About 550,000 accounts were blocked by Meta during the first days of Australia’s landmark social media ban for kids.
In December, a new law began requiring that the world’s most popular social media sites – including Instagram and Facebook – stop Australians aged under 16 from having accounts on their platforms.
The ban, which is being watched closely around the world, was justified by campaigners and the government as necessary to protect children from harmful content and algorithms.
Companies including Meta have said they agree more is needed to keep young people safe online. However they continue to argue for other measures, with some experts raising similar concerns.
“We call on the Australian government to engage with industry constructively to find a better way forward, such as incentivising all of industry to raise the standard in providing safe, privacy-preserving, age appropriate experiences online, instead of blanket bans,” Meta said in a blog update.
The company said it blocked 330,639 accounts on Instagram, 173,497 on Facebook, and 39,916 on Threads during it’s first week of compliance with the new law.
They again put the argument that age verification should happen at an app store level – something they suggested lowers the burden of compliance on both regulators and the apps themselves – and that exemptions for parental approval should be created.
“This is the only way to guarantee consistent, industry-wide protections for young people, no matter which apps they use, and to avoid the whack-a-mole effect of catching up with new apps that teens will migrate to in order to circumvent the social media ban law.”
Various governments, from the US state of Florida to the European Union, have been experimenting with limiting children’s use of social media. But, along with a higher age limit of 16, Australia is the first jurisdiction to deny an exemption for parental approval in a policy like this – making its laws the world’s strictest.
The policy is wildly popular with parents and envied by world leader, with the Tories this week pledging to follow suit if they win power at the next election, due before 2029.
However some experts have raised concerns that Australian kids can circumvent the ban with relative ease – either by tricking the technology that’s performing the age checks, or by finding other, potentially less safe, places on the net to gather.
And backed by some mental health advocates, many children have argued it robs young people of connection – particularly those from LGBTQ+, neurodivergent or rural communities – and will leave them less equipped to tackle the realities of life on the web.
Timothée Chalamet was among the main winners as Hollywood’s finest gathered for this year’s Golden Globe Awards.
Chalamet, 30, continued his pursuit of greatness, and an Oscar, by beating stars including Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney to the award for best actor in a musical or comedy for table tennis caper Marty Supreme.
Despite DiCaprio missing out, his film One Battle After Another won the most awards overall, with four prizes including best musical or comedy film and best director.
Irish actress Jessie Buckley was named best drama actress for Hamnet, which also scored a surprise win in the best drama film category.
Vampire thriller Sinners had been considered the frontrunner, but it instead went home with the box office achievement prize as well as best score.
The Golden Globes are a key stop on the road to the Academy Awards, and other acting winners on Sunday included Teyana Taylor, Rose Byrne, Wagner Moura and Stellan Skarsgård.
Unlike the Oscars, the Globes also reward TV shows, and the night saw British actors Stephen Graham, Owen Cooper and Erin Doherty pick up more honours for their performances in Netflix drama Adolescence.
Watch: Stars light up the red carpet at the 83rd Annual Golden Globes
Chalamet’s ‘sweet’ win
Getty Images
Kylie Jenner didn’t walk the red carpet with Chalamet, but met him inside the ceremony
With all eyes on the Oscars race, Timothée Chalamet‘s victory has given him a boost over his rivals. “I’m in a category with many greats,” he said when accepting his trophy.
It was Chalamet’s fifth Globes nomination, but his first win. “My dad instilled in me a spirit of gratitude growing up, always be grateful for what you have,” he said.
“It’s allowed me to leave this ceremony in the past empty handed, my head held high, grateful just to be here. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say those moments make this moment that much sweeter.
“For my parents, for my partner, I love you so much,” he added, looking at girlfriend Kylie Jenner.
Jessie Buckley says win is ‘real honour’
Getty Images
Hamnet’s Jessie Buckley won best actress, a category she is expected to sweep throughout awards season
Jessie Buckley was named best actress for her role in the adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling novel Hamnet, about the death of William Shakespeare’s son.
“This is not a normal feeling or situation to be in,” she said in her acceptance speech.
“It was such an extraordinary set to be part of, because we were telling the story of probably the most famous Brit that ever lived, and we had a Chinese director, a lot of Irish, a mostly Polish crew, beside our British family.”
She concluded: “This is a real honour, I love being part of this industry.”
Shortly afterwards, Hamnet director Chloe Zhao looked visibly shocked when the movie was announced as the winner of best drama film.
Accepting the prize, producer Steven Spielberg said he had “loved the book” by O’Farrell, but felt Zhao was “the only film-maker on the face of the planet who could tell the story”.
Zhao said: “The village of Hamnet that made this film together. Some of them lost their loved ones while we were making this film, and some of them are still struggling, and I just wanted to say we’re thinking of you, we’re here because of you, we love you.”
Teyana Taylor’s tearful message
Getty Images
Teyana Taylor was named best supporting actress for One Battle After Another
Elsewhere, singer and actress Teyana Taylor, whose career started when she choreographed a Beyonce music video at the age of 15, cemented her Hollywood breakthrough by winning best supporting film actress for One Battle After Another.
After tearfully thanking a list of people, she used her acceptance speech to send a message to “my brown sisters and little brown girls watching tonight”.
“Our light does not need permission to shine,” she told them. “We belong in every room we walk into. Our voices matter and our dreams deserve space.”
Getty Images
Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård, 74, won best supporting actor for Sentimental Value, and joked that he hadn’t prepared a speech “because I thought that I was too old”.
He then made an impassioned plea for people to see films like his on the big screen. “Cinema should be seen in cinemas,” he said to cheers from the crowd.
Australia’s Rose Byrne was named best actress in a film musical or comedy for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, and paid tribute to members of her family.
“My brother’s my date. Thanks, George,” she laughed. “Thanks to my mum and dad, who bought Paramount+ so they could watch the Golden Globes from Sydney.
“And I want to thank my husband, Bobby Cannavale. He couldn’t be here because, um, we’re getting a bearded dragon, and he went to a reptile expo in New Jersey. So thank you, baby.”
Getty Images
Rose Byrne was named best musical or comedy actress for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Meanwhile, KPop Demon Hunters won best animated film and best song for Golden.
Brazilian political thriller The Secret Agent was named best international film, while its star Wagner Moura won best drama actor.
“This is a film about generational trauma,” Moura said, “and I think that if trauma can be passed along generations, values can too. So this is to the ones that are sticking with their values in difficult moments.”
Paul Thomas Anderson won best film director and screenplay for One Battle After Another.
“You guys are being so generous with this affection for me and this film,” Anderson said, adding: “I love doing what I do.”
Adolescence star ‘still learning’
Getty Images
Owen Cooper repeated his recent Emmy and Critics Choice wins for his role in Adolescence
British teenager Owen Cooper continued a year of adulation and awards acclaim for his performance in Adolescence, winning best TV supporting actor.
The 16-year-old from Warrington appears to be keeping his feet on the ground, telling the assembled A-listers: “I’m still very much an apprentice. I’m still learning every day. I’m still learning from the people that are sitting in front of you and sitting in front of me.”
And he still seems in disbelief at his meteoric rise, remarking: “It’s mad, what is going on?” before signing off with the motto of his beloved Liverpool FC: “You’ll never walk alone.”
Getty Images
Seth Rogen won best comedy TV actor for his leading role in Hollywood satire The Studio
Seth Rogen also won a TV prize, and had a sense of deja-vu after setting an epsiode of his Apple TV comedy The Studio at the Golden Globes.
“This is so weird, we just pretended to do this and now it’s happening,” he said when picking up the trophy for best TV comedy actor.
“I thought the only way I would get to hold one is to create a whole show to give myself a fake one.”
Other TV winners included Jean Smart for Hacks, Noah Wyle for The Pitt and Michelle Williams for Dying for Sex.
And the event’s first ever award for best podcast went to Amy Poehler, a former Golden Globes host, for Good Hang with Amy Poehler.
Iran’s rulers are confronting their most serious challenge since their own 1979 revolution.
They’re now countering on an unprecedented scale – a ferocious security crackdown and near total internet shutdown has been unleashed on a scale unseen in previous crises.
Some of the streets once engulfed by a roar of anger against the regime are now starting to go silent.
“On Friday it was extremely crowded – the crowd was unbelievable – and there was a lot of shooting. Then Saturday night it became much, much quieter,” a resident of Tehran told BBC Persian.
“You would have to have a death wish to go out now,” one Iranian journalist reflected.
This time, an internal upheaval is also compounded by an external threat, with President Trump’s repeated warnings of military action coming seven months after the US carried out strikes on key nuclear facilities during a 12-day war between Iran and Israel, which left the regime weakened.
But, to use an analogy often used by the American leader, that has also given Iran “another card” to play.
Trump now says Tehran has called to go back to the negotiating table.
But Iran doesn’t have a good hand: President Trump says he may still have to take some kind of action before any meeting; talks won’t take all the searing heat out of this unrest.
And Iran won’t capitulate to what have been the US’s maximalist demands, including zero nuclear enrichment, which would cross red lines which lie at the very heart of this theocracy’s strategic doctrine.
Whatever the pressure of this moment, there’s no sign Iran’s leaders are changing course.
Mortuary videos shows violent government crackdown in Iran
“Their inclination is to clamp down, to try to survive this moment, and then to figure out where they go from here,” says Vali Nasr from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, author of the book Iran’s Grand Strategy.
“But given their straits with the US, with Israel, with sanctions, even if they quell these protests, they don’t have many options to improve the lives of Iranians.”
This week may decide the momentum in this moment – whether Iran, and the wider region, is plunged into another bout of military attacks; whether brute force has completely put down these protests – as it has in the past.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told diplomats in Tehran today that “the situation is now under total control”.
Outside, in the bright light of day, the streets of Tehran were filled with the crowds the government called on to come out and reclaim the streets from protesters.
Five days into a comprehensive communications blackout, a more chilling picture still sneaks out into the world through Starlink satellite terminals, Iranian technical creativity, and courage.
Doctors’ accounts of hospitals overwhelmed by casualties, grim videos of open-air mortuaries dotted by long lines of black body bags, voice notes sent to journalists at the BBC Persian Service expressing shock and fear.
The numbers rise. In the last wave of unrest in 2022 and 2023, which lasted more than six months, around 500 deaths were recorded by human rights groups and more than 20,000 arrests. This time, within a few weeks, reports say the death toll already climbs far higher and more than 20,000 have been taken in so far.
The government doesn’t deny the bloodshed; state TV is also airing images of makeshift mortuaries, even admitting some protesters have been killed.
The streets of Iran have been on fire. Government buildings have been set alight as anger burned. They are symbols of the system, but attacks on public property are condemned by the government as the work of “terrorists and rioters. “
Legal language has also hardened in this time – “vandals ” will be charged with “waging war against God” and face the death penalty.
The government puts the main blame on foreign enemies – code name for Israel and the US – for an internal upsurge. This time, their accusation is also fuelled by the clear extent of infiltration by Israel’s Mossad security agency during their 12-day war last year.
With every new eruption of unrest in Iran, the same questions are asked: how far and wide do these protests reach; who’s taking to the streets and squares; how will the authorities respond?
AFP via Getty Images
The authorities are trying to regain control in Iran following weeks of protests
This latest wave has been unique in many ways.
It began in a most ordinary way. On 28 December, traders selling imported electronic goods in Tehran were jolted by the sudden currency collapse; they shuttered their shops, went on strike, and urged others in the bazaar to follow suit.
The government’s initial response was quick and conciliatory. President Masoud Pezeshkian promised dialogue and acknowledged “legitimate demands” in a country where inflation soars near 50%, and currency depreciations play havoc with people’s hardscrabble lives.
A new monthly allowance, amounting to about $7 (£5), was soon deposited in everyone’s bank account to help ease the pain.
But prices shot up further; the wave of unrest swelled.
Less than three weeks later, Iranians were marching everywhere – from small deprived provincial towns to major cities, chanting for economic and political change.
There are no quick and simple fixes now; it’s the system.
Iran is broken by years of crippling international sanctions, mismanagement and corruption, deep seated rage over restrictions on social freedoms, and agony over the cost of this prolonged standoff with the West.
But, so far, the centre appears to be holding.
“The most important element still missing from a full collapse is repressive forces deciding that they no longer benefit from, and are no longer willing to kill for, the regime,” explains Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington.
Before this crisis erupted, the most powerful players in Iran’s ruling circles were known to be bitterly divided on key issues: if and how to resume the ill-fated negotiations with the US over a new nuclear deal, as well as how to restore strategic deterrence after the blows to its military proxies and political partners during the Gaza war.
But survival of the system, their system, matters above all else.
Ultimate authority still rests with the ailing 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, but he’s encircled by his most loyal defenders, among them the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), who now hold sway over the economy, politics and security of the Islamic Republic.
President Trump’s almost daily threats are known to have concentrated minds at the top. It has also provoked speculation far and wide over the impact of any outside intervention.
Military action could bolster the protesters; it could also backfire.
“The primary impact would be to shore up elite unity and suppress fractures within the regime at a moment of heightened vulnerability,” says Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the London-based think tank Chatham House.
Reuters
Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s former shah, is among those calling on the US to intervene
One of the loudest Iranian voices calling on President Trump to intervene has been the exiled former crown prince Reza Pahlavi, whose father was overthrown as Iran’s shah in the 1979 Islamic revolution. But his call, and his close ties to Israel, are controversial.
Other voices, from Nobel peace laureate Narges Mohammadi – still imprisoned in Iran, to award-winning filmmaker Jafar Panahi, insist that change must be peaceful, and must come from within.
In this current unrest, Pahlavi has shown his capacity to help galvanise and give shape to this uprising. His appeals at the start of last week for coordinated chanting appear to have drawn more people out into the bitter winter cold.
It’s impossible to know the depth of his support, and whether this profound yearning for change leads some to hold fast to a familiar symbol. Iran’s pre-revolutionary flag, with its lion and sun, has been unfurled again.
Pahlavi emphasises he’s not trying to bring back the monarchy but to lead a democratic transition; but in the past he has not been a unifying figure in the divided Iranian diaspora.
Fears of collapse and chaos, financial woes, and more, also weigh on the minds of Iranians including those who still back the ruling clerics. Reform not revolution is on some minds.
History tells us that when fervour and force meet on the streets, change can come from above, or below. It is always unpredictable – and often perilous.
