Facebook whistleblower and data scientist Frances Haugen is backing a social media ban for Australian teenagers until they are old enough to safely use it.

Ms Haugen, a former product manager at Facebook, will deliver a keynote address at the NSW and SA governments' Social Media Summit starting on Thursday in Sydney.

She told ABC Radio Sydney that children should be kept off the platforms until at least age 14, noting other experts had suggested 16 be the minimum.

"To safely use social media, you have to do something very complicated, something that even adults really struggle with, which is you have to understand that what you're seeing is not representative," Ms Haugen said.

"It's a slice of people's lives, people put up the best parts of their lives, not the worst parts.

"So taking into consideration the products we have available today, I think at a minimum saying, 'let's wait for 14, let's wait for 15,' is a good idea."

In May 2021, Ms Haugen left her job at Facebook, taking with her a swathe of internal documents including some showing the social media giant knew its product was damaging teenagers' mental health.

Ms Haugen said the lack of content moderation in non-English speaking countries is one of the many things that alarmed her while she was working at Facebook.

"When the company faced trade-offs between public safety and its own profits, it chose over and over again profits over people."

She is also calling on governments to make social media companies more...

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