Experts and youth-serving organisations across the country, led by the Australian Child Rights Taskforce, are urging the government to exercise great caution in relation to the proposed social media ban for children under 16.
James McDougall, Co-Convenor of the Australian Child Rights Taskforce said: “We support the regulation of online environments to provide protections for children and young people. The proposed social media ban will not achieve that goal. In fact it may harm the group that it is intended to protect and have serious, long-term impacts on the lives of more than 5 million young Australians*. It is unsupported by evidence and now is being rushed through Parliament. Effective regulation of social media platforms and practical support for children and families is required.”
While the Taskforce welcomes Minister Rowland’s recent announcement that a statutory duty of care will be implemented as part of the review of the Online Safety Act, this only underscores the need to scrutinise the detail of the proposed ban on social media for under 16s, to ensure that it does not undermine the spirit and detail of existing regulatory instruments.
Over 100 experts nationwide, 20 international experts, and 20 youth-facing organisations recently signed an open letter calling on the government to reconsider the social media ban proposal. They argue that instead of imposing a blanket ban that will deny U16s access to social media and all of the myriad of social, educational and health benefits that come with that, children, young people and their families would be much better served by a legislated statutory duty of care, nested in a coherent and systemic set of regulatory instruments, which can compel social media platforms to design and be responsible for, products and services that are safe for children.
Professor Amanda Third, Co-Director of the Young and Resilient Research Centre at Western Sydney University said; “By evicting children from social media platforms, we’re not just cutting them off from their peers – we’re removing any incentive for these platforms to create safer spaces for young users.”
Another of the group’s key concerns is that similar age bans have been trialled in ten countries overseas and have been shown to be ineffective. The concern is that if and when children find ways to bypass age restrictions (remember fake IDs?) and they find their way onto social media, they will land in darker spaces than those that currently exist, and they will be less able to reach out for support because they shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Professor Daniel Angus, Director of the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology, said on this point; “If young people, especially young men, are denied access to mainstream social media platforms there’s a very good chance they’ll find their way on to more extreme, less scrutinised platforms that espouse harmful ideologies such as misogyny and hate speech. Banning young people from social media won’t protect them – it will simply push them into darker digital spaces where real dangers lurk unchecked.”
Importantly, youth mental health organisations have consistently expressed opposition to the ban as research** has indicated that social media acts as an important means of reducing youth suicide rates.
Professor Jo Robinson, Head of Suicide Prevention at Orygen, said “many young people look to social media for mental health resources and support, so if we take that access away it’s vital that additional funding and services are made available to support young people’s mental health”.
The group expressed concern that a greater burden will likely be placed on parents and carers. Rather than alleviating their stress, parents will be required to navigate additional ‘parental controls’ on social platforms. At the same time, platforms may aim to become ‘exempt’ from the legislation through the creation of children’s or younger teen versions of their platforms. The recently released ‘Instagram teen’ accounts, for instance, relies heavily on parent and guardian supervision.
Professor Michael Dezuanni, Program Leader in the Digital Media Research Centre and Chief Investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child at Queensland University of Technology commented; “If parents are required to undertake this kind of supervision across several platforms to enable their children to participate online, this will lead to very significant and unreasonable work for parents and carers. This shifts the burden from the platforms to parents.”
Professor Daniel Angus also raised a key children’s rights issue associated with the ban, saying; “As the Internet has matured, authoritative sources of information have increasingly shifted to social media, making it one of the primary ways that all of us now access information directly from government agencies, news outlets, commercial businesses, and more. For young people, there is literally no other way to stay informed about essential topics impacting their lives. A blanket ban would not only wind back young people’s rights to participate in society but also restrict access to information that can’t easily be found elsewhere. Young people have as much of a right to participate in online spaces as adults do, and these blanket bans undermine these freedoms and their access to essential, timely information”.
In addition to this, a national survey and focus groups*** conducted by Sydney University found that young people want to be consulted and play a role in developing online safety policies and laws, and they are concerned that adults are making potentially poor decisions on their behalf. This research also found that 86% of Australian teenagers and 90% of parents of teenagers think social media companies should do more to keep young people safe online.
Finally, Chief Executive Officer Margaret Sheehan at ChildFund Australia said, “While we support the Albanese government’s aim to improve the safety standards of digital platforms including social media, we look forward to working constructively with Parliament to ensure adequate consideration and timeframes are afforded for such a significant Bill”.
For more information or to arrange an interview with any of the members of group quoted above please contact Claire Absolum, Senior Communications Officer, Young and Resilient Research Centre, Western Sydney University at c.absolum@westernsydney.edu.au.