For all of us here who consider social media one of the great social experiments of our time on young people, then perhaps the social media ban will stand as its first true antidote.
It starts here, in Australia, today - and the world will follow like nations once followed our lead on plain tobacco packaging, gun reform, water and sun safety. How can they not follow a country who is clearly prioritizing teen safety ahead of tech profits?
The Prime Minister, our Premiers and Parliament provided the scaffolding. The Minister tabled the final rules. The Department delivered a comprehensive Age Assurance Technical Trial, demonstrating that advancing technologies can and will work.
And, I am profoundly proud that my small but mighty team at eSafety have anticipated the pushback, looked around corners, and built a regulatory framework that is sensible and workable - flexible where it should be, and firm where it must be.
We have been crystal clear with the social media companies about their responsibilities. And I have every confidence that the most powerful and innovative industry of all time has the technical capability to meet these obligations with precision - and with continuous improvement.
Tomorrow, I will issue information notices to the 10 major platforms and we will provide information to the public before Christmas on how age restrictions are being implemented. The responses to those notices will form the baseline against which we will measure compliance.
As I’ve said many times, we’re not expecting flawlessness. We’ve built in allowances for that. Enforcement will target systemic failures, after rigorous investigation and under our own terms and own time. These isolated cases of teenage creativity, circumvention, spoofing, or the other ingenious ways young people will inevitably push boundaries, will continue to fill newspaper pages but we won’t be deterred - we’re playing the long game.
We are united in giving this our very best effort. We will be led by the data and evaluate the impact of this law over time.
A few things are certain: Parents will be backed. Families can re-connect. Technology’s tethers will loosen. Australia stands as a global changemaker - firmly on the right side of history.
Finally, to riff off my favourite rock band, The Who: "The Kids Will Be Alright."
