Government backflip on YouTube social media ban is one of Olympic proportions

As any gymnast will tell you, it's not easy landing a backflip, and as any politician will tell you, a political backflip is harder again.

It's also less likely that people will applaud you when you land, even if you nail it.

The government's announcement this week that YouTube would be included in the teen social media ban is a political backflip of Olympic proportions, and its first since the election.

In late April, the then-minister for communications, Michelle Rowland, was still doubling down on her commitment to the company's CEO to do the exact opposite, citing YouTube's educational benefits and community expectations, but little else. 

A spokesperson for Ms Rowland told the ABC in April the decision "was made in November last year, publicly stated in a media release and reflected in the second reading of the legislation".

"That decision has been made and there has been zero reconsideration or communication to suggest otherwise," the spokesperson said.

Three months on, the new minister, Anika Wells, is just as resolute that YouTube will in fact be part of the ban, citing strongly worded advice from the eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant in late June.

"The eSafety Commissioner's advice was clear," Wells told Question Time in Parliament on Wednesday.

"Four out of 10 Australian kids have had their most recent or most harmful experience on YouTube," she said.

"On top of that, YouTube uses the same persuasive design features as other social media platforms like infinite scroll… auto-play and algorithmic feeds."

Despite the famed difficulty of publicly changing your mind in politics, the government seems to have pulled off the manoeuvre with a surprising amount of grace.

It could have been a more awkward landing if their final position was less well supported by the eSafety Commissioner, policy experts, and the well-documented harm being visited upon younger YouTube users.

Additionally, the fact Rowland had said so little about her reasons for promising YouTube a carve out in the first place means Labor now finds itself with relatively few words to eat.

But no landing is perfect.

At their media conference on Wednesday morning, Wells and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese were asked what might be the biggest question of all on social media policy, by a somewhat frustrated Mark Riley from Seven News:

"Parents will be hearing this and thinking it's a great thing to limit kids' access to this harmful content, but they'll also be asking, 'why is that harmful content there in the first place?'

If any of us in our media organisations were to publish or broadcast this stuff, we'd be straight up in front of ACMA or the courts, justifiably.

When will the day come when governments can stop these organisations allowing this stuff to be posted in the first place?"

"That's a great question, Mark," Ms Wells began, displaying immaculate technique for the judges.

"… and ultimately one for the social media platforms to answer," she continued.

Usually, thrusting responsibility solely back into the hands of social media giants is not a bad political instinct.

But to do so at a press conference otherwise devoted to "cracking down" on those same companies is a different kind of gymnastics — it's contortion.

After all, the teen social media ban depends on the assumption that the government can force social media companies to change their dealings with Australians, and that asking nicely won't achieve the desired result.

So when faced with the question: "Why is the harmful content there at all and when will governments intervene?", it was arguably the perfect moment for the new minister to mention the government's own plan, announced in November last year, to implement a Digital Duty of Care on social media companies.

Will it materialise?

The Digital Duty of Care is designed to place an obligation on social media companies themselves to actively prevent foreseeable harms to Australian users of all ages.

Launching the policy eight months ago, Rowland described it as "a shift away from reacting to harms…. and moving towards systems-based prevention".

It was one of more than 60 recommendations made by Delia Rickard after a year-long statutory review of the Online Safety Act.

But unlike the teen social media ban, it has rarely been mentioned in public since it was first announced.

The government's reticence on the proposal this year has prompted quiet speculation among policy experts that it would never materialise, but Wells told the ABC the government was still committed to legislating the change.

"I'm looking forward to doing more work on it," Wells told 7:30 this week, before adding: "I'm still a new minister".

Neither Wells nor her predecessor have given a timeline for implementing the change.

The government is also yet to reveal when it will respond to the rest of Delia Rickard's recommendations.

As for why the minister opted not to mention the government's own policy when the opportunity came on Wednesday morning, it's worth remembering how tricky these political backflips can be.

Bringing up an eight-month-old plan that hasn't visibly progressed since it was first announced comes with its own risks.

With a new minister in the portfolio and about four months before the teen social media ban comes into effect, it might be a while still before the government is eager to broach the topic unprompted.