Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner: Keep kids away from social media until they are ready

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Interview
Episode: Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner: Keep kids away from social media until they are ready
Host: BBC World Service (Helena Merriman interviewing Julie Inman Grant)
Release Date: February 4, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into Australia’s pioneering move to ban social media access for those under 16, featuring Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant. The conversation explores the regulatory landscape, the rationale and mechanics behind the ban, industry pushback, anticipated outcomes, as well as personal challenges faced by the Commissioner. Drawing on Julie’s extensive experience in the tech sector and her regulatory role, the interview critically examines the effectiveness, criticisms, and global ramifications of implementing such a sweeping digital policy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Social Media Ban: Background and Rationale

• Julie Inman Grant’s Role & Background: Former Microsoft, Twitter, and Adobe executive turned regulator (01:37).

• Scale of the Challenge: First-ever national ban on under-16s’ social media access; facing resistance from the world's most influential tech companies.

• Global Movement: Other countries are considering similar measures, anticipating a "network effect" of new norms (02:28, 05:39).

  “We're coming up against technology companies that are richer and more powerful than many nation states and they're not going to be regulated without a fight.”
  — Julie Inman Grant (02:28)

2. Implementation & Compliance

• Five-Step Implementation Plan (03:29)

  • Step 1: Deactivation of under-16 accounts (the “low hanging fruit”).
  • Step 2: Preventing recidivism—stopping kids from rejoining with new accounts.
  • Additional measures: User reporting, appeals, and ongoing impact assessment.
  • Emphasis on gradual, sustained change: “We are playing the long game here.”

  “The second part is going to be much harder for them ... preventing a range of different forms of circumvention.”
  — Julie Inman Grant (03:40)

• Initial Outcomes

  • 4.7 million accounts closed in first two days—a figure exceeding expectations (04:17).
  • Julie emphasizes this is just a starting point; enforcement and recidivism prevention are ongoing challenges.

• Industry Resistance

  • Tech companies see this as a threat to their business model targeting “tweens” for lifelong engagement (05:39).
  • Reluctance to comply, protecting lucrative user pipelines.

3. Unintended Consequences & Ongoing Evaluation

• Migration to Untargeted Platforms

  • Some young users shifted to platforms not covered by the ban (Lemonade, Bigo Live, Yubo, Capcut), but usage “spikes” did not persist (07:10).
  • Critical mass and network effects still reside with mainstream platforms.

• Defining and Measuring Success

  • Academic advisory group studying impacts: Sleep, mental health, academic performance, alternative online harms (08:51).
  • Need for a holistic, parental approach akin to water safety, with ongoing digital literacy education.
  • Long-term goal: Changing generational norms around online presence and digital identity formation (12:26).

  “If we can delay their entry into social media for three years and we can supplement that with digital action plans so that we're building their critical reasoning skills and resilience, then that's something that I think is worth exploring.”
  — Julie Inman Grant (11:23)

4. Personal Reflections, Public Critique & Enforcement Challenges

• Julie’s Position Shift

  • Was not originally in favor: Previously likened social media to an ocean needing safe swimming areas; now touts a “delay,” not a ban (08:16, 10:11).
  • She now recognizes the “circuit breaker” value for both kids and parents after years of incremental change failed to shift Big Tech’s design priorities.

• Criticisms of Policymaking

  • Acknowledgement of generational disconnect: “Old people making rules for young people” (13:28).
  • Direct youth engagement sought; mixed reactions among teens, including within her own family (13:36).

• Enforcement & Accountability

  • Ongoing investigations into major platforms, especially Snapchat due to “anomalies and weaknesses” allowing underage circumvention (14:43).
  • Companies still motivated “kicking and screaming” to comply; fines coming but require solid legal evidence (14:43–15:51).

  “I've got 10 complex investigations going into the biggest companies in the world… I will have to prove in a court of law and I'll have to build evidence that these companies are not following the reasonable steps.” — Julie Inman Grant (14:43)

5. International & Political Fallout

• Online Abuse & Political Pressure

  • Inman Grant regularly receives online abuse, even death threats, in the wake of high-profile conflicts with industry leaders like Elon Musk (18:48).
  • US political backlash: Summoned to testify before Congress, threatened with contempt (19:50).
  • Clarifies distinction between regulation affecting Australians vs. Americans, citing a cautionary tale of violent content’s global propagation (20:05).

  “I get regular death threats. Of course, a lot of these companies have deep pockets. You know, they lawyer up, which is their democratic right. But... you have to have a certain degree of resilience. The people with the most to lose here... are the companies themselves.”
  — Julie Inman Grant (19:09)

  “When terrorist violent content is so openly available to young children, it normalizes, it desensitizes, and it sometimes radicalizes. At some point you have to take a stand.”
  — Julie Inman Grant (21:03)

• Global Policy Implications

  • Advocates international cooperation (Australia, UK, EU) to create safer online environments (21:37).
  • Notes the convergence of social, gaming, and AI platforms; future regulation will need to adapt accordingly (22:37).

6. Big Picture: Societal Change and Looking Forward

• On “Moral Panic” and the Future

  • Rejects idea of overreaction: Cites delayed government response and damages already done.
  • Expresses concern over AI’s risks (chatbots, pornography, self-harm content) and foreshadows coming regulations (22:37).

• Lasting Impact & Network Effects

  • Optimism that new social norms will arise, shifting expectations around youth social media use globally (24:15).
  • Equates tech exceptionalism to other regulated industries: if cars and consumer goods are held to safety standards, so should online platforms (24:15).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Tech Industry Power:
  “We're coming up against technology companies that are richer and more powerful than many nation states…”
  — Julie Inman Grant (02:28, 24:15)
• On Retrofitting Safety:
  “If they had built safer spaces, I don't think we would be where we are today...all over the world people want a decisive change.”
  — Julie Inman Grant (02:56)
• Personal Perspective:
  “I've got 13 year old twins...they're in the midst of figuring out who they are...they don't have great impulse control...I was able to screw up as a teenager and not have it filmed and amplified all over the place.”
  — Julie Inman Grant (11:53)
• On Global Harm:
  “When terrorist violent content is so openly available to young children, it normalizes, it desensitizes and it sometimes radicalizes. At some point you have to take a stand.”
  — Julie Inman Grant (21:03)
• On Institutional Change:
  “I think we've come late to the game with social media...in many cases the damage has been done. But what I think we need to do as governments is think one step ahead and be anticipatory.”
  — Julie Inman Grant (22:37)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:28: The unprecedented challenge of regulating Big Tech
• 03:29: Social media ban implementation steps
• 04:17: First data: 4.7 million under-16 accounts closed in two days
• 05:39: Industry resistance, company incentives, and global “domino effect”
• 08:51: Evaluating “success” beyond simple account closures; real-world impacts
• 10:11: Julie’s personal and professional evolution on the ban
• 13:36: Youth perspectives and generational policy disconnect
• 14:43: Investigations, legal thresholds, and targeted platforms
• 18:48: Personal cost—abuse, threats, and political pressure
• 21:03: Case study: real-world consequences of unregulated content
• 22:37: Moral panic, innovation, and the coming wave of AI
• 24:15: How other nations may follow and the analogy with other regulated industries

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Conclusion

This episode provides a candid and comprehensive discussion about the world's first national social media ban for under-16s, offering insights into the difficulties of tech regulation, the evolving notions of online safety, and the challenges faced personally and professionally by those on the frontline of digital policy. The conversation underscores both the monumental size of the task and the sense of inevitability that wider global change now seems possible.

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Transcript

[Helena Merriman]

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[BBC Interviewer]

Hello, I'm Katie Watson, the BBC's Australia correspondent, and this is the interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations coming out of the BBC People shaping our world from all over the world. If you're not a little bit afraid.

[Helena Merriman]

Then you're not paying attention.

[Julie Inman Grant]

We have never seen seeing a people so united. Do not make that boat crossing. Do not make that journey. Being born in America, feeling American, having people treat me like I'm not.

[Helena Merriman]

We're more popular than populism for this.

[BBC Interviewer]

Interview, I met Julie Inman Grant, Australia's ES Safety Commissioner, at her office overlooking Sydney Harbor. Brought up in Seattle, North America, she's built her career in the technology sector. Posted to Australia just over 25 years ago whilst working for Microsoft. She then went on to work in public policy and safety at both Twitter and Adobe before moving into government as a safety commissioner. Since 2017, she's been a lightning rod for critics of Australia's Online Safety act, including Elon Musk, who's accused her of trying to censor the Internet, a factor which Julie believes led to a barrage of abuse, online hate and death threats. Now, as the public face of the world's first ever social media ban for under 16s, she she's facing up to some of the world's most powerful tech companies and making sure that they abide by the new rules.

[Julie Inman Grant]

We're all going to have our challenges. We're coming up against technology companies that are richer and more powerful than many nation states and they're not going to be regulated without a fight. That's why we refer to technological exceptionalism, because it is if you think about any other consumer facing industry, whether it's food handling and safety standards or consumer goods. When you import a car into the UK or to Australia, these car companies know that they have to build to Australian safety standards and to share the crash test dummy results. That's just expected. Why shouldn't we expect them to be delivering a much safer experience? If they had built safer spaces, I don't think we would be where we are today. With a social media ban and countries embracing it, all over the world people want a decisive change.

[BBC Interviewer]

Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Australia's Esafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant.

[Julie Inman Grant]

I think it's going pretty well. It certainly exceeded our expectations but we are playing the long game here. So what we've asked the companies to do is basically take a five step process. The first was in deactivations of under 16s that identified that's the low hanging fruit or the easy bit. The second part is going to be much harder for them and we can talk about this and that is preventing recidivism or kids coming back onto the platforms and preventing a range of different forms of circumvention. We've asked them to make discoverable user reporting if accounts are missed. If people are overblocked, we'd ask them to have an appeals process. We've asked for constant emails improvement to measure the impact as well.

[Helena Merriman]

Now you've released some data that in the first two days of the ban 4.7 million accounts were closed. Does that mean that companies are complying?

[Julie Inman Grant]

Well, initially, yes. So like I said, that was sort of the easy part. To keep that number in perspective, There are about 2.5 million young Australians between the ages of 8 and 15 and when you think about it, it's taken us about 20 years to get here. So if you think about Facebook was established in 2004 and Twitter now x 2006, these were online spaces that weren't built for safety and they weren't built for kids, they were built for adults. But eventually kids from all over the world have gravitated and inhabited these spaces. And in many cases none of these platforms ever enforce their own policies around 13 and under or or just use self declaration or age gating. So in some ways what we're asking them to do is retrofit a set of tools by identifying who is under 16 and who isn't without doing it in a way that's too invasive for adults.

[Helena Merriman]

Meta did release some of its own data that they've removed just over half a million users from platforms, but they've still been very critical of this ban. How are you working with the big tech companies to implement this ban?

[Julie Inman Grant]

Well, we've always had to play a bit of a dance with the tech companies. Clearly they don't like to be regulated, but we need to work with them cooperatively, particularly when we're taking down cyberbullying content or deep fakes or image based abuse. Of course they're protecting the status quo and right now this is incredibly lucrative for them. It's if you look at the discovery documents from the US litigation, some of this company research refers to tweens between 8 and 12 as having a herd mentality. Get them hooked as quickly as possible and then you've got customers for life. So they're building a pipeline for the future and they do not want this to be the first domino. And what we will see if the UK and Denmark and France and Malaysia and Indonesia come on board and do the same thing, we will be a network effect. And I believe that in the next four or five years it will have a normative change. Not only will kids learn to drive when they're 16, 16 will be the age that they are able to enter social media. And we'll be working with the schools on digital and algorithmic literacy to make sure that they're ready for the time that they come on there.

[Helena Merriman]

Now, this figure, 4.7 million, obviously it's a huge number. It could be seen as a sign of success. But what it's not showing is how many accounts from other platforms not targeted by the ban have been opened in that time, which was the fear.

[Julie Inman Grant]

Well, we've been looking at migratory patterns and we did so months before the implementation date of December 10th because we started seeing spikes or increases in sign ups. But what we found over this first month, and none of this can be considered a trend, is that there were a range of platforms that kids went to that weren't capped, at least publicly, as an age restricted social media site. So they went to sites like Lemonade, which is also owned by ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, to Bigo Live, to Yubo, to Capcut and others. But what we saw was spikes in downloads, but not spikes in usage. And they didn't last a long time. And I think the primary reason for that is the mainstream social media companies that we're capturing here have done such a great job of developing a critical mass of young people on their platforms through snap streaks and endless scroll and all these harmful and deceptive design features that keep them all hooked and engaged. But now, as kids are fanning out to different platforms, they've lost that critical mass of friendship groups.

[Helena Merriman]

Now, before this ban was even discussed, you yourself weren't a fan of a ban. You said yourself, and I quote, we don't fence the ocean or keep children entirely out of the water, but what we do create is protected swimming environments that provide safeguards and teach important lessons from a young age. That was in June 24, I believe. But isn't that what you've done? You've shut them out of teen accounts. They no longer have these potentially more protected accounts than adults. They are then less protected. You don't have to sign in to YouTube, for example. You can still get on YouTube, which then means that perhaps they're more vulnerable to the harms of being online.

[Julie Inman Grant]

We're doing a major implementation evaluation with an academic advisory group to look at these questions. Are kids sleeping more? Are they interacting more face to face? Are they taking fewer antidepressants? Are their test scores getting better? Are they out in the footy field reading more books? But are they also going to darker areas of the web? Where are they going? What are the experiences that they're having? I actually don't think they're necessarily less safe. It depends what you consider safety. I don't think many 13 year olds are opening up to our browsers and going to the dark web. And, you know, one thing we've been clear to parents about is that there will always have to be a holistic approach. Just like with water safety, we have to continue teaching our kids to swim until they're strong swimmers. We need to teach them about risks like rips or algorithmic rips. We need to teach them about predators in the water, it's sharks, online, it's pedophiles or scammers. So I think there are a lot of lessons that can be learned, but parents will still have to be engaged in their kids online lives.

[Helena Merriman]

For somebody who wasn't initially a fan of the idea of a ban, it wasn't your decision, but you were implementing it. How difficult is that?

[Julie Inman Grant]

I actually had to come around to it because we've been at this for 10 years in terms of trying to make the places safer, to try and make safety by design the default design principle for the industry to remove harm when kids in particular are in the grip of online crisis. And these have been incremental changes. I sort of thought, okay, if I can have some latitude in terms of how I roll this out, and one of the reasons I don't refer to it as a ban, but rather as a social media delay, is when you think about the gamification of snap streaks or endless scroll or the opaque algorithms that take us all down rabbit holes and keep us addicted, we as adults have a hard time resisting that. What chance do our kids have with these systems that are literally built to keep them entrenched and entranced? It's just not a fair fight. So if we can delay their entry into social media for three years and we can supplement that with digital action plans so that we're building their critical reasoning skills and resilience, then that's something that I think is worth exploring. I've got 13 year old twins, you know, they're in the midst of figuring out who they are building their identities. They don't have great impulse control. They are comparing themselves, they want to be where their friends are when they see where they are on snap maps. I don't know about you, but I didn't have any of those same pressures. I was able to screw up as a teenager and not have it filmed and amplified all over the place. So I think we'll see over time some really beneficial impacts and the normative changes of moving the burden from parents and families and the children themselves to the platforms to make their platform safer and to keep kids away until they're ready is I think that monumental circuit breaker move that we need to move to. And if other countries do that, then we have a network effect.

[Helena Merriman]

So what do you see as success? Is it closing accounts? Better mental health? Finding big tech that's not complying?

[Julie Inman Grant]

Yeah, I mean, I think success can come in, in different ways and they'll come in different time frames. We are in this for the long game and I think people, people, they wanted every account to disappear magically overnight. We tried to set expectations that wasn't going to be realistic. We also wanted to set expectations about this phase that we're in now, which is still early days, but it's preventing the reentry or the recidivism of young people and preventing the circumvention that will happen for a while. These companies are going to have to update their classifiers and probably change some of their settings and, and this is what I'm using the legal notices for. I think again ultimately where we want to get to when generation Alpha, kids that are from 0 to 9 now, hopefully they don't have an expectation that they're going to be on social media at 8 or 9 years old, they'll know at 16 and they'll be able to grow up and find themselves and their identity and their friendships in really healthy ways.

[Helena Merriman]

But there is that criticism that this is law that's been implemented by older people who perhaps don't really understand how young people work. What would you say to that?

[Julie Inman Grant]

Well, we tried to engage young people throughout the process. We have a youth advisory council and it's been really interesting when we did talk to young people about it, particularly people who are over the age of 16 and say, oh my gosh, I wish that were in place. When I was there, I spent so much time scrolling or comparing myself and I felt like, you know, I didn't sleep, I didn't do that, I didn't apply myself to my homework. I wish I didn't have that distraction, but I didn't know how to extract myself from it. And, you know, having my own laboratory at home with two 13 year old twins, I had one that wasn't really fussed about the idea, but another who thought the sky was falling, that her Instagram and her Snapchat might be taken away. So every child is going to have a slightly different experience.

[Helena Merriman]

I think a lot of people wanted to know when the fines are coming, when will companies be held to account? Companies who many people feel should have been fined a long time ago and more should have been done.

[Julie Inman Grant]

So I've got 10 complex investigations going into the biggest companies in the world will send out the second set of notices very soon. We're starting to see some anomalies and weaknesses and I will probe those such as. So there are some kids that are obviously getting through. Snapchat is the one that has been the primary focus now. So I need to probe whether or not their Liveness features are working, whether they've implemented their settings in the right way. You've also got to realize that these companies have come to this regime, if you will, kicking and screaming, very, very reluctantly. They don't have a huge incentive to get this perfectly right and they don't want this to be an incentive for other governments to follow suit. So we will have to be clever. I've got a number of different ways I'm sort of looking at impacts and whether or not this has been successful. But I will have to prove in a court of law and I'll have to build evidence that these companies are not following the reasonable steps.

[Helena Merriman]

But Snapchat is a particular concern.

[Julie Inman Grant]

They are one that the media seems to be focusing on now. But I'm looking at all 10. So you know, I'm not going to divulge some of the concerns that I have about others when I can. I certainly will.

[BBC Interviewer]

You're listening to the interview from the BBC World Service.

[Julie Inman Grant]

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[BBC Interviewer]

I went down to Pyrmont in Sydney Harbour to record this interview with Australia's Esafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant. An ordinary office building with an extraordinary view, as is so often the case in Australia's most famous city. We'd been asking Julie Inman Grant for an interview for quite a while, but she's a busy woman right now. Not only is she having to monitor how this world first social media ban is going, but she's also getting lots of calls from other governments keen to ask her advice on how they can implement something similar. I couldn't help thinking how hard it must be. Personally, she's talked a lot about the online abuse she and her family have faced, and with tech companies threatening lawsuits, it must be a constant stress as she squares up to these giants angry about the ban. But she does a good job of sounding up Pete too. Chatty friendly and approachable with plenty of anecdotes from these past few years. Okay, so let's return to my conversation with Julie Inman.

[Helena Merriman]

Grant, obviously you have pitted yourself against big tech companies, wealthy companies. Elon Musk has called you a censorship commissar, an unelected bureaucrat. Donald Trump has said that he'll come after countries that have basically come after his tech companies. What do you say to that? I mean, are you worried about the implications for Australia for you personally?

[Julie Inman Grant]

Well, unfortunately, I've been living that reality for the past several years. I get regular death threats. Of course, a lot of these companies have deep pockets. You know, they lawyer up, which is their democratic right. But no, I mean, it's a form of threat to get us to back down. So again, I think you have to have resolve in the face of this strength and you have to have a certain degree of resilience. But the overriding goal is making sure that all Australians, particularly children, have safer, more positive experiences online. Like I said, the people with the most to lose here if this is successful are the companies themselves.

[Helena Merriman]

You've also been asked to testify before US Congress about online safety laws. You've been accused of harassing American companies. Republican Jim Jordan is now threatening you with contempt charges if you don't testify. You're a US citizen. Is it something that you're entertaining?

[Julie Inman Grant]

Well, he has asked me to testify. I've explained to him what my regulatory role is and how limited it is. He's concerned about Australia's laws and policies. I can't represent what the Parliament has deliberated on and delivered or the government's policies. But I'm happy to talk about how we implement the regulation that I've been asked to interpret and enforce. Nothing that we do here affects the ability of American companies to show any content that they like to Americans. And I'd love to give you a cautionary tale. You mentioned the whole idea of Elon Musk referring to me as the Australian Censorship Commissar. That was around an issue where a 16 year old violently stabbed a bishop in the face. It started a riot, was deemed a terrorist incident, so we took action. Ultimately, after litigation, X Corp ended up GEO blocking that for Australia, which meant that Australians couldn't access it anymore. But it was accessed in the UK. And Axel Ruta Cabana, the 17 year old who stabbed those three little girls at the Taylor Swift party in Southport, claimed that that very video that he was able to watch 25 minutes before the killing on X was what inspired him to kill Those little girls, you know, when terrorist violent content is so openly available to young children, it normalizes, it desensitizes and it sometimes radicalizes. At some point you have to take a stand. And this is also why countries like Australia are working with the UK and the European Commission and other like minded countries that want to work together to create safer online environments for their citizens.

[Helena Merriman]

People talk about moral panic, you know, when something's new, that perhaps there's a resistance for this change and actually this is something that we've seen throughout history, that something creative new will come along and we just need to get used to it. I'm wondering whether something like social media will, in 50 years time will we look back and think, did we panic overly or do you think there's so much more harm that perhaps people don't realize?

[Julie Inman Grant]

I think we've come late to the game with social media. Social media has been a fixture in most adult lives and now children's lives for almost 20 years. And the fact that we're actually making these decisive safety changes now I think says that we are a little bit late. In many cases the damage has been done. But what I think we need to do as governments is think one step ahead and be anticipatory. In some ways I'm more concerned about the catastrophic harms that AI could have on our children. And this is why in March we're implementing some standards around AI companions and chatbots so that these AI companies cannot be delivering pornographic content, suicide, self harm and disordered eating to under 18s. How many suicides and deaths, how much damage do we need to see until we act? I in fact don't think social media will look the same. Even in two or three years we're going to see a convergence of gaming and the metaverse. So even this idea of having exemptions for, for messaging and gaming platforms may not make sense when we review this law in two years because it's getting difficult to really draw those distinct lines between all these different platforms today.

[Helena Merriman]

So do you think the UK obviously following your example, is going to have it easier or do you think the challenges against big tech companies, the teething problems will still be there no matter which country now takes on a social media band?

[Julie Inman Grant]

I mean, I think we're all going to have our challenges again. We're coming up against technology companies that are richer and more powerful than many nation states and they're not going to be regulated without a fight. That's why we refer to technological exceptionalism, because it is, if you think about any other consumer facing industry, whether it's food handling and safety standards or consumer goods. When you import a car into the UK or to Australia, these car companies know that they have to build to Australian safety standards and to share the crash test dummy results. That's just expected. Why shouldn't we expect them to be delivering a much safer experience? If they had built safer spaces, I don't think we would be where we are today. With a social media ban and countries embracing it, all over the world people want a decisive change.

[BBC Interviewer]

Thank you for listening to the interview. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can find many more episodes of the interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts, including ones with Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United nations, and Taiwan Cyber Ambassador Audrey Tang. Until the next time, bye for now.

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[BBC Interviewer]

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[Julie Inman Grant]

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