy.
The Albanese Government has proposed lifting age restrictions on using Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat from 13 to 16, but exempted YouTube on the grounds that the app is primarily used for education and entertainment.
This caused uproar from the social media companies impacted, who argued that YouTube shares similar features and also uses algorithms to recommend content, which could potentially surface harmful content to young people.
Nonetheless, the Government has a powerful ally that has backed the YouTube carve out from the new legislation.
36 Months led a successful national campaign to raise the minimum age of social media, and campaign director Greg Attwells argues YouTube doesn’t meet the criteria of rival platforms to fall foul of the new rules.
“The reality is that YouTube is primarily an education and an entertainment platform,” he told a packed Hemingways session at the Cairns Crocodiles, Presented by Pinterest.
“Teachers use it so much in classes to teach and show things and all that sort of stuff. It is also a vehicle for entertainment… and we felt that YouTube was being mostly used in ways that are really beneficial and really good.”
Another key difference about YouTube and its rivals is that it has become the “second largest search engine in the world” and teenagers don’t need a YouTube account to use it.
Nonetheless, Attwells admits that certain features, such as YouTube Shorts, is similar to the “infinite scrolling” of apps like TikTok, and understands why the decision may be perceived by some as contentious.
“There might be aspects of the YouTube ecosystem that are similar to some of the apps that have been included, but we’re not trying to be the Fun Police,” he explained. “We’re not trying to stop kids from having access to the internet, communicating with their friends, or getting access to entertainment or educational resources.”
Three strikes and you’re out
In assessing which apps should be subject to age restrictions, 36 Months considered three factors:
- Does the app contain a gamified online interaction that makes using the service highly addictive.
- Does it feature an algorithm that targets vulnerabilities and feeds unhealthy sessions.
- Is there the ability to share and receive commentary on an open social network.
Online safety experts have previously called for social media age regulation to focus on features, rather than platforms.
Professor Amanda Third, who co-authored the report, ‘Consultations with young people to inform the eSafety Commissioner’s Engagement Strategy for Young People’ in 2021, has previously told B&T that the discussion should focus on which features are good or potentially harmful and that social media companies should be incentivised to adopt a ‘safety by design’ approach that would protect children from online harm.
Social media companies Meta, TikTok and Snapchat argue YouTube’s exemption is ‘anti-competitive’, ‘illogical’ and ‘unfair’.
They said that YouTube has features that are addictive, increase time on platform and potentially expose young people to “significant risks” of being exposed to harmful content. They have also questioned how much YouTube is being used by teenagers to access educational information.
The new legislation—when it comes into force in December—will see under 16 year-olds who currently hold social media accounts kicked off.
Attwells accepts there will be technical challenges in policing the new rules and awkward conversations between parents and their children.
“The process of letting the platform know your age will not be putting your date of birth…it is going to be a lot stronger than what it is now, and harder to fudge,” he said.
“Will some kids find their way around it? Probably, but you’re not allowed to drink until you’re 18 and there’s still kids down at the park on a Saturday night guzzling wine from a goon bag or something like that.
“I think what it does, it gives a lot of parents air cover to be able to say, ‘look, sorry mate, it’s against the law until you turn 16. It might not be perfect and it might not stop every kid from finding their way on there, but even if it’s 60 per cent, it’s still a lot better than what it is now.”
Using AI to fix the ecosystem
36 Months was co-founded by radio personality Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli and Finch CEO Rob Galluzzo with the aim to raise the minimum age of social media and set a blueprint that could be replicated elsewhere.
The campaign has been widely successful, picking up a gold crocodile in PR, with Supermassive, at this year’s Cairns Crocodiles Awards.
It earned 3,270 media stories around the world, with 2.3 billion impressions and worth $22 million in advertising value equivalency.
The campaign received 138,000 signatories, the “mum army”, and has been pivotal in not only raising awareness, but lobbying politicians and gaining bipartisan support for the issue in Parliament.
Attwells said 36 Months is now focused on providing a blueprint for like-minded Governments who are also exploring raising the age in countries including the UK and New Zealand.
The next phase of the 36 Months mission is to rebuild the ecosystem around adolescence, working out where are the points of failure for teenagers and what can be done to improve the system.
An example is how schools and parents can work together to improve the wellbeing of children.
“Whatever’s going on for a teenager is going to manifest itself in school. A school’s duty of care used to be between 8am and 3pm while kids were on site, but these days that’s been blown up, and student wellbeing is now a 24/7 issue for school leaders,” he said.
“There’s a lot of friction between parents and principals, because stuff is happening late at night in teenagers’ bedrooms on social media.
“So one of the things that we’re doing is building an AI-powered wellbeing intelligent system for schools that helps principals track, monitor and gauge student wellbeing across their ecosystem, just like they do academic performance.”
