Wikipedia founder labels Australian social media ban unmitigated disaster

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, has described the Australian ban on social media for those under 16 as an "unmitigated disaster."

Speaking during a visit to Australia for a writers’ festival tour, Mr Wales clarified that his opposition is rooted in the lessons being taught to children rather than a defence of platforms.

He argues that age verification systems requiring cameras or identifying documents are "normalising surveillance behaviour" that persists into adulthood.

"This is madness and it's really unsafe," Mr Wales told Guardian Australia. He highlighted platforms like Roblox, which recently launched facial age verification for young users.

Instead of bans, he advocates for parental control settings on Apple and Android products, which he believes are underutilised. He suggested that governments should intervene at the point of sale.

"Why don't we have a regulation requiring retailers to sell phones pre-configured as child phones?" he said.

Mr Wales views the current digital ecosystem as one where users are "just serfs on the master’s estate," governed by opaque moderation and provocative algorithms.

He characterises the push for bans as a "moral panic" involving an implicit bargain between surveillance and censorship.

"Most of the people who are in favour of this sort of thing aren't in favour of that surveillance state," he noted. "I just think they haven't really thought it through."

The internet pioneer is currently promoting his new book, "Seven Rules of Trust," which explores collaborative principles as a roadmap for overcoming political polarisation.

He previously observed similar toxicity on early Usenet message boards before the rise of modern social media.