John Ogilvie: Protecting Children or Controlling the Narrative?

It’s been six months since the Albanese Government introduced the social media ban for people under the age of 16. This law was sold to the public as a necessary measure to keep children safe from the dangers of social media. They told us that it would usher in a golden age where kids would go no longer be stuck on their devices and would go outside and socialise just like they did in the pre-Internet days. And of course, we were assured that this had nothing to do with protecting the legacy media or controlling the narrative online.

As it turns out, reality has a habit of disappointing the regulators.

The under-16 social media ban was introduced in December last year, after having been announced several months prior. The stated intent of the new law was to protect children from the dangers of social media use. There was particularly heavy lobbying from certain parents and family groups concerned about cyberbullying and young people’s exposure to explicit content. There was also heavy lobbying from News Corp (but we’ll get to that another time)

The ban as it currently exists requires social media companies to block under 16s and take “reasonable” steps to verify the ages of all their users.

After several months the results are in, and we can safely say the lawmakers are more than a little disappointed.

Research from the University of Newcastle indicates that 85% of under-16s are still using popular social media platforms, and more than half are still accessing these services using their own accounts. It was reported that many hadn’t even been asked to verify their age, and the ones that had often used workarounds (more on this later).

It seems that those in power were also aware that this ban was likely to be ineffective. In a recent interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said that she was “not really keen” on the ban, and that she had expected it to have limited effect (in the form it was passed). In other words, the person in charge of enforcing the ban thought that it would prove to be a failure.

One of the most fundamental problems with this sort of approach is that most regulators and politicians simply do not understand modern technology or the Internet in general. There are so many workarounds for these sorts of Internet restrictions that it would be extremely time consuming to list them all. The most common and effective workaround for region-based Internet restrictions are VPNs.

VPNs (virtual private networks), are digital tools that encrypt your Internet traffic and tunnel it through a remote server (usually in another country).

Imagine the Internet as a massive network of highways with checkpoints at certain exits. The checkpoint guards only let cars with local number plates through.

Without a VPN: You’re driving your own car with Australian plates. The guard sees where you’re really from and says “Sorry, not allowed.”

With a VPN: You drive into a secret underground garage near your house. Inside, they swap you into a different car that has foreign plates. You drive out the other side of the garage and continue on the highway. The checkpoint guard only sees the foreign plates and waves you through. Your real car stays hidden back in the garage the whole time, and the windows on the new car are tinted, so no one can see who’s actually driving.

Politicians and regulators try to hand-wave VPNs as a minor inconvenience. However, the reality is that they make enforcing region-based Internet restrictions like an under-16 social media ban almost impossible to enforce.

Not even China, with its colossal police state mass surveillance apparatus, is able to prevent its citizens from using VPNs to bypass the Great Firewall. What are the chances that the Australian Government could do any better?

And this isn’t even getting into the various other ways you could defeat region-based Internet restrictions.

To say that VPNs are easy to use would be putting it too lightly. It’s so easy to download and install a VPN, a chimpanzee could do it.

Apologies to any chimpanzees who may be reading this article.

Putting aside the monkey business for a moment, this is a serious topic. Researchers like Jonathan Haidt have spent a considerable amount of time compiling data on the negative effects of social media, particularly on children. Haidt believes that social media use at a young age is directly linked to poor health outcomes for kids (both physical and mental).

In addition to the potential negative effects on children, it’s also safe to say that the quality of political and social discourse has deteriorated considerably as more people have taken to social media since the early 2010s. All too often now, political debates are framed around someone being a bad person rather than simply having a bad idea.

However, the evidence is clear now that a blanket ban isn’t the solution. Rather than simple blanket bans, why not invest in a campaign to help parents and educators teach kids about the dangers of social media use? Why not teach kids how to use the technology responsibly? Of course, those things would require actual hard work and effort, so it’s far less attractive to bureaucrats than simple sledgehammer solutions like a ban.

Elephant in the Room

A new iPhone costs well over a thousand dollars. Even an older model will set you back around $900. How many kids under the age of sixteen have that kind of disposable income? Parents are obviously supplying their kids with these devices, and aren’t providing adequate supervision/education about the dangers of the Internet.

I’m not saying that we should be advocating for strict helicopter parenting, but personal and parental accountability has been thrown out the window in the discussion of this issue. The previously mentioned workarounds mean that kids (and everyone else for that matter) will find ways to still access social media, so government bans and restrictions can only do so much to prevent harm.

Control

It’s also worth considering that while the politicians have certainly tried to make it out that this is only about “protecting the children,” There’s strong evidence to indicate that there are ulterior motives.

Major political parties are rapidly losing control of the narrative due to the rise of alternative media, which relies heavily on the social media landscape. One Nation has gone from being a fringe political party that no serious person would be caught dead supporting, to number one in the most recent polls. This is in large part due to their effective use of social media.

This isn’t just pure speculation. There’s real world evidence which shows that governments have used the “think of the children” mantra to justify new authoritarian laws.

In a speech at the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum, Telegram founder Pavel Durov spoke about how governments often use child protection as an emotional pretext to Push for mass surveillance and control of the Internet. And he brought receipts.

He pointed to the UK government’s own submissions/arguments in a 2025 judicial review case (Wikimedia Foundation and another v Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology). In this case, Wikimedia (the company that runs Wikipedia) challenged the Online Safety Act’s“Categorisation Regulations” (specifically the thresholds for “Category 1” services, the strictest tier with extra duties on transparency, accountability, and certain content risks).

In their submission, the British government stated that the Category 1 rules had nothing to do with protecting children. Instead:

“The aim of Category 1 was to capture services that have a significant influence over public discourse.”

In other words, the British Government itself admitted that one of the primary goals of the Online Safety Act was to gain more control over online discourse.

It may be a cliche at this point, but the word “Orwellian” comes to mind.

Government Response:

The response from the government to the University of Newcastle’s research has been swift. Prime Minister Albanese gave a speech in Parliament in which, among other things, he claimed that there was a causal link between Internet algorithms and more people going to hospital for “anal tearing.”

Yes, you read that right. Our Prime Minister actually said that. Part of me wonders if the staffer who wrote his speech included that line as a prank.

As if that mental image wasn’t bad enough, Albanese has said that the University of Newcastle’s research has prompted his government to double down on the existing laws as a priority and will investigate ways to “bolster the ban” and other “online safety” laws. He said that he intends to make the laws as strong as possible so that they can stand up to any legal challenges. He also emphasised that he wants to increase the power of the eSafety Commissioner (the Australian Government’s online censorship tzar).

We should be prepared for this to inevitably involve a push for so-called ‘misinformation laws’ and even stronger age verification and identity checks. Of course, the government will be given the final say on what is and isn’t misinformation.

It’s hard to ignore the fact that Albanese is going extremely hard on the online safety issue as he and his government are still facing significant backlash for their budget and tax reforms.

Surely, he’s not using it as a way to distract from the negative reception to his fiscal policies? You make the call.

All eyes on Blue Team

It doesn’t take much speculation to see where at least two players are going to fall on this issue. Labor seems determined to crack down even harder on the Internet, and One Nation will obviously oppose any measures that could threaten their model of success.

The question now is what will the Liberal Party do?

To say that the Liberal Party is currently on thin ice would be like saying that the Iranian Navy is currently in “rough shape.” Such descriptions fail to adequately describe the crisis the organization is failing. The Party is hemorrhaging money and members (both from the lay party and even the parliamentary team). One of the most recent polls (linked above) had their primary vote at 17.5%

One of the main reasons why the Liberal Party is currently struggling is that they’re losing supporters. One of the reasons for this exodus is because many long-time members feel that the Party no longer actively champions classical liberal values, particularly when it comes to civil liberties. As I wrote in a previous piece, the Liberal Party doesn’t have a great track record in recent history when it comes to protecting digital freedom. Quite the opposite.

This issue is no exception. The vast majority of Liberal Party MPs (with a few exceptions like Bridget Archer), supported the social media ban that was introduced in December.

Now, with evidence mounting that the ban has been a failure, the Government has openly said that it’s going to crack down even harder. So, the Liberals now face a choice.

If they support the new tougher measures, this will reinforce the perception that the Party does not actually believe in defending civil liberties and is comfortable with expanding state control over the Internet and freedom of speech. Such a move would almost certainly lead to a further exodus of members, particularly young people (a demographic that the Liberal Party absolutely cannot afford to be doing worse with).

On the other hand, if the Liberals were to actually push back on any further attacks on digital freedom, it could help rebrand them as being a distinctive voice on civil liberties. A sharper response, treating the University of Newcastle’s study as evidence that the current model needs rethinking, would at least give voters something distinctive to consider.

At the risk of sounding dramatic, the Liberal Party is running out of time to make a name for itself. It’s no longer good enough to simply brand yourself as being “not as bad as the opposition.” If the Liberal Party fails to find a unique voice on the issue of civil liberties (or even worse, enthusiastically supports whatever the government comes up with) it could well and truly be the final nail in their coffin.

If there were ever a time for the Liberal Party to grow a backbone, it’s now.

John Ogilvie is a writer, commentator, and the founder of Backbone Australia, an independent media and civic action platform. This article was first published HERE.