The Australian government is set to implement the world’s strictest ban on social media for children. The law would prohibit children under the age of 16 from accessing sites like TikTok, X, and Facebook. It will be introduced to parliament in the coming weeks, but wouldn’t be implemented until next year. What’s behind it – and how could it work?

In this episode:

Tama Leaver, (@tamaleaver) Professor of Internet Studies, Curtin University

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Tamara Khandaker, Ashish Malhotra, and Sonia Bhagat with Duha Mosaad, Cole van Miltenburg, Chloe K. Li and our host, Natasha Del Toro, in for Malika Bilal. It was edited by Alexandra Locke.

The Take production team is Marcos Bartolomé, Sonia Bhagat, Spencer Cline, Sarí el-Khalili, Tamara Khandaker, Phillip Lanos, Chloe K. Li, Ashish Malhotra, Khaled Soltan, and Amy Walters. Our editorial interns are Duha Mosaad, Hagir Saleh, and Cole van Miltenburg. Our host is Malika Bilal. Our engagement producers are Adam Abou-Gad and Vienna Maglio. Aya Elmileik is lead of audience engagement.

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editor is Hisham Abu Salah. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.

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Why is Australia trying to ban social media for children?

The Take