Australian mother calls for global social media age restrictions after daughter's suicide

A Sydney mother has used a United Nations General Assembly side event in New York to call for global reform of social media rules, including an age ban on accounts for children under 16 and financial accountability for tech platforms blamed for harming minors. Emma Mason spoke at the event about her daughter, Matilda Rosewarne, who died by suicide in February 2022 after years of cyberbullying that intensified with the rise of social media.

Tilly faced relentless harassment that began in elementary school and escalated as online platforms expanded. In November 2020, a male classmate created a fake nude image of her that circulated on Snapchat to more than 3,000 children within hours. School officials reportedly told the family they could not intervene because the boy and his mother denied he had a phone that day. That night, Tilly attempted suicide by self-harm; she did not recover.

Authorities later told the family that stopping the spread of such material was difficult and that information from platforms could take months. Mason argued that social media apps such as Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok directly contribute to harm among young users and to broader declines in mental health, body image, sleep, social skills and social isolation. Australia has since enacted a landmark minimum-age law intended to prevent under-16s from having accounts and to impose penalties on platforms, a policy Mason said should serve as a blueprint for global reform. She urged other nations to follow suit and to hold technology companies financially responsible for the consequences of their products.

European leaders echoed similar concerns at the UN event. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen urged age-verification safeguards and limited access to adult content for minors, describing age checks as plain common sense and arguing they should accompany future tech developments. She noted pilots of age-verification technologies in France, Spain, Greece, Denmark and Italy and said the goal is to ensure that technology serves society and not the other way around. In remarks that accompanied the discussion, representatives from major platforms described ongoing safety work and a willingness to explore additional steps to protect younger users, including mental-health supports and safer-use commitments.

In coverage tied to the event, attention also turned to debates over campaign strategies that involve minors. Critics highlighted a campaign video produced by Mamdani that used children to advocate for online-safety measures, drawing scrutiny over the ethics of using kids in advocacy. The event also featured regional politics, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s presence alongside von der Leyen in related international discussions and his government’s push to promote Australia’s social media rules as a model for other countries. The UN appearance underscored the growing international focus on child safety online and the role of platforms in youth mental health.

Emma Mason closed with a personal appeal to policymakers: families who lose children to online harassment should not face these harms in isolation, and that a coordinated, global response is necessary to protect the next generation. The case of Tilly Rosewarne has intensified the ongoing debate about platform accountability and regulatory reform that is already moving in Australia and several European jurisdictions, highlighting health, safety and mental-health considerations at the center of the conversation about online life for young people.