Australia Passes World-first Law Banning Under-16s From Social Media

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (left) describes social media as “a platform for peer pressure, a driver of anxiety, a vehicle for scammers and, worst of all, a tool for online predators”.

And so, the country approves a law that will aim to do what no other government have, and many parents have tried to: stop children from using social media. The new law was drafted in response to what Albanese, says is a “clear, causal link between the rise of social media and the harm [to] the mental health of young Australians”. 

On Thursday, parliament’s upper house, the Senate, passed a bill by 34 votes to 19 banning under-16s from social media platforms.

The "Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024" bans social media platforms from allowing users under 16 years of age to access their services, threatening companies with fines of up to AU$50 million ($32 million) if they fail to comply. 

However, it contains no details about how it will work, only that the companies will be expected to take reasonable steps to ensure users are aged 16 or over. The detail will come later, through the completion of a trial of age-verification systems using biometrics and government IDs in mid-2025. Reportedly, the legislation will not exempt underage users with parental consent or those who already have active accounts.

The bill won’t come into force for another 12 months.

The said bill also does not specify to which companies the legislation would apply, though communications minister Michelle Rowland has said that Snapchat, TikTok, X, Instagram, Reddit and Facebook are likely to be part of the ban. YouTube will not be included because of its “significant” educational purpose, she said.

A YouGov survey released on Tuesday showed 77% of Australians backed the ban. Each of Australia’s eight state and territory leaders supports the ban, though Tasmania’s leader suggested it end at 14.

#Blockout2024

The growing protests against Israel’s war on Gaza have now spawned a cyberspace movement that has erupted in the past few days, targeting celebrities who are seen as being insensitive towards, or even supportive of, the death and destruction in Gaza. 

 

The campaign that took off after the Met Gala in New York, USA on May 06 has earned the names: Blockout 2024, celebrity block list and digitine. The idea is to block famous celebrities on social media networks such as Instagram, X and TikTok.

 

The Blockout 2024 is an online movement where social media users are carrying out a digital boycott of famous celebrities ranging from Hollywood actors to social media influencers for their silence on Israel’s war on Gaza, or in some cases, their purported support for the war. Various TikTok, Instagram and X users have begun circulating lists of celebrities and their businesses to block. 

 

The point of the move is to reduce the earnings the celebrities make through ads on social media platforms. I read that social media users were upset when images of the lavishly dressed celebrities surfaced online at the annual fundraiser. They pointed out that some of these celebrities had never made online statements or addressed the continuing war on Gaza, where Israel’s relentless bombardment has killed more than 35,000 people, most of them women and children. 

 

On May 07, a video surfaced of TikTok influencer Haley Kalil, lip-syncing the words “let them eat cake”, outside the Met Gala. Kalil has 9.9 million followers on her TikTok account @haleyybaylee.

 

Those infamous words, often attributed to Marie Antoinette, the queen of France during the French Revolution, have in popular imagination become synonymous with an elite so disconnected with the lives of citizens unable to find even bread that they suggest cake as an alternative. 

 

Kalil’s video stirred anger because of the backdrop of the starvation crisis in Gaza. Insufficient food has been on the rise over the seven months of war.

 

Only two days before the Met Gala, Cindy McCain, the head of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said in a news interview that northern Gaza is experiencing “full blown famine”.

 

Users online have now started calling the Blockout, the “digitine” or the digital guillotine, leaning into the French Revolution reference.

 

Besides Kalil, other celebrities on the blocklists include Israeli actor and former soldier Gal Gadot, American media personality and socialite Kim Kardashian, American actors Zendaya and Noah Schnapp, American singer Taylor Swift and British singer Harry Styles. 

 

While there have been online movements in the past to unfollow some of the celebrities that are now being blocked, experts have said blocking is more effective as a protest strategy than unfollowing.

 

The effect of unfollowing on a celebrity’s overall audience and engagement metrics is minimal, Eddy Borges-Rey, an associate professor in residence at Northwestern University in Qatar told Al Jazeera. His research work examines social media and algorithms. 

 

“Social media celebrities heavily rely on high visibility and engagement to attract and maintain advertising deals”, he said, adding that when someone unfollows a celebrity, they simply stop seeing the celebrity’s posts in their feed. 

 

The content can still indirectly show up through their search pages or algorithm-driven feeds such as the Instagram Explore page or the “For You” pages on TikTok and X. Since even non-followers view the celebrity’s content if they have not blocked the celebrity, this does not significantly hurt the celebrity’s reach. 

 

On the other hand, “if someone blocks the celebrity, they completely cut off all interaction with their content”, explained Borges-Rey. This decreases the celebrity’s audience size, leading social media algorithms to deprioritise their content. As more people block a celebrity, their posts become less visible across the platform, even to those users who have not blocked the celebrities.

 

“A reduction in visibility can lead advertisers to perceive the celebrity as less valuable, potentially cutting back on the amount they are willing to pay for ads on the celebrity’s profile, thereby directly affecting their ad revenue”, he added.

 

While the Blockout started only a few days ago and the number of people who have blocked a particular account does not show, celebrities have started to lose followers. 

 

On Saturday, NPR reported that Taylor Swift (right) lost roughly 300,000 followers on TikTok and about 50,000 followers on Instagram over the past week.

 

“They [celebrities] live off of our attention”, an X user @DrKarimWafa posted. “If they don’t have any, they cease to exert their influence”.

 

 

TikTok Creators File Their Own Suit Against Divest-or-ban Law

On May 08, I published "ByteDance File Lawsuit Against US Law Forcing TikTok’s Sale".

And now, eight US TikTok creators are suing to stop a law that would ban the app unless its Chinese parent company divests it, arguing that the measure would strip them of their livelihoods and creative outlets. 

 

The suit is similar to the company’s own challenge to the law in that it leans on First Amendment arguments, calls lawmakers’ concerns around the app speculative, and recalls that courts have blocked other methods of banning TikTok, including former President Donald Trump’s executive order and a Montana state law. 

 

But while the company’s suit details the alleged impracticality of separating TikTok from its owner ByteDance, the creators’ suit focuses squarely on how their own speech could be impacted if TikTok went away. 

 

While the court are likely to take seriously the First Amendment challenges to the law, TikTok and its creators will also need to convince them that those issues should overshadow the national security concerns lawmakers expressed in passing the bill, and any deference it might be inclined to show for a law that passed overwhelmingly through Congress.

 

The creators – including rancher Brian Firebaugh, book reviewer Talia Cadet, and college football coach Timothy Martin – claim that TikTok is distinct from other social media platforms as a vehicle for expression, meaning that there’s no equivalent platform for creators to move to. 

 

They point to its recommendation algorithm and features like its green screen or duet capability as elements that make it stand out. 

 

“These characteristics – intrinsic to the medium and derived from the system TikTok uses to curate content for each user – give TikTok a distinct culture and identity”, the lawsuit says. “Creating videos on TikTok (‘TikToks’) is thus its own form of expression, and content expressed through TikTok may convey a different meaning than content expressed elsewhere”. 

 

The complaint points out that even though all the creators participating in the lawsuit have used other platforms like Facebook and Instagram, their following on those sites is significantly lower. And, they say, they fear that an ownership change could drastically alter the experience, just like Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (now X) did for that platform. 

 

“Petitioners thus have an interest not only in creating and accessing expression through TikTok, but an interest in creating and accessing expression as curated using TikTok’s current editorial practices”, the complaint says. 

 

The case is filed on Tuesday in the federal Court of Appeals in DC, which have exclusive jurisdiction over challenges to the forced divestment law. The creators are asking the court to declare the law unconstitutional and stop it from being enforced.

 

Celtic emphatically sealed a 12th Scottish Premiership title in 13 seasons by dismantling Kilmarnock 5-0 in arguably their finest display of the season. 

 

The Glasgow side traveled to Rugby Park, where they had lost on their previous two visits, knowing a point in their penultimate league fixture would extend their top-flight dominance. And yesterday, they showed why they deserved to be crowned champions. 

 

Two goals inside the opening 12 minutes eliminated any fears of a third straight defeat in Ayrshire. The outstanding Matt O'Riley – Celtic's player of the season – had a killer back-post ball buried by Adam Idah (5), before Alistair Johnston's driven cross was tapped in by Daizen Maeda (12). By the 35th minute, it was three for the rampant visitors as Maeda turned provider for the resurgent James Forrest to convert from close range. O'Riley rocketed in a stunning fourth from the edge of the box in the 51st minute before coolly slotting away Celtic's fifth and his 18th goal of the season in the 71st minute.

 

 

62.3% of Humanity Uses Social Media

It seems that more and more people are turning to social media for connecting, researching, and communicating. And the impact is still growing!

In fact, the total population of active social media users has risen to more than 5 billion, or about 62.3 percent of humanity, according to a study published yesterday.

The number rose 5.6 percent last year, outpacing the 0.9 percent increase in the world’s population, said the report by media monitoring company Meltwater and social media agency We are Social. 

The social network with the most users was Meta’s Facebook with 2.19 billion. Meta’s Instagram was next with 1.65 billion, narrowly trailed by TikTok at 1.56 billion.

The report warns that precise numbers are hard to come by because of automated accounts or people using different identities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Wednesday, Premier League leaders Liverpool stepped up their title bid with a 4-1 rout of Chelsea.

Diogo Jota got the scoring started following a Conor Bradley assist in the twenty-third minute, and then the 20-year-old doubled the lead with his first Liverpool goal sixteen minutes later. Dominik Szoboszlai added a third after the break – 65th minute – before the Blues managed to put in their only goal six minutes after that. Then, Luis Diaz added a fourth with a close-range strike in the seventy-ninth minute. 

Liverpool head to third-placed Arsenal on Sunday for another test of their title credentials.