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Australia is set to become the first country to implement a minimum age for social media use on Wednesday, with platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube forced to block more than a million accounts, marking the beginning of an expected global wave of regulation.

The Albanese government describes Australia’s social media age restrictions as world-leading, and it is right. Denmark, Norway, France, Italy, Spain, Malaysia and New Zealand are all considering similar laws.

Eyes around the world are watching our teenagers and their phones as Australia becomes the first country to ban under-16s from popular social media apps such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Facebook.

We can’t be sure what will happen when Australia’s social media age restrictions finally come into effect, but they have already begun to change the online media landscape.

Australia is the first country in the world to ban children from using social media, with under-16s told to log off for good, but will the new laws work as intended?

Prime Minster Anthony Albanese’s recent speech to the UK Labour Party Conference in Liverpool put trust front and centre. He argued that centre-left governments build lasting social change by delivering on their commitments and staying in office long enough to do so. “Delivering change is more difficult than demanding it,” he said. “Working within the system is tougher than railing against it.”

Disclosure, consent and platform power have become newly invigorated battlefields with the rise of AI. The issue came to the fore recently with YouTube’s controversial decision to use AI-powered tools to “unblur, denoise and improve clarity” for some of the content uploaded to the platform. This was done without the consent, or even knowledge, of the relevant content creators. Viewers of the material knew nothing of YouTube’s intervention.

What can you do in 60 seconds? In short dramas, or “micro dramas”, that’s enough time for a billionaire CEO to fall in love with his contracted wife, or for a werewolf mafia boss to break a curse. These vertically framed, minute-long serials are reshaping the way we consume screen entertainment.

YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5m to settle a lawsuit brought by United States President Donald Trump after the platform suspended his account in response to the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.

Social media giant Meta has announced new safeguards for teenagers on Instagram, using a TV-Style ratings system. The proposal would block those under the age of 18 from harmful content.