How a grieving mother's letter helped Australia's world-first social media ban come into being

Of the many moments that crystallised Anthony Albanese's support for a social media age ban in Australia, one letter from a grieving mum stands out.

More than a year after first reading it, the prime minister won't go into the harrowing details shared by Kelly O'Brien, who lost her 12-year-old daughter Charlotte to suicide last September after being bullied at school.

But her words have stayed with him.

"I remember it vividly," Albanese says.

"It was quite long and went into considerable detail, which must be just heart-wrenching to do that.

"It was so obvious social media had played a key role in the loss of this young person's life."

Albanese was so moved that he cold-called O'Brien from his office.

He didn't make any commitment about a ban during their lengthy phone conversation, but he cites her experience as a "critical" factor in his decision.

Many critics and sceptics of the new law requiring platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube to restrict access for Australians aged under 16 believe the reforms were a populist knee-jerk reaction to a complex problem.

But well before Albanese had made up his mind, an unlikely mix of parents, media personalities, politicians, legal, health and tech experts had been working to take on the social media giants.

'You just have to do something about this'

Having already been the first in the country to ban mobile phone use in public schools, turning his attention to social media was a logical next step for South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas.

It was early 2024 and his wife, Annabel West, was reading Jonathan Haidt's book Anxious Generation, which argues the spread of smartphones and social media have led to an epidemic of anxiety, depression and loneliness among kids.

"I'll never forget it, we were lying in bed and she put the book down on her lap and she turned to me and said, 'You just have to do something about this,'" Malinauskas says.

"I stopped and I thought about it, and I thought, 'Well, maybe we can.'"

As a father of four children aged under 10, Malinauskas saw a role for the government in helping parents to regulate and enforce rules around social media access in their own home.

"The ability for any reform to be able to stand the test of time is where its authority comes from, and ultimately this comes from people and parents in the community and that translates to political authority for people in power," he says.

Malinauskas wanted a "brilliant legal mind" to advise how it could be done, so in May he approached former high court chief justice Robert French.

"I called him up and I said, 'Robert, I know you're busy, I know you've got a lot on your plate … but just hear me out before you say no,'" he recalls.

"And he said to me, 'OK, Premier, I'll hear you out before I say no' — because he had no idea what I was about to ask.

"So then I gave him my pitch.

"I finished my pitch and the phone went silent, and then he just said, 'I'll do it'.

"I was in the car on the way to something at the time and I was just fist pumping quietly."

An Australian way forward for the world

French's role was to explore the legislative mechanism, but little did he know that his report would provide the founding principles for not just a novel Commonwealth law, but inform the blueprint for other jurisdictions around the world.

Accounting for the fact age assurance technologies are "still evolving and not perfect", he settled on a preferred model in which social media platforms are obligated to take "reasonable steps" to restrict underage access.

He also decided those providers, and not parents or children, should bare the brunt of the enforcement.

French describes the 267-page proposal he handed to Malinauskas last September as a precision blade to deal with social media's "changing landscape and its complexity".

"You don't want to take a machete to it, so much as what I called a Swiss Army knife," he says.

But even French did not expect the wheels of government to turn so fast.

"It surprised me a little how quickly it went," he says.

"I didn't perhaps anticipate that it would be taken up with such enthusiasm."

This can in part be explained by the allies Malinauskas found in his state and territory counterparts.

Chief among them was NSW Premier Chris Minns, who hosted a joint social media roundtable with Malinauskas last October to further drive reform.

'Harrowing' stories from parents at heart of campaign

While politicians mulled the practicalities of a ban, a groundswell of community support was rising up to meet them.

For "over a year" radio announcer Michael "Wippa" Wipfli and advertising agency chief Rob Galluzzo had tossed around ideas to tackle the impact of social media on kids before they launched their organisation, 36 Months, in May 2024.

Confident in their respective media and creative expertise, they turned to former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet for political advice to maximise their chances of success.

A petition was launched to highlight what they felt as parents of young children themselves would be widespread support for delaying social media access from 13 to 16.

Wipfli says the "harrowing" stories started flowing in immediately.

At the same time News Corp's tabloid newspapers created their own campaign called Let Them Be Kids, with both campaigns deciding to organise delegations of parents to travel to Canberra for meetings with parliamentarians.

Wipfli said the "extremely confronting" cases involving young teens losing their lives helped the politicians "understand the true impact of what's going on here".

Like Albanese, Wipfli cites the experience of Kelly O'Brien as one he will "never forget", revealing it was he who passed on her letter to Albanese.

"The details in the letter, I'll never speak of … I wouldn't even let my wife see it," he says.

"It was a clear understanding of … the help required here.

"I know that obviously would have had a big impact on the prime minister, reading that letter, but at the same time that was just one story."

Another mum who chose to speak publicly in the hopes of protecting other parents from her experience was Emma Mason, who had lost her 15-year-old daughter Matilda Rosewarne to suicide in February 2022 after she was subjected to torment in person and online.

In September this year Mason delivered a rousing address at an online child safety event Australia hosted on the sidelines of the UN in New York.

The speech had a particular impact on European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, who said she had been "inspired" by Australia's "bold move" to introduce the ban.

Albanese backs the ban, but is mum on age limit

Almost a year exactly before the New York event, Malinauskas had taken the French report to National Cabinet.

Three days later, Albanese announced Labor would introduce a social media age restriction before the federal election due by May 2025.

He did not at this time nominate a preferred age.

Around the same time, 120 mental health practitioners and experts had signed an open letter calling on the government to adopt a limit of 16 and older.

Simon Wilksch, a Flinders University researcher and clinician specialising in eating disorders, was a driving force behind this push.

He cited studies showing soaring rates of mental health and eating disorders among young teens, the inefficacy of an optional parental consent model for 14 and 15-year-olds and evidence boys in particular were more at "risk" from things like cyberbullying, sextortion and concentration difficulties around that later age.

But it wasn't just health professionals who wanted to build pressure on the government to act.

High-profile Australian venture capitalist and former Microsoft vice president, Daniel Petre, had also read Haidt's seminal book some months earlier and came to the view it was time to act on social media.

He phoned around some of his tech contacts, and had soon rallied 25 from powerful people in the industry prepared to openly push for age restrictions.

"We weren't luddites — we understood the power and importance of technology, and we were just as concerned about the impact of social media on our kids," he says.

But before the ink could dry on the letter, Albanese had pledged to introduce the laws, and so the document was never sent.

These tech chiefs weren't the only ones who ended up somewhat a footnote in the history of the reform.

Coalition moves early

Months before Albanese committed to the ban, former opposition leader Peter Dutton had pledged on Wipfli's radio program to restrict access for children under 16 within the first 100 days of a Coalition government being elected.

The formal announcement was a surprise to his shadow cabinet colleagues, but this was far from policy on the run.

Almost a year earlier, then-Coalition communications spokesperson David Coleman had begun building the case for stronger protections for kids online.

A report by the eSafety Commission released in 2023 had recommended a trial of age assurance technology to prevent children from accessing online pornography, and left the door open to testing its possible use for social media.

Coleman was eager to find a pathway through the latter issue internally, and in Dutton he found an enthusiastic backer.

For Dutton, the "alarm bell" first started ringing when he was in the home affairs portfolio.

In March 2020, he had visited the White House and raised concerns about how uncooperative social media platforms had been regarding a Five Eyes effort to collaborate on tackling child exploitation.

"We had written to them, requesting a discussion because child exploitation material was being conveyed through their encrypted apps," he says.

"They basically just gave us the middle finger and wouldn't engage at all."

A few years later, he was moved by the parents who came to talk to him about how they felt social media had contributed to the loss of their children.

"It's upsetting, and it really is very emotional to hear the stories," he says.

"And then I think you very quickly switch to frustration and anger because you know that a lot more could be done to prevent these cases and the companies just see these kids as a profit line."

Dutton encouraged Coleman to put a proposal to the shadow cabinet, which he did around early April 2024.

After a lengthy debate, an age limit was endorsed.

Dutton believes it was the Coalition moving out in front of the issue that forced Albanese's hand.

"I think Albanese was trying to kick it into the election cycle, so we ended up applying pressure… and you know it worked out all right," he says.

Advocates often felt then-communications minister Michelle Rowland was not enthusiastic about an age restriction for social media.

Her office had actually canvassed it as one of several "blue sky" policy ideas to tackle the accumulative effect of algorithms on young people's mental health, body image and identity.

But she was comfortable with Labor not front-running the ban, believing the durability of the reform depended on community support and bipartisanship.

Rowland sought feedback from parents, and settled on 16 as the age limit because she believed a big shift was the best way to make an impact.

"Social media and the harms which flow from it require bold responses, not incrementalism," she says.

With pressure building to deliver on the reform, Albanese pledged pass the laws by the final week of parliament last year.

Coleman worked with Labor on several amendments, chief among them a provision requiring tech platforms provide Australians with alternative methods to assure their age without having to hand over official identification.

With the digital ID issue seemingly dealt with, the bill passed the Senate 34 in favour to 19 against on November 28.

Social media platforms react

The passage of the laws, described by Malinauskas as "warp speed," meant most of the social media companies were caught flat-footed in 2024.

Though invited to make submissions on the ban, they felt interest in their input was minimal.

The eSafety Commission is in constant talks with tech companies about a range of regulatory issues, but formal engagement about the ban only began after the federal election in May this year.

Internationally Meta, which operates Facebook, Instagram and Threads, had been pushing hard for the age assurance for social media to happen at the app-store level rather than on the individual platform.

The company tried in vain to convince the Australian government this was the better route.

As late as August this year, Meta vice-president and head of global safety Antigone Davis was in Canberra warning of the difficulties of enforcing an age limit of 16.

Her complaints fell on deaf ears, with many in government still quick to reference Davis's appearance at a parliamentary inquiry last June when she told the committee, "I don't think social media has done harm to our children".

YouTube was out and then it was in

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant is often described as the architect of the social media ban, but her role is actually interpreter and enforcer of the law.

Inman Grant had never pushed for the ban and initially hoped parliament would settle on a model of "high" versus "low" risk rather than the "sole and significant purpose" test now at the heart of the law.

In recognition of the constantly evolving nature of the internet, Australia's ban does not specifically name platforms.

Instead this test is used to determine who should be included based on the primary use of the app, with exemptions granted to broad classes of platforms predominantly serving a health, education, gaming or messaging function.

When the laws passed parliament last year, it was initially believed Google's platform YouTube would fall under these exclusions.

By the time Anika Wells took over the communications portfolio in mid-2025, a different view had emerged and she ultimately took advice that YouTube would be captured by the definition in the law.

Tech insiders dispute that YouTube's inclusion came about purely because it fell foul of the usage test.

One source says it's "openly known" TikTok representatives in Australia have bragged about their lobbying efforts to have their competitor included in the laws.

The company has flatly denied the claim, as has the government.

A factor in YouTube's eventual inclusion in the ban that is not disputed is the rising popularity of "YouTube Shorts" a short-form vertical video capability almost indistinguishable from TikTok or Instagram's Reels function.

Despite sending Wells a legal letter in July threatening further action if included in the ban, Google, like all the platforms listed to date, has begrudgingly agreed to comply with the law.

The government is preparing to defend two other legal challenges, one mounted by the platform Reddit and another by advocacy group Digital Freedom Project.

In the week of the ban taking effect, Wells has spent more time answering questions about her use of expense entitlements than the new laws.

But broadly, she enthusiastically embraced her role as the government face of the ban, visiting schools, meeting parents and talking with platforms in the lead up.

Tech sources say she and Inman Grant often played "good cop, bad cop" in their dealings with the platforms, with Wells in the former role, though the pair would also "switch" as issues evolved.

The hard work doesn't end when the ban starts

After a long career in the tech world, Inman Grant is openly cynical about the tension between what social media companies claim they are capable of versus what they are willing to do.

The same day the ban took effect, so too did powers for the eSafety Commission to request data and information from the platforms about the number of underage accounts that then be used to determined how well the laws are being enforced.

A longitudinal study has also been launched to study the impact of the restrictions on young teens' mental health, NAPLAN scores and a range of other indicators.

Albanese says he believes the ban will also "create a wider discussion about the impact of technology on our lives".

"Including adults," he says.

"Technology can be liberating, but it can also diminish our lives in so many ways as well if we're not conscious about it."

Dutton says there is "no doubt" in his mind the law will have to be "further modernised" in the future.

But like Albanese, Wells, Malinauskas and others, he is confident of long-term success.

"I think there will be broad community support to strengthen laws to make sure that the original intent is achieved," he says.