SYDNEY — For Tereza Hussein, a 14-year-old refugee who lives in Darwin, Australia’s planned social media ban would mean losing a direct line to the most important person to her: a grandmother she has never physically met.

“It’s the only way I’ve ever connected to my grandma before, over socials,” said Ms. Hussein, who was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo but lived in a refugee camp in Malawi before settling in Australia when she was nine.

“It’s going to have a very big change in my life because it’s going to be hard for me to talk to the people that I’ve left behind,” she said.

While Ms. Hussein rarely posts on social media, she uses Meta’s Instagram and Snapchat primarily to view and discuss photos and videos from family and friends.

She represents what experts say is a blind spot in a plan by Australia’s government to put an age minimum on social media in response to concerns about bullying, predatory grooming and physical and mental health.

For teenagers from migrant, LGBTQIA+ and other minority backgrounds, an age block could cut off access to essential social support.

Some 97% of Australian teenagers use social media across an average of four platforms, surveys show, making them among the world’s most connected youth.

Nearly two-thirds of parents of Australian teenagers reported concerns about their children’s social media use, according to a 2024 survey by youth service ReachOut.

Now the government wants to curb social media addiction by cutting the cord.

While the ban is yet to be legislated and at present lacks key details — such as which ages and platforms it would affect — the government’s first step is to trial age verification.

Youth advocates, however, warn the ban will cut social connections for vulnerable youth and have instead called for tech platforms to better enforce safe interactions.

“The ban is pretty much the opposite of what we would recommend,” said Amelia Johns, an associate professor of digital media at University of Technology, Sydney, who studied migrant teens’ social media use during COVID-19 lockdowns.

“Everyone is living in social media. For a lot of young people it’s not an option to opt out, and I do wonder about the mental health consequences of a complete blanket ban.”

So far, no country has rolled out an age-based ban targeting internet platforms. France and Britain have tested age verification but are yet to go live with a ban, while some US states require age verification to access restricted content.

Australia plans to introduce legislation by the end of the year. While no lower age limit has been proposed, officials have suggested around 14 to 16.

“If I lost social media it would make me feel a lot more isolated,” said Ben Kioko, a 14-year-old from Sydney who self-described as autistic and part of the LGBTQIA+ community.

“Since I struggle with mental health issues like anxiety and depression, it would make those a lot worse than they already are and could really affect my life long-term,” he added.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is a key proponent of the ban.

“Parents want their kids off their phones and on the footy field, so do I,” he said in September.

A spokesperson for Albanese didn’t respond to Reuters’ request for comment

Justine Humphry, a media researcher at University of Sydney who has published an online safety program, said while social media companies should better protect teenagers, an outright ban was based on “nostalgia” for a childhood without screens that she described as “fiction.”

Meta, which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp, declined to comment. It has said it supports protecting young users from harmful content and interactions, but an age block should be the responsibility of smartphone makers.

The company upped privacy default settings for under-18 Instagram users this September and said those under 16 need parental approval to relax settings.

Alphabet, owner of YouTube, one of the most popular platforms for teenagers, declined to comment but said in a blog post it has features to give parents oversight of their children’s use.

‘WORKAROUNDS’
Elsewhere, no attempts to enforce age restrictions have succeeded partly due to access to virtual private networks (VPNs) that hide users’ locations and personal information, experts said.

A report by former judge Robert French, commissioned by South Australia state to support its own separate plan for a teen social media ban, noted “there will undoubtedly be workarounds by knowledgeable child users.”

A 2022 age verification trial in France, which wants social media restricted to 15 and above, found nearly half the country’s teenagers could use VPNs, said Olivier Blazy, a computer scientist at Paris’s Ecole Polytechnique who worked on the project.

Antonio Cesarano, product manager for Proton VPN, said customer numbers typically surged when restrictions were introduced.

In 2021, soon after YouTube started asking users for identification to view age-restricted content, a developer using the alias ZerodyOne posted software on open source website Github that helped users bypass the restrictions.

It has been downloaded about 2.5 million times, according to data shared by ZerodyOne, who gave only his first name, David.

Sydney high school student Enie Lam, 16, said she uses a VPN to bypass her school’s wifi restrictions for school-assigned research like reading news articles online.

“I understand that using social media a lot is not a good thing and I’m working on it,” she said. “But a ban is not going to work.” — Reuters

JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities plan to inspect grocery store shelves to check compliance with a law requiring halal labels on food items from Friday, officials said, although some importers and restaurants face hurdles in complying.

The world’s biggest Muslim-majority country adopted a measure in 2014 requiring the labeling for restaurants and food products, setting an Oct. 17 deadline to ensure items are suitable for consumption under Islamic law.

While most businesses in the nation of 280 million have complied, along with some major global food producers, others say they need more time.

“They (some members) want to be part of Indonesia’s strong market for halal products, but are still encountering complex supply chains and lack of clear guidelines,” said Lydia Ruddy, managing director of the American Chamber of Commerce.

“These potentially can lead to trade disruptions and higher costs,” she told Reuters, adding that AmCham was in talks with the government on the matter.

She called for more foreign certifiers to speed inspection of products and raw materials abroad so as to help the affected AmCham members.

The law requires products or restaurants without the certification to declare they do not comply with Islamic law, a step that could hit sales.

Islamic law prohibits consumption of pork or intoxicants such as alcohol, while meat can only be eaten if the animals were slaughtered by prescribed methods.

The halal certifying body BPJPH has asked the government for a two-year waiver on some raw materials used in the food and beverages industry, as well as products of small businesses, but the president has yet to sign off, its head, Aqil Irham, said.

With Indonesia’s President-designate Prabowo Subianto set to take over from the incumbent Joko Widodo next weekend, it was not clear if such a dispensation could be issued in time.

The presidential office did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The Trade ministry deferred questions on the waiver to the BPJPH.

Authorities plan inspections on Friday to check compliance and issue a formal warning to producers of items that lack clear labels, said domestic trade official Moga Simatupang.

“We will take administrative action against noncompliance, so we urge importers to immediately register to get halal labels,” he added.

In the absence of compliance, such products will be removed from stores, he added, without setting a timeframe.

Most of the 400 members of the Indonesian Food and Beverage Industries Association have complied, but restaurants and hotels face difficulties because authorities need time to check menu offerings, said Adhi Lukman, the group’s chairman.

Conservative interpretations of Islam have gained ground in Indonesia in the past few years, ushering in major changes to the economy, across industries from entertainment to banking. — Reuters