Call it Three Years
It would be safe to assume that so called Australia’s pending teen social media ban was being led and designed by experts, not a breakfast radio guy and an ad man, sorry producer. But here we are.
I guess I should start this by saying, I’m not accusing any person or corporation of anything. None of this has been verified beyond desktop research through the sources linked below and relies on the information previously reported on by other journalists and news organisations. I haven't reached out to the people behind the 36 months campaign or legislators for comment.
Why I think it's important to unpack this issue and look at its border context is because to put it mildly, it is really important legislation, allegedly world first even. With implications and repercussions that will affect every individual in this country and the idea of the free internet. Better understanding the people and businesses behind this record speed campaign is important.
Now why would an ad guy and an aging radio host suddenly decide to shove through the world's first social media age ban? We can speculate but hopefully by unpacking who Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli, Rob Galluzzo and their merry band of collaborators are we can start to get an idea as to the why. And more importantly how this might just be the end of the internet as we know it.
Let’s start with Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli, the face of the campaign. People from so called Sydney would be most familiar with Wippa, probably having listened to the morning breakfast show on NOVA FM over the years. According to Wippa’s agency page, he’s never afraid to ‘give it a go’ which proudly includes ‘being naked in the studio more times than he cares to admit’. Wippa got his big start in radio at 5AU in Port Augusta, sometime in the early 2000’s, before landing his first big break as a ‘stunt guy and panelist’ for Hamish & Andy. Which, he was subsequently fired from, jumping over to 92.9 in Perth having landed a headline gig as part of the Em, Wippa and Ollie breakfast show. In November 2010 Wippa joined Ryan Fitzgerald to host the ‘Fitzy and Wippa’ show on Nova 96.9. In February 2024, the ‘Fitzy and Wippa and Kate (Ritchie)’ show (formerly Sarah McGilvray 2018 - 2023) lost its national broadcast slot.
Over the years Wippa and Fitzy have made guest appearances on a host of affiliated TV shows including All Star Family Feud, they hosted 20 to 1 and together appeared on Shark Tank to promote one of Wippa’s product "Mup". Which appears to have just been a gag by the pair to promote NOVA 96.9 and Red Tomoto, a marketing agency which now leads with ads for an AI Merch generator. Recently, Wippa’s been pretty open about dealing with sleep issues, weight loss and depression across various news articles and podcasts since 2022.
For a splash of the conspiratorial, NOVA 96.9 at Nova Entertainment is owned by Lachlan Murdoch. The same Murdoch that owns large swaths of the Australian media landscape. But we’ll come back to this.
Now, Rob Galluzo who is the ad man behind this little campaign. I’m not really sure how Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli and Rob Galluzo met or first started working together. I assume it's because they both work in Sydney’s entertainment industry and like most industries it's a small pond. But from this article on Mediaweek, the pair were brought together by their existing partnerships and shared concern as fathers.
“Forever since I’ve known Rob, we play with all sorts of ideas and toys and things we could possibly do together,” Wipfli explained in the article on Mediaweek.
So why is Rob Galluzo suddenly pushing a campaign to ban social media for teenagers? Again we can only speculate but some history and context around Galluzo and his company Finch do start to paint a picture of sorts.
Rob Galluzo, according to this article by AdNews, started his career as a merchandising manager for Bra’s and Things before being asked by billionaire Brett Blundy to help rebrand Sanity in 1992, allegedly coming up with the name Sanity even. From there he went to Y&R famous for handling the Australian Defence Forces recruitment account. Galluzo was then ‘head-hunted’ by US based company Radical Media, scoring a role as executive producer. Then in 2011 Rob Galluzo founded FINCH. The company has since gone on to work with the likes of Mercedes, Westpac, Victoria Bitter, Mars, Air New Zealand, CommBank and Qantas.
Through all of this Rob Galluzo has founded, started or contributed to various so called social enterprises.
These include;
- The Riderless Bike for Host/Havas and Steve Waugh Foundation.
- Most Powerful Arm a robotic arm to drive signatures for a campaign to raise awareness for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)
- An ALS voice cloning software for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
Now there’s Creatable, a FINCH start up founded by Rob Galluzo and Greg Attwells (we’ll touch on him again later) in 2017 and according to the Wayback Machine its website came down at 8:30pm on November 11, 2024. Creatable’s mission, was or is, to address “the underrepresentation of girls in STEM”. They were commissioned by UNICEF to ‘develop an innovation and entrepreneurship curriculum’ for Burundi, a country in Africa. All of this to sell a $200 annual subscription service to Teachers to access motivational and educational videos and resources, much like Masterclass does. Some of these videos on their courses page include such titles as; ‘Championing Compassion with R. M. Williams’ and ‘Imposter Syndrome, Ego, and Learn as we Go with Meta’, yes that Meta.
A year after Creatable was founded in 2018, another FINCH cofounded venture, this time with the United Nations Development Programme and backed by MARS, called ‘The Lion’s Share’ popped up. Even Sir David Attenborough backed the program and lended his name to the marketing campaign. The Lions Share is an initiative that gets major brands to dedicate 0.5 percent of their media spend from ads that use endangered animals into a fund, administered by The Lions Share and UNDP, that goes towards their conservation. The idea stems from Rob Galluzo and FINCH TVC director Christopher Nelius, partnering with Clemenger BBDO and Neilson to bring it to life. As of the 2024 report, the annual money raised is US$6,619,236 from 8 partners which include MARS, Gucci Gucci, Cartier, Cartier Philanthropy, Lacoste, The Economist Group, Ascential Events and Private Sector. Averaging less than a million dollars US per corporation.
But great brand building and PR for Rob Galluzo, who founded various startups, To quote an article from AdNews said that “While it isn’t a money making exercise, it will see Galluzzo rub shoulders with some of marketing’s most powerful leaders in the coming months, as well as international celebrities.”
With a direct quote from Rob Galluzo saying:
“I’d prefer to be a globally relevant company with great connections than a holding company’s production house just trying to mine the industry purely for profit,” he said. Sounds so wholesome.
Now we have 36 Months. An organisation that has potentially broken a land speed record from idea to changing the law in 142 days. From an AFR article , one anonymous Canberra lobbyist said the below;
“I can’t think of any example in recent Australian parliamentary history where a policy that is so profound in its impact has been rushed through with such little consultation”.
Rob Galluzo, knew speed was essential and this was core to the campaign. They knew they had six months to get this over the line before it would potentially get complicated or run into counter lobbying by Big Tech. For all intensive purposes its a brilliant campaign. They kept the messaging simple, they specifically used ‘36 months’ because three years sounded daunting. They intentionally took responsibility from parents and put it on the government. They got News Corp, the LNP to back it earyl and pushed Anthony Albanese into a corner.
It all started when Wippa allegedly had his emotional response to seeing Ron DeSantis pushing a bill through Florida’s Senate House to require parent consent to access Social Media.
“I remember thinking, if that's moved me so much, physically, and I don’t do anything about this, then I’ll never do anything about anything again.” said Wippa to the AFR.
According to the same article, a month later Wippa and Rob Galluzo had founded ‘36 Months’ and begun their 142 day campaign to change law. It appears their first call was to former NSW Premier, Dominic Perrottet. The ultra conservative, father of seven from the LNP. The same Dominic Perrottet that wore a Nazi costume for his 21st birthday or who hastily scrapped COVID restrictions putting pressure on the rest of the states and Federal government to do the same. There were also branch stacking allegations and appointing an allegedly corrupt former deputy premier John Barilaro to a $500,000 a year position in New York.
Following the AFR article, after Perrottet, there was the LNP communications minister, then there was a meeting with Ben English, editor of Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph, owned by News Corp Australia. Which also happens to own NOVA remember.
Two other major things were happening around this time in Murdoch’s News Corp Australia world. One, also mentioned in the AFR article, was that Meta had announced in February 2024 that it would not renew $70million (annually) in deals with News Corp to carry their news content in relation to the News Media Bargaining Code (2020).
Wippa denies the connection but acknowledges it.
“We needed a media player. Naturally, through NOVA - and Murdoch, we went to the Telegraph and spoke to them about doing something”.
The other thing happening in News Corp Australia’s world around this time was a potential ban on gambling ads. This came from a report ‘A Better Bet: How Australia Should Prevent Gambling Harm’.
From the ABC article; The report calls on the government to introduce the Senate inquiry recommendations for a complete ban on gambling advertising within three years and a ban on inducements "without delay".
More than 1 million gambling ads aired on free-to-air TV and metropolitan radio in 2022-23. Much of which are owned under Murdoch.
On top of potential ad revenue losses, News Corp had also invested $75million into gambling startup Betr in 2023, quietly selling its stake only four months later.
Gambling is something that is directly affecting kids too, with a recent article from October 2025 in the Financial Review stating that 600,000 kids aged 12-17 had gambled in last year. Rising to 45% of 18-19 years old's. Again from the ABC article, broadly overall losses on online betting grew from $3.6 billion in 2008-09 to $5.8 billion in 2020-21.
Regardless, allegedly for purely altruistic reasons News Corp Australia bankrolled and provided a platform to the 36months campaign. Not possibly at all related to Meta’s cancellation of a giant contract or to potentially drive a wedge under the Albanese government in relation to the potential gambling ad ban and shift the narrative away from the harms of gambling on kids to social media.
Of course the LNP wouldn’t have a horse in this race either, they’d almost immediately secured support from Perrottet and were off the meet with Peter Dutton next. With Dutton saying in June 2024, just a month after 36months founded in May of 2024;
“I would put it at the top of my list for the first 100 days in government, so within the first three months we would introduce it. It reflects the community values and where the view is for the vast majority of Australians at the moment. I honestly can’t understand an argument against putting in place sensible measures,” said Peter Dutton, the leader of the coalition.
Making it a major policy announcement just a year out from the pending Federal election in May 2025 between Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese. By November of that same year, shortly after a meeting with Wippa, Rob and two parents with dead kids' ashes in tow, Anthony Albanese also announced his support.
How this policy will be enforced, or which platforms it includes no one really knows still. Coming into effect on December 10 with almost zero experts on social media, teenage behavior or mental health let alone genuine engagement and testing of the technology that will be used to verify people's ages online.
According to Wippa though, it’s easy; “It’s not hard to do…Banks are doing it, many platforms are doing it. That ID verification is not a challenging piece of tech. That exists.”
Lets not even discuss the recent Discord data breach, which leaked the information of 5.5million users, including recent facial recognition and age verification information due to similar laws in the UK
Or that potentially this ban includes sites like Wikipedia but not LinkedIN because of the vagaries of the legislation and also successful direct lobbying on certain platforms. With LinkedIN successfully being excluded because ‘its too boring’ a platform. And look just speculating, but also because it would be annoying for everyone in Canberra to have to upload a photo of themselves holding their ID up every time they needed to update their resumes.
While Wikiepedia, one of the last bastions of the free and open internet and the platform for a major trove of its accessible information, especially for kids might become inaccessible to them.
But all this didn’t stop 36months and the Australian Labor Government, well Anthony Albanese, presenting this new policy as their swan song at the recent UN delegates meeting in New York. Famously reported all over the media as Anthony Albanese rang the bell at Hugh Jackman’s Aussie-themed bar in New York, arm wrapped around Wippa. The bar also happens to be owned by Wippa’s former bosses Andy Lee and Hamish Blake.
As we move into phase two of the 36months campaign, as FINCH uses their new found fame and positioning to create a new environment for teens to communicate, potentially based on their somewhat failed edutech platform. Greg Attwells has jumped from the aforementioned edutech platform ‘Creatables’ to now be the Managing Director of 36months as they push to launch their podcast series to rebuild ‘the ecosystem around adolescence—in politics, schools and homes’, approaching the December 10 ban.
Their podcast which has so far had guests like;
- Charlotte Mortlock, former Sky News Host turned LNP fundraiser and advocate for ‘womens candidates’.
- Kellie Sloane, another Liberal politician who was elected into the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 2023
- Ian Thorpe, a swimmer.
- Dr Danielle Einstein, a Clinical Psychologist who also ran ‘Chilled and Considerate’ during COVID stressing headlines were causing panic for parents and kids. They also randomly reposted 4:50min video of Peter Dutton on November 4, 2023 calling Islamic people a deathcult and any calls for a Ceasefire in Gaza, clearly against Israel. A post ageing like fine wine.
- Dr Jim Hungerford, who has a Bachelor in Veterinary Science but went from marketing to what appears to be a successful advocate for people with hearing disabilities but is now the CEO of The Butterfly Foundation, an eating disorder charity.
- Kirra Pendergast who founded ‘Safe on Social’ another online edutech disrupter, and also happens to be on the Advisory Board for the Age Assurance Technology Trial. Next to people like Melinda Tankard Reist of Collective Shout who I’ve written about before.
Clearly this all bodes well, as these laws will no doubt have broader repercussions and potentially push marginlised teens into more isolated positions as their access to social media is removed. Personally I wouldn’t be the person I am without access to the internet. It gave me a safe place to express myself and further explore my identity, especially as a young queer person who didn’t feel safe expressing that to my peers or family. Being online gave me a place to not only learn more about myself but also provided a safe haven to explore and express myself in a safe and supportive way. Let alone, how the fuck I would have written any of my assignments without Wikipedia. But that's okay the kids will still have access to ChatGPT.
Just yesterday as I’m finishing this the ABC posted an article ‘warning that the upcoming social media ban will leave regional LGBTIQA+ teenagers without vital access to support’.
We also know about the broader impacts and inherent racism, ableism, homophobia on BIPOC, Queer and Disabled bodies through computer visions and algorithms inherent biases.
Social media is a horrible pit of society, but it's also only a mirror for how we already conduct ourselves. Further complicating access to it, doesn’t really change anything, it just pushes it into a darker corner.
Instead, we could be bolstering and enforcing the existing laws and regulations we already have that cover many of the problematic issues related to social media. Like the existing online hate speech laws that our own E-Safety Commission couldn't seem to enforce against Twitter in 2023, despite threats of fines if they didn't comply.
As Scott Mitchell and Osman Faruqi from LAMESTREAM so accurately point out, our current media infrastructure is completely incapable to having these discussions and providing broader context to the people these laws will impact. Much of that has to do with the concentration of media ownership in this country by Murdoch and News Corp.
Why hasn't our media asked these questions? Why is a radio guy and ad guy pushing a teen social media ban? How did they manage to do this so fast and why was News Corp and the LNP so heavily involved?
I could go on forever about this though and its safe to say these new laws will mostly impact the most marginlised people in our societies while increasing the risk of major breaches for all users.
And don’t even get me started on the fact none of this proposed legislation includes limiting access to genAI either. Maybe next time.
SOURCES:
https://profiletalent.com.au/talent/michael-wipfli/
https://www.mediaweek.com.au/wippa-and-galluzo-say-36-months-is-not-an-attack-on-social-media/
https://finchcompany.com/meanwhile/#finch-entertainment
https://www.crikey.com.au/2011/05/10/no-conflict-over-defence-force-social-media-probe/
https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/36-months
https://mptf.undp.org/fund/lns00
https://www.ipl.org/essay/Summary-Of-Wippa-And-Duttons-36-Months-C538776769E092F1
https://www.novaentertainment.com.au/news/wippa-launches-36-months-initiative
