🔍 In this 'Hot Item' episode, Amanda Third discusses the proposed ban on social media for under-16s and why a well-intentioned, “world-first” measure could backfire. Framed as a response to youth mental health concerns, the legislation may weaken online safety, deepen inequalities, and encourage circumvention. The discussion highlights why smarter, evidence-based regulation—focused on harmful platform features and children’s rights—matters far more than blanket bans.

🔑 The key messages:

1. Blanket social media bans risk making children less safe, not more.
By removing under-16s from social media platforms altogether, the legislation may strip away critical safety tools such as age-appropriate content moderation and targeted protections. Rather than addressing harmful content and platform design, the ban risks pushing children into unregulated spaces or teaching them how to circumvent safeguards.

2. Children’s digital lives are complex—and regulation must reflect that reality.
Young people use social media to connect, learn, organise, and support their wellbeing, while actively weighing risks and benefits in their online choices. Delaying access can hinder the development of essential digital, critical, and safety literacies—leaving children more vulnerable when they inevitably enter these spaces later.

3. Effective child online safety requires smarter, evidence-based regulation—not political shortcuts.
Australia’s rushed legislation overlooks existing regulatory tools and creates equity gaps that disproportionately affect vulnerable children. A better path lies in regulating harmful platform features, setting clear design standards, and meaningfully involving children in policymaking—an approach the EU is well placed to lead at an international level.

📌 About Our Guest
🎙️ Amanda Third | Western Sydney University
🔗 linkedin.com/in/amanda-third-03228a46

Amanda Third is an internationally recognised expert in children’s rights, digital media, and online safety. She is Co-Director of the Young and Resilient Research Centre at Western Sydney University, where she leads research and advises policymakers on evidence-based approaches to supporting children and young people in digital environments.

#EUdigital #InternetPolicy #TelecomRegulation

🔥 In this 'Hot Item', Kyung Sin Park (aka ‘KS Park’), Professor at Korea University Law School and co-founder and Director of Open Net Korea, & the internet lab discuss the recent joint statement by the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO) and the Korea Telecommunications Operators Association (KTOA) on network fees.

📌Hot Item Highlights
⏲️[00:00] Intro
⏲️[00:39] KS Park
⏲️[10:11] Wrap-up & Outro

🗣️ [Network fees] have really suppressed the development of small to mid-sized content providers in Korea. That has not been addressed at all by the joint letter by KTOA and ETNO.

🗣️ The more people choose [specific] content, the more the content’s author has to pay to the telecom operator. It’s basically a taxation on speaking online, if speaking includes making available videos, audio, or files, etc. That's what's happening in Korea.

🗣️ [In 2021]: TeleGeography, found that the transit fee in Seoul was eight times more than London and ten times more than Frankfurt, and you can see the impact on the Internet ecosystem.

🗣️ On the argument of payments being imposed only on ‘large traffic generators’: lots of people make a living on those platforms (...) [which] are bound to shift the burden to users, and that will suppress growth of individuals and SMEs.

➡️ KTOA-ETNO Joint Statement on Network Fees
➡️ Comparisons of transit fee costs: see here and here

In this podcast Klaus Landefeld (DE-CIX Group) & the internet lab discuss what’s wrong with the EC consultation on the future of telecoms

📌Episode Highlights
⏲️[00:00] Intro
⏲️[00:47] What’s Wrong With the EC Consultation on the Future of Telecoms
⏲️[06:08] Outro

📌About Our Guest
🎙️ Klaus Landefeld | Member of the Supervisory Board, DE-CIX Group
🌐 DE-CIX
🌐 Klaus Landefeld

Klaus Landefeld is a member of the supervisory board of the DE-CIX Group. He is an expert on the topics of infrastructure and networks, net neutrality, data retention, telecommunications surveillance, and IT security. Klaus provides advice and support to organisations and authorities across the world, including as a member of the Committee for Technical Regulation in Telecommunications of the German Federal Network Agency (BNetzA). He is also a founding member of multiple internet exchange points.

In this podcast Dr. Tito Rendas (Católica Global School of Law) & the internet lab discuss what’s wrong with the EC consultation on the future of telecoms

📌Episode Highlights
⏲️[00:00] Intro
⏲️[00:53] What’s Wrong With the EC Consultation on the Future of Telecoms
⏲️[04:08] Outro

📌About Our Guest
🎙️ Dr. Tito Rendas | Executive Dean and Assistant Professor, Católica Global School of Law
🐦 https://twitter.com/titorendas
🌐 [Event] Debate | 'Telcos v. Big Tech' (17 April 2023)
🌐 29 Internet Experts and Academics send a Letter to the Commission urging to abandon the “Sending-Party-Network-Pays” proposal
🌐 [Op-ed - O Jornal Económico] Back to the future, or why Netflix shouldn't pay Vodafone (Regresso ao futuro, ou porque é que a Netflix não deve pagar à Vodafone)
🌐 Dr. Tito Rendas

Dr. Tito Rendas is Executive Dean and Assistant Professor at Católica Global School of Law, where he also co-coordinates the Masters in Law on. Law in a Digital Economy. He has been a speaker at conferences and seminars at several institutions worldwide, including the European Parliament, Yale Law School, Tel Aviv University, and the University of Cape Town, and he holds visiting teaching appointments at Freie Universität Berlin and Stockholm University. Dr. Rendas has also been an agent for the Portuguese Republic before the Court of Justice of the European Union in several preliminary reference procedures on different topics at the intersection of law and technology.

In this podcast Rudolf van der Berg (Stratix) & the internet lab discuss what’s wrong with the EC consultation on the future of telecoms

📌Episode Highlights
⏲️[00:00] Intro
⏲️[00:43] What’s Wrong With the EC Consultation on the Future of Telecoms
⏲️[06:19] Outro

📌About Our Guest
🎙️ Rudolf van der Berg | Partner, Stratix
🐦 https://twitter.com/internetthought
🌐 internet lab Season 1 Podcast with Rudolf van der Berg
🌐 [Presentation] Why You Need to Respond to the EU’s Questionnaire on Internet Connectivity (or risk the end of INEX - the Internet Neutral Exchange)
🌐 Leaked EU Connectivity Document Sets off Alarm Bells
🌐 Fast Internet Doesn’t Cost EU Telecom Operators Much at All
🌐 Internet Traffic Growth Is Not Out of Control, and Nothing Like Telcos Want You To Believe
🌐 [Video] NLNOG 2022 - Rudolf van der Berg | Big Telco vs Big Tech, Or Why Telcos Want Money for Traffic Again
🌐 [Slides] NLNOG 2022 - Rudolf van der Berg | Big Telco vs Big Tech, Or Why Telcos Want Money for Traffic Again
🌐 Rudolf van der Berg

Rudolf van der Berg is a consultant with 20 years of experience in Internet, telecom, privacy, online content, standardisation and related topics. In the past, Rudolf was an Economist and Policy Analyst at the OECD working on telecommunications and Internet-related policy. He notably wrote reports on Machine-to-Machine communication, Internet of Things, connected television, mobile termination rates, fixed mobile convergence, international cables and Internet exchange points. Working together with BEREC - the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, he organised two meetings on IP-interconnection, which brought the Internet peering community and regulators together.

In this podcast Ernesto Falcon (EFF) & the internet lab discuss what’s wrong with the EC consultation on the future of telecoms

📌Episode Highlights
⏲️[00:00] Intro
⏲️[00:45] What’s Wrong With the EC Consultation on the Future of Telecoms
⏲️[05:31] Outro

📌About Our Guest
🎙️ Ernesto Falcon | Senior Legislative Counsel, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
🐦 https://twitter.com/EFalcon_2024
🌐 Network Usage Fees Will Harm European Consumers and Businesses
🌐 Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
🌐 Ernesto Falcon

Ernesto Falcon is Senior Legislative Counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) with a primary focus on intellectual property, open Internet issues, broadband access, and competition policy. In the US, his work includes pushing the state of California to pass the strongest net neutrality law in the country in response to federal repeal efforts.

In this podcast German MEP Sabine Verheyen (EPP Group) & the internet lab discuss what’s wrong with the EC consultation on the future of telecoms

📌Episode Highlights
⏲️[00:00] Intro
⏲️[00:45] What’s Wrong With the EC Consultation on the Future of Telecoms
⏲️[07:27] Outro

📌About Our Guest
🎙️ MEP Sabine Verheyen | German MEP, EPP Group
🐦 https://twitter.com/sabineverheyen
🌐 9 February 2023 - EP Event on Network Fees Organised by MEP Verheyen
🌐 European Parliament MEP Page

MEP Sabine Verheyen has been a Member of the European Parliament for the German Christian Democrats (CDU) since 2009 and is Chairwoman of the Committee for Culture and Education since 2019. MEP Verheyen focuses in particular on media policy, intellectual property and digital agenda issues and she took part in the past in the conciliation committee on the telecom package.

In this podcast Prof. Luca Belli (Center for Technology and Society, FGV Law School) & the internet lab discuss what’s wrong with the EC consultation on the future of telecoms

📌Episode Highlights
⏲️[00:00] Intro
⏲️[00:55] What’s Wrong With the EC Consultation on the Future of Telecoms
⏲️[08:03] Outro

📌About Our Guest
🎙️ Prof. Luca Belli | Professor & Head, Center for Technology and Society, FGV Law School
🐦 https://twitter.com/1lucabelli
🌐 29 Internet Experts and Academics send a Letter to the Commission urging to abandon the “Sending-Party-Network-Pays” proposal
🌐 Belli, L. (2017). Net neutrality, zero rating and the Minitelisation of the internet. Journal of Cyber Policy. Vol.2, 2017 - Issue 1
🌐 Belli, L. and P. De Filippi. eds. (2016). Net Neutrality Compendium: Human Rights, Free Competition and the Future of the Internet. Springer
🌐 Belli, L., & Van Bergen, M. (2013). Protecting Human Rights through Network Neutrality: Furthering Internet Users’ Interest, Modernising Human Rights and Safeguarding the Open Internet. Council of Europe. CDMSI(2013)misc19E
🌐 Center for Technology and Society, FGV Law School
🌐 Prof. Luca Belli

Luca Belli is Professor of Digital Governance and Regulation at Foundation Getulio Vargas Law School in Brazil, where he directs the Center for Technology and Society and the CyberBRICS project. Luca served as Net Neutrality specialist for the Council of Europe and was the founder of the Net Neutrality Coalition of the UN Internet Governance Forum. His works have been quoted by numerous media outlets, including The Economist, Financial Times, Forbes, Le Monde, BBC, China Today, The Hill, O Globo, and Folha de São Paulo.