I blogged about this connection a year ago, glad to see at least one article published way too late. The Murdoch papers had their own 'let them be kids' campaign with identical talking points, and Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation also contributed.
What's weird to me is that this advertising company simply lobbied directly for what they wanted both to politicians and the public. Normally as the article mentions you'd have a cover group that's the face of movement to obscure the true intentions. God Aussie journalists are crap.
A tried and true approach. Works for ABC, etc: https://youtu.be/HYIwk4qL2os
For some context: there was a Government politician (Peta Murphy) who had broad support for a ban/restrictions on gambling ads, who passed away while in office in December 2023.
Since then all that talk went away and there’s been 2 years of this social media ban.
Surely a coincidence.
[edit: not a senator, a member of the House of Reps]
David Pocock is still beating the drum on this issue.
Not a senator, a member of the federal House of Reps (she was my local member, in fact).
I do think this is all a bit of a conspiracy theory. There was support for the ban from many quarters in politics, media, parent groups etc due to widespread mental health issues among teenagers. And state governments are still doing plenty to try and mitigate problem gambling (whilst also relying heavily on taxes from gambling).
> which is the usual fare for Crikey
Just for anyone else reading this, Crikey is an extremely reputable source of original reporting and not some conspiracy rag.
I took that bit out. I only added it as an afterthought but without enough thought.
I like Crikey. I paid close attention to it right from its inception, I've known people who have written for it, I have subscribed to it at times. All I meant was it's not a mainstream outlet doing traditional reporting; it has always specialized in outsider, stir-things-up takes on issues. That's always been its reason for existing and it's a very important reason to exist.
Personally I think that sometimes it gets so wrapped up in hubris that it can be a bit holier than though and can be too willing to believe in conspiracies, because, hey, its business model is built in exposing things so it's kind-of inevitable. And I don't think it's "extremely reputable"; it's shamelessly provocative and appealing only to a particular segment of the market – that's by design.
But it's fine. I still like it and I didn't meant to trash it.
I'm a pragmatist and the Crikey story has a hanging shoe waiting to drop.
Who ultimately did fund the 36 months campaign?
If you're a skeptical fan of Crikey, like myself, perhaps you're also an eyebrow raised sometime watcher of Gruen and understand that the crowd Peter Carey once ran with don't do anything for nothing .. even the 'free' content is agency self promotion.
The money trail here runs cold in the vicinity of the sports betting lobby and there's form on their ability to run distraction not to mention the returns on 'grooming' gamblers via particular kinds of campaigns that work as well on young dumb adults as they do children.
There's been no follow up on gambling advertising and they're still free to run the kinds of ads they likely may have had to phase out if focus hadn't shifted to saving the children.
That seems a success worth paying for ... even if the receipts aren't out in the open.
hello! funnily enough I'm the journalist from Crikey who wrote the story this is based on. Cool to see Mike cover it, I' ma big fan of his work. Happy to answer any questions about it or the teen social media ban.
Thank you for pointing this connection out. It always felt a bit gross that an advertising company was leading the lobbying campaign given the industry's massive damage to teenagers mental health over the decades.
“it’s a form of regulatory capture hidden behind a silly moral panic” is a very nice summary of gambling operators pushing an under-16 ban to protect their gambling ads by shifting responsibility onto the kids not circumventing the silly ban.
This is fine though. I’m glad I can watch Game of Thrones, which is only possible because we can keep it away from kids.
Same with drinking, etc.
Ideally there were would be well moderated sites for children, but that’s not practical.
Saying “let’s move kids out of this area so we can do grown up stuff” is totally fine. It protects children while not infringing on adults freedoms.
If you were able to JUST "move the kids out of this area", that would be one thing, but we can't do it without treading on the rights of adults - especially their right to privacy and anonymity.
There are technically some implementations that will let adults prove they're adults while staying anonymous, but none of those implementations have gained serious traction with an actual government. The actual, REAL result is "you can't go online anonymously" - because governments and ad tech companies are DYING to know everything you look at and say online.
The kids are an excuse, just like they've always been.
This comment is a neat encapsulation of the hypocrisy in the “think of the children” mentality. We’ve gotta protect the kids, let’s push them around like obstacles and exclude them from society!
Meanwhile, social media is melting the brains of everyone over 45 into relitigating moon landing conspiracies. Maybe a bit less time in YouTube holes and a bit more time actually parenting would be good for both parties.
> a bit more time actually parenting
Well, "blame the parents" is as hypocritical as "think of the children". It just displaces the responsibility of excluding kids from society from the community to the parents.
Creating a safe society for everyone is one of the roles of the state/government. That is why they are granted a monopoly on violence. As you rightly say, children are members of the society and therefore they are included in that responsibility.
The Australian government should be rightly criticized for passing a law that makes being online less safe for adults. However, that doesn't mean we should dismiss the alleged aim of the law, protecting children from harmful online content. It is a real problem that deserves serious attention.
I don’t think we should pass laws just because there was allegedly a nice thought behind him. More reasonable protections have been in discussion for long before this entered the picture. That aside, you probably missed this, but the exact same government passed a law to convict children with adult sentences in the same week as this. You probably also missed that this same government which pledged to pass ready-to-go privacy laws at the start of its previous term has taken that off the table. There were plenty of other options that were already being deliberated to deal with your concerns, but this government is the one that has “dismissed” them, not critics of this reactionary theatre.
Far fetched to the extreme
‘Knife companies lobby for increased gun laws to push sales’
Bad actors can push for good things and they still be good.
Por que no los dos? Bad social media for kids _and_ ban gambling ads? Especially considering the ads are for gambling outfits legally prohibited from operating in Australia.
I want an adult "media" ban that prevents me from bieng exposed to the mindless manipulating, scheaming, grasping greed and inanities of a broken political and regulatory system. They all act like dog's, that think that because they cant see you, therefor they are invisible, which in a dog, is cute and funny.
The original title is:
> Australia's Social Media Ban Was Pushed By Ad Agency Focused On Gambling Ads It Didn’t Want Banned
Ah. That tracks. By banning children, they don't have to worry about showing ads to children. Now, if any children see ads they aren't supposed to, it's because they were violating the law.
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Stop.