The Conversation: on Australia's under-16 social media ban
A breakdown of the language techniques and tone only, not the argument. This piece is published under an open licence; the analysis still keeps quotation brief. Read it in full at the source.
The Conversation
AustraliaDecember 2025
Analysis · Online safety
Banning kids from social media doesn’t make online platforms safer. Here’s what will do that
Where this is from
- Author
- Joel Scanlan, Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity and Privacy, University of Tasmania
- Publication
- The Conversation (academic commentary)
- Date
- December 2025, as the ban was taking effect
- Form
- Expert opinion column
- Read it
- theconversation.com — full piece →
The Conversation publishes under a Creative Commons Attribution–NoDerivatives licence. This page is original analysis and quotes only short phrases; read the full piece at the link.
From device to effect
Technique
Industry's own words
In the piece
move fast and break things
Effect on reader
the charge comes from inside the industry
Technique
Arcade-game metaphor
In the piece
whack-a-mole approach
Effect on reader
the policy looks futile and a little absurd
Technique
Blunt closing line
In the piece
The only thing missing is the will.
Effect on reader
reframes a technical problem as a choice
Key tones and their effect on the reader
Form and register in one line
An expert opinion piece has to sound authoritative and even-handed while still landing a clear position. The register is explanatory and measured for most of its length, then sharpens into a blunt closing judgement.
Language techniques
-
Turning industry jargon against the industry
The tech-world slogan
move fast and break things
is quoted and then used as evidence of a careless culture.Effect: letting the industry's own phrase stand as the charge is more damning, and more economical, than describing the problem from outside.
-
Metaphor for ineffective policy
Regulation that reacts platform by platform is called a
whack-a-mole approach
.Effect: the arcade-game image makes the government's method look futile and slightly ridiculous, without the writer having to say so directly.
-
Repeated key term
Safety by design
recurs as the alternative the writer wants.Effect: repeating a compact phrase plants it as the obvious solution and gives the reader a label to take away.
-
The explainer structure
The piece lays out what the ban does, why it may not work, and what would work instead.
Effect: the problem-then-solution shape makes the argument feel like a walkthrough rather than a polemic, which suits an academic byline.
-
First-person-plural of expertise
We must be clear…
speaks for informed opinion, not just the author.Effect: the
we
implies a settled view among people who study this, positioning disagreement as uninformed. -
The blunt closing line
The piece ends on a short, flat sentence:
The only thing missing is the will.
Effect: after a measured explanation, a sudden plain accusation lands hard and reframes the whole issue as a choice, not a technical difficulty.
Practice angle
The piece spends most of its length sounding calm and academic, then ends on a blunt one-line accusation. Write a paragraph on how a sudden change of register at the close can do more persuasive work than the same point made loudly throughout.
Write a response to this piece
Draft an analysing-argument response using the techniques above, then send it for marking against the VCAA criteria, with detailed feedback in 72 hours.
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