About That Australian Social Media Ban

It turns out that the ban was bankrolled by a group whose business was making gambling ads as an ultimately successful way to divert attention from proprosed regulations against them.

Well, now there is a surprise:

The birthplace of the 36 Months campaign and its influential push for Australia’s teen social media ban was in the boardroom of advertising production company FINCH.

36 Months managing director Greg Attwells said that the group was born during a single May 2024 meeting between him, FINCH founder Rob Galluzzo and Nova 96.9 radio host Michael “Wippa” Wipfli.

Elsewhere at FINCH, staff were hard at work on another campaign: TAB’s “Get Your Bet On”.

The television advert — which was New Zealand’s third-most complained-about ad in 2024 — is just one of the many gambling-related projects worked on by FINCH over the past 10 years.

While not previously reported on, FINCH’s gambling advertising work contrasts with the social campaign of 36 Months, an organisation that FINCH funded and had staffing overlap with.

It further complicates matters for the Australian government which, under pressure from 36 Months, chose to pursue the teen social media ban while failing to make any progress on gambling advertising reform.

………

In November, the Australian Financial Review reported that the government “is expected to abandon plans for a total ban on online gambling advertising, using the under-16 social media restrictions as cover to water down the policy”.

Mission accomplished.

To be clear, I do not support making gambling illegal, but I do support tightly regulating the whole exploitative media infrastructure that arises around it.