‘No one wants it’: Sydney teens unite against social media ban

3 months ago 6

On most afternoons, best friends Lauren Callao, Charlize Carter and Ezekiela Keteku can be found hanging out after school at Blacktown’s Westpoint shopping centre. The inseparable 15-year-olds share a love for R&B music and shopping that is only eclipsed by the fun they have when they’re together.

Friends (left to right) Charlize Carter, Ezekiela Keteku and Lauren Callao at Westpoint, Blacktown.

Next Wednesday, the Tyndale Christian School girls will be among millions of children under 16 across Australia whose social media accounts will have been blocked under the social media ban.

The eSafety regulator has identified Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X, YouTube, Kick and Reddit as age-restricted platforms, and said this list will continue to be updated until December 10 when the ban kicks in.

Meta began blocking new accounts for those under 16 on Thursday, as well as revoking access to existing users, affecting some 350,000 Instagram users aged 13-15 and 150,000 Facebook users, according to government figures.

The Herald spoke to teenagers across Sydney to ask how they feel about what’s happening.

“Politicians say the ban is beneficial to us, but whenever we speak up about it, they disregard it,” Lauren says. “In Sweden, kids just need a parent’s permission [above the age of 13] – I think that’s better.”

Her friend, Charlize, agrees. “We have grown up with this. I started social media when I was 9,” she says. “No one in my grade wants it – it’s easier to communicate with others about their homework and classwork on social media.”

The Tyndale girls say they rely on social media to organise plans and socialise in their spare time, either because they live far from parks or their friends’ homes.

“I’m over half an hour away from my friends,” Charlize says, adding that the increased time at home means she is likely to draw, cook and exercise more. “I rely on social media to organise plans.”

The teenagers say that they live far from one another’s houses and local parks.

Ezekiela shared a similar sentiment: “I would say I’d go to a park – but there are no parks near me. I’ll probably watch TV and sit at home. Social media was part of my free time.”

In Lane Cove, 15-year-olds Thomas Beerworth, Maxwell Moody, Bede Duffy and Daniel Barthram say the conversation about the ban at school has shifted to how best to skirt AI age verification.

“Most people are trying not to talk about the ban and grab someone else’s ID and act 16. It’s mostly ways around it, not the ban itself,” Thomas says. “A way I heard to get in is face ID. The AI is going to be dodgy … there are also older people who look young, my older brother is 18, but he looks younger than me.”

While he understands the dangers of social media, Thomas says the government’s decision to suddenly remove it from children under 16 is excessive, as many teenagers lean on it for their friendships and communities.

(Left to right) Maxwell Moody, Daniel Barthram, Thomas Beerworth, and Bede Duffy, all 15 from Hunters Hill High School.

“I understand for certain things like TikTok, but for YouTube? We’ve gotten so used to using social media and needing it daily; removing it is pretty disastrous.

“I just don’t see a point in the ban. I don’t think social media is that damaging that it needs a ban. What’s stopping people from cyberbullying people on iMessage rather than Snapchat?”

His friend Max agrees. “It’s not eradicating the problem, it’s just shifting the problem to other groups and video games,” he says.

Thomas says that removing all social media would be “pretty disastrous”.

Young people have diverse views about the role of social media and how the ban should work, according to Tanya Notley, co-author of Young Australians’ perspectives on the social media minimum age legislation, which interviewed 86 young people aged 12-15.

“There was no meaningful consultation with young people before the policy was devised, and then it was rushed through parliament with 24 hours for submissions,” Notley says. “This runs against everything that is good policy design practice.”

For some young people, the ban will have no real effect, while for others, they could be losing years of community and curating of their social media, Notley says.

“If you can just imagine having had two or three years of creating a social media account, and what that means to the people that you’re connected to … to have all that taken away from you, it’s like losing kind of a part of you,” she says.

“To be told that’s for your own mental health and for your own wellbeing – it just flies in the face of what a lot of young people know.”

Dr Rebecca Ng, co-creator of Digital Child, a research centre dedicated to creating positive digital childhoods for all Australian children, says the ban is an opportunity to rethink how children can safely use social media with agency.

“Parents and schools are quite a powerful body of people that can advocate for children,” Ng says. “In this social media delay, we talk about removing children from social media, but we hardly talk about creating better platforms for children.”

Fourteen-year-old Marhaba Rahmani, who migrated to Australia a year ago from Afghanistan and attends Evans Intensive English Centre, has never owned a phone or been on social media.

For 14-year-old Marhaba Rahmani, who migrated to Australia a year ago from Afghanistan and attends Evans Intensive English Centre, the debate is academic as she has never owned a phone or been on social media.

“If I had a phone, I would want to be on social media, but I don’t want to be in trouble,” she says. “My parents think that if I had a phone, I would be away from study – that it’s a distraction.”

In her spare time, she says she loves to draw, cook and go to the park.

“I draw anything. Flowers, people, landscape,” she says.