the midlands and much of wales. now on bbc news, the global story: australia's social media ban. hello, i'm lucy hockings. from the bbc world service, this is the global story. today, are teens in australia about to get kicked off social media? parents across the world know this predicament. social media networks can be a huge part of teenage life, a place to speak to friends and join communities, but it's also a place where harmful content can repeatedly impact young people. so, how can we keep our teens safe on these platforms? in today's episode, australia wants to ban teens under the age of 16 from using social media networks. but will it work?

with me today is the bbc�*s cyber correspondentjoe tidy, and our australia correspondent joining us from sydney, katy watson. hi to you both. hi. joe, ithink, because i have teenagers, that social media is a bit like a runaway train in a land i've never been to, and ijust really want the train to pull over and give me a bit of a break. it is a constant topic of conversation in my house. is that because the kids want to be on there all the time? they're saying, "give me my phone" late at night, that kind of thing? the kids want to be on there all the time. that is where they're talking to their friends. that's where they're making plans, making arrangements. everything from a sports practice to meeting up, you know, to socialising — it's all happening on social media. it's no surprise, though, is it? because these platforms have become the biggest companies in the world because of how successful they are. they know how to keep us on the platform. they've got very, very specific and very sophisticated algorithms that know that if you dwell on a picture, you might like that kind

of content, let's give you more of that. they know that, for example, when you get a like, it feels good, or when you get a message, it makes you feel loved. so it's no surprise, is it, that young people, even more so than us, are addicted to social media? and what about your kids, katy? they're a bit smaller, but has it made you think about what you're going to do about social media as they grow up? well, i think i'm in the privileged situation of watching everybody with slightly older kids. my eldest is eight, and so i can see everybody else who've got, you know, early teens, panicking, and i can take a view or certainly start debating and discussing it with my partner, i think. no, none of them are on social media. they sometimes look at what i do. but really, i'm in a probably good place right now to kind of... but i've got to make decisions and i've got to have that kind of authority of what my plan is, and at the moment, i'm still formulating that one. have you formulated a strategy with yours, joe? they're small too. yeah, my eldest is ten today. i've got two others who are younger, so i'm

in the same position, really. i'm waiting to have those conversations. luckily, they're not happening yet. and my boy is obsessed with football and likes to be outside, and loves gaming. i have to restrict the gaming, but phones, social media, i'm not there yet, so any advice from you would be great. 0k! i've got lots of it, but let's have a look at what australia is proposing. this is about protecting young people, not punishing or isolating them, and letting parents know we're in their corner when it comes to supporting their children's health and wellbeing. that's australia's communications minister, michelle rowland. she says the ban is going to cover platforms like tiktok, x, facebook and instagram. not that many teens are actually on facebook, i have to say. it's about protecting young people from the harms of social media. katy, tell us a little bit more about what the australian government is saying and what they're planning. this has made huge waves in australia because of the age 16, you know, that was a seen as a high age, a big

discussion about whether, you know, that was even going to be feasible. and the main thing is that parents aren't going to be penalised, neither are any teens who slip through the net and get social media accounts, but effectively, there will be no exceptions, not even if parents agree and say that they want their kids, they're ok with their kids having a social media account, but they can't, they can't do that. but the onus will be on the companies and the platforms to come up with ways of making sure that those under—16s are kept safe. and this is the thing. at the moment, it is a legalframework. so, you know, the legislation is passing, but it's not going to be... it's not clear exactly how it's going to be implemented, and it will still have a year from the legislation passing to coming up with a solution on how it's going to work, and a year at least, that can be negotiated.

so it's a big process, and there's lots and lots of question marks about how it'll work in practice. i mean, how it's going to work was the big question i had when i heard about it, because keeping your kid off social media, if they really want to be on there, aside from actually taking the device away from them, could prove almost impossible. has the government got some suggestions about how you actually are going to stop kids from logging on? well, i think that's the thing. there's discussions about age verification. how would that work? will that mean everybody has to upload their, you know, their id, whether or not they're under 16. there's so many question marks, and the other thing is, is that messaging services, gaming sites, none of those are going to be restricted. some sites, for example, that you would access for health or education purposes, they won't be restricted. but the other question is, you know, which sites, which platforms in an industry that is moving so fast? and i spoke to one young influencer who was just like, "it'sjust a bunch

of old people who are making "up rules for young people who know far more about it." just angry old people - who are like, "oh, ban social media," but now this| is becoming a threat. does this only affects me, - not the people making this law? not at all. you're taking choices away from young people, and these are choices that they have grown up with, that they understand, that they navigate quicker and better than anyone. it's not really good for communities and stuff because some people need to have communities online. honestly, i think it's a good thing. there's a lot of really terrible influencers online, more so than good ones. joe, we're going to be talking a lot about teenagers as consumers of social media. but teenagers are also wonderful creators of content when it comes to some of these platforms as well, and that's had a big impact. yeah, i think the social networks want the kids on their platforms because often, as you say, it's vibrant, it's creative.

some of the best memes and gifs and online trends have come from very young people on these platforms. and some of the most fun that you can have on the internet is on these, on these networks, for example, tiktok, you know. some of the stuff that we saw on tiktok in the last couple of years, the joke is that it takes three or four weeks for that to eventually end up on instagram, because it does start on these platforms where kids populate, and social networks know that, and they want their creators to be young and have a long future of building content that people are going to be interested in. what's interesting as well is that if you look at what's happening in what some, including mark zuckerberg from meta, will argue is the next stage in our technological entertainment, the metaverse, so vr headsets — they've actually lowered the age. they've now lowered it to ten in america and canada. and if you go on those platforms, you know, i feel very, very old now going into some of these rooms and these experiences and horizon worlds, because they are... it's all kids there. that's where they see

the future of these platforms being. so, you can see the, kind of, the strain that the social networks and these companies are under. if they, if they somehow get rid of the children, how are they going to get them into the social networks that are going to help them create the next generation of content creators? if you speak to parents around the world, most would acknowledge that they're worried that their teenagers are spending too much time on these social media platforms, and that's concerning, particularly as we start to learn more about the impact that that is having on them. i know, joe, we spoke to you on a previous episode about the emergence of social media, and facebook was a force during your university days, and you have now, though, spent a lot of time looking at the very dark sides of the web. what are some of the things that actually do concern you when you look at what some teens are consuming? there's no denying that algorithms push people towards extremes. we now know that. we've had 20 years of social networks, and there's been so much research that's been done on it, so, for example,

if you look at, um... a macho type account, maybe you're going to be given more of that, maybe it's going to lead you down a path of, i don't know, misogyny or, you know, incel culture in some ways, particularly with young boys, we see that kind of thing. likewise with women in particular, if you look at body image type imagery, or videos or content that will push you eventually down to potential issues of body dysmorphia and issues around how you feel about how you look, and potentially eating disorders, that kind of thing. we know those issues are there, but there's lots of other things that we're still not sure about. so, for example, is there such a thing as social media addiction? is there such thing as gaming addiction? there's a lot of this discussion. a lot of these words are being bandied around right now about children being addicted. i said it earlier, didn't i, just off the cuff? but there's no real evidence to say that those are actual, real addictions. there's a gaming addiction therapy centre in the uk that was opened, and that was very controversial because scientists say actually, is it an addiction? and there are other places, other research that says that

actually social networks are really good for children because it brings them together. earlier, katy said about particularly if you're, for example, lgbt, queer or trans, you know, you need that kind of community to find your people, find your tribe. in a world now where everything in society is so atomised, you need to find your little niche~ _ social networks are superb for that. joe, there's also been a huge amount of interest here, and the bbc has done a lot of investigative work, around the sextortion scam. yeah, so that's another major danger that we know is out there. social networks are not doing enough. they cannot do enough to stop it happening. you've got teenagers, particularly young boys, in the sextortion...crimes that we are seeing, that i've reported on, where you get contacted on social media by someone who you think is a young, attractive girl about the same age as you, and then you strike up a romantic relationship and then it turns out they are extorters. they blackmail you and bribe you with...with pictures that you have sent to them. we've had absolutely

horrendous cases, for example, ofjordan demay in the us who killed himself — a 17—year—old boy. so the dangers of social media are there. some of them we know about, and there seems to be not enough happening to solve them. and some are still kind of debated about whether or not they're good or bad for you. and so, do we know, or has research been done, about what regular social media use does? because i think that'll be a lot of the concerns that parents will be expressing, just about the daily use of social media and how much time their kids are spending on social media. well, the research says that if everything else in your life is stable and good, then social media is good because it's another way to socialise, open up your world horizons, that kind of thing. but when you, when you add that into a situation where perhaps you haven't got a stable home life, oryou're being bullied at school or something like that, then it canjust compound problems and make things worse. there's no hard and fast rules that i've seen in research that says if you spend more than two

hours a day as a teenager on social networks, you're going to have mental health problems. there's nothing that concrete out there. but the thing about all of this is, you only have to ask a parent when you look at your kid absorbed in their phone for hours and hours a day, perhaps starting to feel bad about how they look, or things like that, and you feel like anecdotally it cannot be a good thing. or that it's preventing them from doing other things. yeah. the amount of time i hear parents say, "get outside! "get a ball, go and play. "get off your phone. get off your phone!" you hear it time and time again. is there an argument that teenage years should also be when teens are learning to navigate online spaces safely? so, if they get to 16 and they're in australia and they've got no experience of this, that that's a bit dangerous? that's one of the arguments that we're hearing on this, that if you're suddenly launched into the internet at the age of 16 and you haven't got much experience, would you know how to spot, for example, ai imagery?

we spoke about this recently. you know, the prevalence now of models that are artificially intelligence created. would you be aware of that kind of thing because it's something that you haven't had experience of? there was some research done by a university in the uk about chinese... notjust social media bans, but the bans of smartphones and devices at a certain sort of time of night, and they are saying that it's a good thing to take the devices away, and then you can, they can go out and they can play and it's a less sedentary lifestyle, that kind of thing, and they said that a 10% reduction in screen time means ten more minutes of playing outside, or something. so they would argue, the researchers, that that kind of experience of playing and socialising face—to—face makes up for a lack of technical knowledge, for example. are these some of the arguments, katy, that you're hearing, particularly from parents in australia? when the prime minister, anthony albanese, announced it back in september, he said, "we want people back on the footy fields," you know, out and doing things, you know, like a kind of typical childhood.

and i spoke to one expert, who said, "that's such a kind of attitude "that everybody�*s good at sport." on a personal level, my son hates football! he doesn't like... he's not into social media either, but like, there's this, you know, this expert i spoke to was like, this assumption that childhood is the same as it was when you were young, and that is... so that doesn't mean that you might not, you know, go out and enjoy a good walk, and we all know that's really good for health as well, but this idea that it's better to be in sport than it is to be online is a huge assumption that everybody is sporty and liking that. we all know that there are plenty of kids in their youth who hated being part of sport and team sports like that as well. so if you spoke anecdotally to parents, especially parents of similar age to my children, the view is, well, at least it kicks the can down the road so that when our kids go, "i want to have a social media account", we can go, "oh, the government doesn't let you." and also, everyone's on the same playing field, you know? it's a level playing field, so that it's not that some people are allowed to because their parents let

them and others don't. legally, nobody�*s allowed to, so there's a kind of initial... "ah, well, great! that's one extra tool." but then, when you dig down, and certainly i've spoken to plenty of experts, and i haven't found one tech expert who thinks it's a good thing. "we've established that there's a problem. "the australian government "is trying to provide a solution." this was the view of one online safety educator. the big reason that i am - pro—ban is because we're having conversations about it. and if the collective total. of world governments look at this as a positive move and maybe they'll do it, i and that pressure goes back towards those companies i or changes in legislation. in the us, that's also going to be a really positive thing. so, that's kirra pendergast. she heads up an online safety education company in australia. she speaks to thousands of students every week. but, joe, tell us a bit more about what the challenges are going to be in banning under—16s in this way.

how practically difficult is it going to be? well, one thing i think we should sort of bear in mind is that you have to be 13 to be on these social networks, but that doesn't stop under—13s going on right now. so the issue is, you put in a 16 age limit, how is that enforced? because at the moment, of course, you go on to a tiktok or an instagram and you just say you're 18 or 19 when you're not, very clearly, and there's no checks or balances there. literally you put your date of birth in and they say, you know, "there you go." ofcom, the office of communications here in the uk, a survey they've done says that one in five children are lying about their age to get on social networks. in fact, it's 22%, so a bit more than one in five. that goes to show that the current restrictions of 13 just simply don't work. so if you bring in a 16, or in france, they've been really, really trying to get a 15 age limit going on there, you have to then have the kind of the law in place. as katy said, the onus in australia will be

that the technology companies have to be the ones that check. how are they going to do that? well, they could use, for example, facial recognition systems where you scan your face and it has a rough guess at your age, which may or may not be accurate. what's really interesting in this is that actually the ones that i've used are really accurate. i was mucking around on tiktok a few months ago, and there's a filter that you can use to guess your age, and it got me exact and it got my wife exact. but what's funny is they're not using that. i don't think i want to use that! but if we're playing around with this tech as a filter that's made by some, you know, independent company that might make some money from it, why isn't tiktok already implementing that? and we do see that, for example, in china with their ban that they've had on gaming and online use late at night, it does make a difference, but it's not being used elsewhere. so when you bring in a ban on 16s or under, you have to then have something like that in place. also, these teenagers are so savvy when it comes

to tech, surely they're just going to get a vpn and get around it? yeah, we did see that, particularly in france with the ban there. you canjust get a vpn and you can pretend you're logging in from a different country where there is no ban. so you can get around the issues. but i think the thing to bear in mind here as well is that if you add friction — let's say you bring in the ban, but you can circumvent it with vpn, that is another step. that is another step that children will have to take to get around it, so that will knock out a certain number of people. it's whether or not you want 100% success rate. we do have one other example from south korea back in 2011. it was a while ago, obviously, but what happened there when they tried to enforce some kind of shutdown law? yeah, they decided that they wanted to stop children from playing computer games. that's online pc games, from 10pm at night till 6am. so, if you try to log on your pc and play an online game, for example roblox or minecraft

or something, then it would say, "you can't do that." they brought the ban in. it didn't work very well. it wasn't very effective. children were still finding ways around it, and the science wasn't there. they said that it was to stop gaming addiction. but again, gaming addiction is a very controversial topic. there are some scientists that say it's not really a properaddiction, it doesn't really exist. so they pulled it away. they repealed the law a few years ago. katy, what else are people who are criticising this ban saying? what are their other concerns? the main concern is that this is a very blunt tool to be used to protect children, that there needs to be much more discussion. and certainly we heard from kirra pendergast earlier — her view was that this is parenting at the speed of light, and it's notjust children that need to be educated, but parents need to be educated because they're the ones who need to get their heads around the media that's changing and understand what their children are up against.

um, and that's one of the biggest challenges. but i mean, overall, everybody seemed to kind of agree with the more education the better. um, and going into schools and having these conversations as part of everyday, you know, conversations, rather than the banning. a lot of experts i've spoken to have expressed disappointment, they were like, "we've talked about this. "we've advised the government, and yet nothing "seems to have gone through on "anything that we have suggested," you know? and they've even pointed to the fact that the un also doesn't really say ban it. it's about...the human right as to kind of educate and give access to. it's a really, really hard law to implement, i think. you know, and because it's still so much a framework, there's so many, you know, unanswered questions on this, so it's very much a headline grabber. but really getting down

to the nitty gritty, we'll see in the next year or so. so the argument against this ban would be, "well, hang on a minute. instead of blocking children "from going on to dangerous places, "make those dangerous places less dangerous." of course, that is even more onus on technology companies to do that, but it can happen. it can be done. if you look at douyin in china, for example, which is the chinese equivalent of tiktok, which is owned by the same company, bytedance — they own both tiktok around the entire world and then douyin in china. douyin is exactly the same as tiktok, but it is very, very different in terms of the content that's displayed to young people on that app. it's all about science. it's all about maths. they have big campaigns about social wellbeing and how to be a good citizen. there must be teens dancing as well. yeah! oh, there'll be a bit of that as well! but it's a very different experience. i think some people in the camp of, "this is wrong. don't ban kids. "make technology companies do more," would look at douyin as an example of that being possible. let's have a look at how tech companies are responding, because elon musk wrote

that this australia ban was back door control of the internet. how are the other platforms — you know, instagram, tiktok, snapchat — how are they reacting? they're all dead against it, as you can imagine. the main argument from them is that we need more time. that we need to talk about this properly. i think katy mentioned earlier, it is a bit of a rush — what's happening in australia is going through quite fast, and the technology companies, rightly or wrongly, are saying, "pause, slow down, let's look at the science. "let's look at the research. "let's look at the evidence that there are "harms out there for children. "let's look at whether or not the verification systems "will actually work. "how's it actually going to work?" we are seeing some interesting developments of having technology companies have youth—related apps. so you can have a kind of... you've seen, for example, you've got main youtube and then you've got kids' youtube, which is meant to be, and is, to be fair, a more moderated and protected version. so it's that, "making the swimming pool safer for children," that's the kind of argument there. we might see that rolled out more widely, where you have a kids' instagram, a kids' version of

tiktok and the others. so, katy, headlines all over the world — lots of people are talking about it, parents particularly. do people in australia think this is going to succeed? i think a lot of people are questioning whether it will really succeed, even though those for and against are thinking, like theyjust don't really understand how they could possibly...it could possibly work. so, no, i think a lot of people are wanting to wait and see exactly how this will play out. to pick up onjoe's point, so the tech companies — the onus is on them to comply, but they will face penalties of as much as 50 million australian dollars. that's about £26 million, 33 million us dollars. so if they don't comply, that's the top penalty they can get. but there will be some exemptions. if they're able to create low—risk services, more kid—friendly services, then that might, kind of, help their case. but, again, all of this

is still the detail. it is yet to be defined, but certainly there's a kind of motivation there to try and make these platforms more kid friendly. well, the whole world is watching australia on this one. katy, thank you so much. joe, good to have you with us here. thank you for watching. if you want more episodes of the global story, you can find them wherever you get your bbc podcasts from. don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. hello. the wintry weather through this weekend could well cause some significant disruption. the met office have issued amber warnings across parts of england and wales for snow and for ice too. we could see problems on the roads, the rail network, perhaps the airports, potential for power cuts as well. so do be prepared for some disruptive weather, particularly tonight into tomorrow. we've got a couple of amber

warnings, the first one for wales into the midlands for snow and ice, valid from 6pm. 9pm then a second amber warning comes into force across northern england for heavy snowfall. for the here and now, though, we're in a cold air mass. relatively quiet conditions at first, but milder air is working in from the south—west, along with these weather fronts. they're initially going to be falling as rain, quickly turning to snow as that system pushes its way northwards and eastwards. so there's the rain just lurking in the wings, pushing into the south—west of england through the middle part of the afternoon, turning to snow, certainly over the higher ground. to the north and east of that, a drier picture for much of the day. a bit of sunshine across eastern scotland, north—east england too, but feeling really chilly, just freezing across parts of eastern scotland. let's turn our attention to the afternoon, when that rain turns to snow as it pushes across wales. some snowfall for kent, london, for instance, could be up to 30cm for the highest ground in wales and the peak district, but potential for 40cm of snow across the northern pennines. so significant disruption to those higher routes,

i think, across the pennines, through this evening and overnight as well. these are the temperatures as we start sunday. still really cold for many of us, but milder in the south—west. so any snow in the south turns back to rain quickly through tomorrow morning. it's going to be really mild. blustery with rain showers in the south, but more snow continuing to pile up across the pennines, the southern uplands, could be some snow for the mourne mountains in northern ireland as well. to the north—west of that, sunshine and wintry showers. still some icy conditions on offer, but further south, very mild indeed. 12,13 degrees for some of us, southern england and wales. contrast that to just 2 or 3 across parts of scotland, so real contrast in temperature. mild air not with us for very long, gets cleared away towards the east through monday. by tuesday, the doors are open again for that arctic blast of cold air to move in right across the uk. so some really disruptive weather through the weekend. into next week, it does look a little bit drier and brighter, but temperatures still remaining on the chilly side. bye for now.

live from london, this is bbc news. the king is "deeply saddened" by the death of 31—year—old british man edward pettifer in the new orleans vehicle attack on new year's day. in the next few hours, funeral services honouring former us presidentjimmy carter will begin, following his death at age 100 last sunday. ajudge has ordered donald trump to be sentenced in his hush—money case in new york — but signals he won't send him to prison. the met office has issued weather warnings for snow and ice in various parts of the uk, which could affect travel over the weekend.

hello, i'm martine croxall. vigils are taking place in new orleans on saturday for the victims of the new year's day vehicle attack. it comes as king charles says he is deeply saddened by the death of edward pettifer, one of those killed in the attack. edward is believed to be the stepson of tiggy legge—bourke, now tiggy pettifer, who was nanny to princes william and harry. the 31—year—old british national from chelsea was among at least 1a people killed when a truck ploughed into people celebrating new year on bourbon street. our correspondent frances reed has more. palace sources have said that the king has been informed of the death of edward pettifer in new orleans, and that he is deeply saddened, and that he has been in touch with the family to share personal condolences. the bbc understands that mr pettifer was the stepson of tiggy legge—bourke.