A 7-year-old and an 11-year-old look at their iPad screen in Sydney, Australia, on December 7, 2025. George Chan/Getty Images

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas told CNN’s Jake Tapper his country’s world-first social media ban for children under 16 is about protecting them from addictive algorithms, asking: “What’s the worst thing that’s gonna happen here by delaying kids’ access to social media?”

In the exclusive special, Tapper spoke with Malinauskas, a proponent of the ban, and Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist and author of “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.”

Australia has banned under 16s from using 10 platforms – Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok, Kick, Reddit, Twitch and X. The

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