Tama Leaver

Tama Leaver is a Professor of Internet Studies at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia and expert media commentator. He is the Immediate Past President of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) and a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.

His research interests include digital childhood and infancy online, visual social media , social media, digital death, mobile gaming and the changing landscape of media distribution.

He is the author of Artificial Culture: Identity, Technology and Bodies (Routledge, 2012); co-editor of An Education in Facebook? Higher Education and the World’s Largest Social Network (Routledge, 2014) with Mike Kent; and Social, Casual and Mobile Games: The Changing Gaming Landscape (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016) with Michele Willson; co-author of Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures (Polity, 2020) with Tim Highfield and Crystal Abidin; co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children (Routledge, 2021) with Lelia Green, Donell Holloway, Kylie Stevenson and Leslie Haddon; and co-editor of Gaming Disability: Disability Perspectives on Contemporary Video Games (Routledge 2023) with Katie Ellis and Mike Kent.

Classic black and white, father reading to kids
Opinion

While everyone argues over adding YouTube to Australia’s u16 social media ban, the AI elephant in the room is set to trample on kids

- June 24, 2025 4 MIN READ

Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, today addressed the National Press Clubto outline how her office will be driving the Social Media Minimum Age Bill when it comes into effect in December this year. The bill, often referred to as a social media ban, prevents under-16s having social media accounts. But Inman Grant wants Australians… Read more »

Politics

New teen accounts on Instagram are a welcome step, but real ‘peace of mind’ requires more

- September 19, 2024 4 MIN READ

As Australia and other countries debate the merits of banning kids under 14 from social media, Meta has announced a significant “reimagining” of teenagers’ experience of Instagram. These new “Teen Accounts” will be set to private by default, have the maximum content and messaging restrictions possible, pause notifications at night, and add new ways for… Read more »

Politics

Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee says the government’s news media bargaining code could break the internet, but there is a fix

- January 22, 2021 4 MIN READ

The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has raised concerns that Australia’s proposed News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code could fundamentally break the internet as we know it. His concerns are valid. However, they could be addressed through minor changes to the proposed code. How could the code break the web?… Read more »

Global tech

Facebook is merging Messenger and Instagram chat features for Zuckerberg’s benefit, not yours

- October 6, 2020 3 MIN READ

Facebook Messenger and Instagram’s direct messaging services will be integrated into one system, Facebook has announced. The merge will allow shared messaging across both platforms, as well as video calls and the use of a range of tools drawn from both platforms. It’s currently being rolled out across countries on an opt-in basis, but hasn’t… Read more »