Julie Inman Grant
- - Julie Inman Grant
Belinda LuscombeFebruary 11, 2026 at 8:01 AM
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Credit - Courtesy of Julie Inman Grant
It’s a peculiar sort of irony that the country that made millions of dollars by enforcing its patent for wi-fi was also the first country to attempt to set up a suite of regulations that would limit teens’ use of social media. Australia’s so-called social media ban went into effect on Dec. 10. It forbade 10 tech giants, including Google’s YouTube, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, and SnapInc’s SnapChat, from opening or maintaining accounts for any Australian under the age of 16. And it put the responsibility for figuring out a user’s age on the platforms, so that no identification documents were necessary.
Many hands went into crafting Australia’s regulations, but most of the finer detailing and heavy lifting was done by a Seattle-born former tech executive, Julie Inman Grant. As Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, she formulated the set of guidelines for what social media companies can and cannot do in her adopted homeland, where more than 97% of the population are online. She also advised the government, liaised with tech companies, and spearheaded its promotion to the public.
Several studies—although not all—have shown a decline in mental health among young adolescents who use social media heavily. To Inman Grant, interacting on digital platforms presents health hazards in the same way swimming at Australia’s beaches does; not all the dangers are visible and swimmers need to be trained in how to handle them, lest they get swept away. “We’re basically restricting access from young people holding an account until the age of 16,” Inman Grant told TIME in October, “to give us precious time to build their digital literacy, critical reasoning skills, resilience, and the like.”
A little over a month in, the impact of the changes has been neither as negative as some feared nor as positive as some hoped, according to local reports. The Australian government announced that 4.7 million accounts had been “deactivated, removed, or restricted.” Unsurprisingly, teens have found work-arounds—sometimes with help from a sympathetic adult—but Australian parents have largely welcomed the extra support in managing their children’s engagement with the vastness of the online world. In some cases, digital platforms had already started to adjust their teen-safety protocols ahead of the changes. “We’ve said from the beginning that we weren’t expecting perfection straight away,” said Minister for Communications Anika Wells in a statement, “but early figures are showing this law is making a real, meaningful difference.”
More significantly, Inman Grant has changed the tide of the conversation. Now that she has demonstrated it’s legally and logistically possible to limit tech companies’ access to young people’s attention, parents in other countries are asking their governments to step up. Many are following Australia’s lead—including Spain, France and the U.K., where leaders recently began the process of imposing age-verification requirements from tech companies.The U.S. has not been so receptive. In November, Inman Grant was summoned to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about whether Australia’s laws are imposing on Americans’ freedom of speech. The congressional attention has not dampened her enthusiasm; she’s now turning her focus to the health effects of young people’s interactions with AI.
Contact us at letters@time.com.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
