Andy Park: Whatsaap,Roblox, Reddit and Discord are among an expanded list of the platforms which may be covered by the teen social media ban the ABC can reveal. The federal government has previously said Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter or X and YouTube will be covered by the law. But the e-safety commissioner has now written to 16 companies in total, including some which were expected to be exempt. The ABC's national technology reporter Ange Lavoipierre joined me earlier. Ange, which new platforms have been contacted by e-safety and what have they been told?
Ange Lavoipierre : Yeah, so there are some unexpected names on this list. As you mentioned there, there have always been what you might call the big fish who we've expected for some time to be covered by the ban, Instagram and TikTok, so on. But this is the first time we've seen a longer list of platforms. What e-safety is calling an initial list of 16 companies who she has written to. Now, those include Meta, which we expected, but specifically concerning WhatsApp too. Roblox, another notable one, a game creation platform, very popular with Gen Z, with young people. Pinterest, Discord, Reddit, Kik, an Australian owned video streaming platform. Match, a company which runs dating sites like Tinder and Hinge. Steam and Twitch, platforms we just haven't heard about in relation to the ban before in a concrete way. Now, just to stress, not all of these platforms will ultimately end up being included in the ban, but the commissioner has written to them and asked them to use e-safety's online self-assessment tool to help determine if they do need to comply. And it's a signal there that she believes they may be in scope.
Andy Park: Some of those names or platforms are being met with surprise. Why is that?
Ange Lavoipierre : Yeah, so a number of the platforms on that expanded list, such as Roblox and WhatsApp, they were widely expected to be exempt from the ban initially because of explicit carve outs for gaming and messaging services. And there are some other carve outs as well, but the definition for which platforms are included may turn out to be more complicated than it first seemed. So social media style services with more than one primary purpose might qualify, even if they didn't appear to at first. And Julie Inman Grant is saying that she's expecting to see a lot of what she's called creative shape shifting going on.
Julie Inman Grant: Snapchat will say, no, we're a camera app. Pinterest, you know, they're doing a lot of good things, but they're like, no, no, no, we're not. You know, we're dealing with scrapbooking and renovations and recipes. And we're really a visual search engine. And of course, what YouTube maintained was that they are a video sharing platform. And the rules do talk about sole and primary purpose. So you won't be surprised that there are very few organisations are saying, yeah, we'll be covered. We're a social media site. There's got to be a due diligence process and a fairness process. And again, I think we need to hear them all out.
Andy Park: E-safety commissioner Julie Inman-Grant's there. So, Ange, what happens if the platforms don't agree that they should be part of the ban?
Ange Lavoipierre : Well, they will make their case in writing and they'll provide evidence to support it. That's the idea. And if e-safety still believes they should be covered anyway, it might ultimately fall to the courts to decide the matter. So earlier this month, the e-safety commissioner did flag that she was bracing for legal challenges from platforms along those definitional lines. If those do come to pass, though, it could well happen on the other side of the ban's start date of December 10, once she starts trying to enforce those rules.
Andy Park: Ange Lavoipierre there.