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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Josh Taylor Technology reporter

Wikipedia founder brands Australia’s social media ban an ‘unmitigated disaster’ and ‘embarrassment’

Jimmy Wales in 2025
Jimmy Wales in 2025. The Wikipedia founder says Australia’s teen social media ban is the result of a ‘massive moral panic’ that is ‘really unjustified’. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, has branded the Australian social media ban an “unmitigated disaster” and an “embarrassment” that is teaching kids to accept surveillance from tech companies when they go online.

The online encyclopaedia that anyone can edit was born in a world before social media, in 2001. But Wales told Guardian Australia that many of the ills of social media existed even in the earlier stages of the internet.

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