No special treatment for Youtube in under-16s ban: eSafety Commissioner
Julie Inman Grant
Youtube should be treated the same as other social media platforms when it comes to the proposed social media ban for under 16s, according to new advice from the eSafety Commissioner.
The eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, was tasked with providing advice to Communications Minister Anika Wells in order to help finalise the Online Safety (Age Restricted Social Media Platforms) Rules 2025, which is currently in draft form.
Both the eSafety Commissioner and the Minister support the Rules being finalised by mid-year, so they can begin educating the public about which platforms will be covered, and start working with the platforms to ensure they are prepared to comply.
The Rules would seek to ban those aged under 16 from having their own social media accounts, on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok. The Albanese Government, however, had earlier flagged that Google’s video sharing platform Youtube could be classed as an ‘educational tool’ and thus be exempt from the ban – a position which was fiercely resented by Youtube’s rivals.
In her letter and advice to the Communications Minister though, eSafety Commissioner Inman Grant has flagged that giving Youtube an exemption risks complicating matters down the line, particularly when platforms evolve, new features emerge, and people’s usage habits change.
“Online services that may appear low risk today could be misused or repurposed for nefarious aims, therefore presenting a higher risk in the future,” Inman Grant detailed in her 17-page advice.
As such, Inman Grant provided five options “to make the draft Rules more capable of promoting the safety, wellbeing and digital rights of children”. She recommended the Minister prioritise option one and option two, noting that options three, four and five were only “prospective”.
Option one is to “remove Youtube from the draft Rules, and avoid naming specific services to future-proof the Rules”. The Commissioner noted that naming specific services such as Youtube in the Rules risked inconsistencies with the SMMA [social media minimum age] obligation’s intention to reduce harm to children.
Julie Inman Grant
“While Youtube has many educational and otherwise beneficial uses, eSafety is concerned that the popular use of Youtube among children coupled with reports of exposure to harmful content and the platform’s use of certain features and functionality is not consistent with the purpose of the SMMA obligation to reduce the risk of harm,” the advice said.
“Among a subset of children who had ever seen or heard potentially harmful content online, 37% reported their most recent or impactful experience with this content occurred on Youtube. Similarly, among a subset of children who had ever seen online hate, 21% reported their most recent or impactful experience of seeing online hate occurred on Youtube.
“In addition, recent findings from the Black Dog Institute showed an association between higher daily hours spent using Youtube and greater symptoms of depression, anxiety, and insomnia,” it added.
The other advice options are less dramatic in their recommended actions, and are focused around providing more clarity and criteria around definitions, implementing measures to mitigate the risks of certain design choices, features and functionality, and looking at new rules for “lower-risk, age-appropriate services that do not meet the current criteria”.
In her letter to the Minister accompanying the advice, Inman Grant said: “I trust this advice will assist in finalising the Rules and ensuring they are effective in supporting the safety, wellbeing and rights of children online.
“I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the advice and the broad evidence on which it is based.”
Inman Grant is addressing the National Press Club on Tuesday afternoon. Youtube’s owner, Google, was contacted for comment, as was the Communications Minister and Department of Communications.
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