UK minister visits Australia for ‘lessons’ ahead of expected British social media crackdown

The UK’s online safety minister says he has spent a week in Australia learning the “practical lessons” of the country’s under-16s social media ban amid concern that many teenagers are bypassing the law.The British government is expected to announce a social media crackdown within weeks after a public consultation that could see the UK follow in Australia’s footsteps and restrict access to social media for teens – including age limits or changes to allegedly addictive design features – by the end of this year.Kanishka Narayan spent this week in Australia meeting state and federal government ministers, school students and Australia’s online safety regulator, the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant.The debate over the social media ban in Australia has largely been focused on whether it is actually working. The eSafety commissioner’s own data suggests two-thirds of teens under 16 have remained on social media since the ban came into effect in December.Five companies – Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook – are under investigation for non-compliance with the ban.Narayan told the Guardian that Australia had been a “pioneer” in the space, and the UK would learn from its lead.“One benefit of going second is that we learn some practical implementation lessons,” he said.Narayan said if the UK government chose to limit platforms it would need to determine which ones were in and out, and what were the most effective ways of assuring ages of users.“There are practical lessons on how you might do more robust age assurance so that we can keep making sure the compliance rates are inching upwards,” he said.Inman Grant told the Australian parliament on Wednesday night there had been “poor implementation practices” from some of the social media companies, including one platform allowing users 24 attempts a day, on average, to pass facial age assurance tests.But since five of the companies were put on notice that they could face fines of up to A$49.5m for each alleged breach, she said there had been improvements.That included by requiring accounts to go under further age checks, introducing new age verifications when people try to change their date of birth, and making it easier for parents to report their teens’ accounts directly to the platform.Narayan said the practical implementation was an ongoing learning process.“There are lessons on effective age assurance and a sense that this is not a silver bullet. It is an ongoing process of improvement, both in policy and enforcement, in regulatory engagement with the companies.”He said the social media ban had a “significant impact on public norms and public conversations”.“I really appreciated the way in which Australia pioneering in this regard has meant that parents, families, carers, youth workers are all engaging in this national conversation. And that in itself, I think, has an impact,” he said.Sharing information on AI modelsThe UK and Australia signed a memorandum of understanding this week to share information between the UK AI Security Institute and Australian AI Safety Institute on the latest developments in frontier AI, and how to prevent cyber-attacks that may be facilitated by these models.It has been a strong focus for governments since Anthropic announced it could not release its frontier model, Mythos, to the public because of the threat it poses to global cybersecurity.The UK is ahead of Australia in terms of its dedicated AI Security Institute, but Narayan said it was a two-way street for sharing information.“We have a pretty deep relationship when it comes to intelligence sharing,” he said. “I think Australia already has a lot to offer the UK when it comes to intelligence collaboration.”Narayan said the information gathering about frontier models was not about trusting AI companies, and when asked whether the AI companies were seeking favourable treatment on issues such as copyright in exchange for early access, he said British regulation was “not up for sale”.“Ultimately, security is not going to be built on the foundations of trusting companies,” he said. “It’s going to be built by having internal capability in our society … Our big focus has been on shoring up British capabilities so that we are the most resilient we can be against risks.“We can’t just trust and rely on the companies.”