{"slug": "shape-the-digital-world-or-it-will-shape-us", "title": "Shape the digital world or it will shape us", "summary": "Australia is establishing Australian Standards for AI and joined more than 20 leaders, including the Finnish President and Norwegian Prime Minister, in a Coalition for Children's rights and Protection in the Age of AI at the United Nations in New York, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. Australia's 2024 social media ban for children, the world's first and now adopted by some 20 countries, has been strengthened in the last fortnight with stricter compliance requirements and harsh penalties for platforms that fail to enforce the rules, and new \"My Feed, My Way\" laws will give Australians choice over algorithmic feeds. Albanese cited AI risks including exploitation of children, enabling of biological weapons, and loss of control of AI systems, and said he stopped in Silicon Valley at the invitation of Apple Executive Chairman Tim Cook to see how Australia's laws inspired Apple's new child safety controls.", "body_md": "Coalition for Children's rights and protections in the age of AI\n\nUnited Nations**New York**\n\nColleagues,\n\nAustralia is an acknowledged first mover and world leader in digital safety.\n\nOur journey to creating a safer digital world started in 2024 with the world’s first social media ban for children – now adopted by some 20 countries.\n\nThe driving force behind this reform were parents who channelled their grief at losing a child into a campaign to save other parents from their most traumatic experience. This included Emma Mason who spoke passionately of her beautiful daughter Tilly, at last year’s UN meeting.\n\nEmma personified the human experience which motivated our child social media bans.\n\nAustralian parents have welcomed the empowerment this ban has brought.\n\nThe conversations they have had together confirm the common concerns they have about their children.\n\nThat social media is robbing them of their childhood, addicting them to algorithms.\n\nEncouraging anxieties, eating disorders and other harms.\n\nOur ban gives our children precious breathing space in which to mature and make safer social media decisions.\n\nIt gives parents the confidence of being able to say to their children – legally you cannot be on these platforms.\n\nI want our children to be playing football or netball, making music or reading books, finding friends face to face.\n\nPut simply, we must give children back their childhood.\n\nThe ban is making a difference.\n\nAnd in the last fortnight we have strengthened it to force stricter compliance from social media platforms, with harsh penalties for a failure to enforce the rules.\n\nAustralia is now introducing additional laws – My Feed, My Way – to put choice back into the hands of Australians over the algorithm.\n\nThey will make social media platforms give people choice.\n\nChoice over accepting algorithmic feeds and the ability to take proactive measures to remove harmful content from their platforms.\n\nOn Saturday, I stopped at Silicon Valley at the invitation of Apple’s Executive Chairman Tim Cook, to see how our laws inspired Apple’s new child safety controls.\n\nInspired by people like Emma and Tilly, all of this is making a real difference.\n\nArtificial Intelligence is changing the world in which we live.\n\nIt is bringing enormous opportunities for our businesses and universities.\n\nBringing the promise of discovery through new scientific and medical advances.\n\nDriving productivity and innovation.\n\nThat is why Australia is welcoming AI investment in our country. We see its potential to create opportunities and prosperity for our people.\n\nBut we also see that AI can pose a range of potential risks.\n\nFrom the exploitation of children, the potential to enable biological weapons, or even the loss of control of AI systems themselves.\n\nAnd as AI capabilities advance, these risks will increasingly cross borders.\n\nAnd no country can manage these risks alone.\n\nWe must come together.\n\nTogether, we can seize and share and shape the opportunities this moment holds, in the interests of all our citizens.\n\nWe can help build common standards that protect our children and our communities.\n\nWe can develop clear shared expectations and common guardrails.\n\nThis week I was pleased to join with the Finnish President, the Norwegian PM and more than 20 leaders, to support control over frontier AI models.\n\nAnd today I join with my fellow leaders here in the Coalition for Children’s rights and Protection in the Age of AI.\n\nAs leaders from our nations, UN agencies, civil society and the private sector we are here to demonstrate our commitment.\n\nA commitment to deliver tangible outcomes on issues like safety and privacy by design and to fight against harms including AI-generated child sexual abuse material and deepfakes.\n\nIn this digital age, retaining sovereignty must have a digital dimension.\n\nWhich is why in July I announced that Australia will establish Australian Standards for AI.\n\nStandards to ensure AI will work and deliver for people – not the other way around\n\nTo ensure our values are reflected and that technology retains its social licence.\n\nTo shape AI development, rather than be shaped by it.\n\nTogether, we can rise to meet these new challenges, now.\n\nWe can re-affirm our national sovereignty – and our shared humanity.\n\nWe can seize and share and shape the opportunities this moment holds, in the interests of all our citizens.\n\nBut we can only do it together.\n\nWe have the power, the agency and the choice to both embrace change and shape it.\n\nJust as Australia has done with our digital safety agenda, we can do it with AI.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/shape-the-digital-world-or-it-will-shape-us", "canonical_source": "https://www.pm.gov.au/media/shape-digital-world-or-it-will-shape-us", "published_at": "2026-09-22 00:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-22 21:56:01.598637+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "ai-safety", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["Australia", "Anthony Albanese", "United Nations", "Coalition for Children's rights and Protection in the Age of AI", "Apple", "Tim Cook", "Emma Mason", "Finland"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/shape-the-digital-world-or-it-will-shape-us", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/shape-the-digital-world-or-it-will-shape-us.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/shape-the-digital-world-or-it-will-shape-us.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/shape-the-digital-world-or-it-will-shape-us.jsonld"}}