‘Parents need help’: US Republicans back Australia’s social media ban as tech groups attack

Washington: Australia’s ban on social media for children has galvanised advocates for change in the United States, including a key Republican senator and potential Democratic presidential candidate who have backed the policy for adoption in the US.

At the same time, technology lobby groups have gone on the attack. One circulated a briefing paper that says the policy will “severely disadvantage US-based companies” and disproportionately isolate marginalised young people, including regional and LGBTQ teenagers.

Republican senator Josh Hawley, who sits on the Senate judiciary committee and is an advocate for harsher restrictions on social media, told this masthead American parents would welcome an Australia-style ban.

“I like it. I’ve supported age limits here in the US for kids on social media,” he said. “I say this as a parent … Parents need help, and they feel like they’re swimming upstream when everybody else has social media.

“My kids don’t have it, but they go over to somebody’s house and they have it – it’s difficult. An age limit for when kids can use social media would work. I think parents would welcome it.”

Hawley, who wrote a book called The Tyranny of Big Tech while in office, said he had been in contact with Australian stakeholders about the ban, but declined to say whom.

Barack Obama’s former chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel, a potential contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, also threw his support behind the Australian world-first move, comparing it to banning phones in schools or regulations to reduce teen smoking.

“No child under the age of 16 should have access to social media,” Emanuel wrote on X. “When it comes to our adolescents, it’s either going to be adults or the algorithms that raise our kids.

“TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and others are too powerful, too addictive, too alluring and too often target our young kids. Parents cannot fight Big Tech alone.”

Emanuel – who is a former mayor of Chicago and was until this year the US ambassador to Japan – has said he is “in training” for a potential 2028 presidential run.

Veteran independent senator Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with the Democrats, told this masthead: “I applaud Australia for having the courage to understand the impact that social media is having on children.”

But asked if it was something he would support for American families, Sanders said: “That’s something I’d have to think about.”

Other Democrats were also uncertain about the idea. Senator Richard Blumenthal, who also sits on the Senate judiciary committee and participated in a hearing on online safety on Wednesday (AEDT), said age verification “doesn’t really work without really intrusive and strict methods of collecting information and then storing it – which could be problematic”.

Republican senator Ted Cruz pointed this masthead to an existing bill he is backing, the Kids Off Social Media Act, which would prohibit children under 13 from creating accounts. He said that was a more appropriate age cut-off.

Members of Congress are exploring measures to protect children from online harm, including from social media, and can expect to come under intense lobbying to push them away from an Australia-style ban.

On Wednesday, the Computer and Communications Industry Association circulated a briefing paper that said Australia’s policy deployed “structurally over-broad tools” that carried serious consequences for privacy, free speech, competition and global digital trade.

“Because the Act’s model is already spreading internationally, the US has a strategic interest in shaping implementation and promoting evidence-based, trade-facilitating alternatives,” the briefing paper said.

“Without careful engagement, the [ban] may become a global precedent for discriminatory regulation of US digital services.”

The lobby group’s briefing note highlights that Australia is “actively promoting its model abroad”, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s speech to the United Nations, and says several other countries are considering a version of the policy.

“This heightens the risk that ‘minimum-age bans’ become a standard regulatory lever used to target foreign businesses, condition market access, or compel proprietary disclosures under the guise of online safety,” the group tells lawmakers.

The warning about discriminatory treatment of US companies comes as the Trump administration condemns policies it views as targeting American tech giants, including numerous Australian government initiatives.

The Australian Financial Review reported last month that US State Department deputy secretary Christopher Landau and the US Trade Representative had contacted Australian ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd to complain about new laws requiring streaming services to invest a certain percentage of earnings or spending on local content, among other matters.

The Australian ban is also shaping a debate in the British parliament about whether to copy the changes across the UK, after a former British schools minister revealed plans to put the same kind of law to parliament in Westminster.

John Nash, who was a Conservative minister from 2013 to 2017, said Britain should adopt the Australian model.

“Today, Australia is making a brave stand, banning children under 16 from social media,” he wrote in The Times of London. He noted that several European countries were also aiming to do the same, and that the European Parliament backed the idea. His conclusion: “Britain is being left behind.”

The stumbling block for Nash is Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is showing no signs of picking up the policy from his friend Albanese. There is a chance, however, that support will build among backbench MPs in Westminster, just as it did in Australia.

With David Crowe

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