No one disputes that social media can harm young people. Almost everyone supports some restrictions on the use of social media by young people. There is a lot of disagreement about exactly what those restrictions should be and how they should be enforced.
We have a proven way to handle disputes about complex issues such as this. We have an executive government who can issue draft laws for feedback and comment. We have a Parliament that can conduct extensive inquiries on the proposed laws including by receiving comment from the public.
Unfortunately, none of these things happened on the government’s social media ban law. That law was first released last Thursday. The public were given 24 hours to comment on the law by Friday.
On the next Monday, the Senate held a four hour public hearing. On Tuesday, the Senate committee reported and recommended major amendments. On Wednesday, the laws passed the House of Representatives.
At the time of writing, the Bill will likely pass the Senate (after debate is gagged) and will return to the House to pass, probably as you read this on Friday morning.
God may have made the Earth in a week, but politicians are not omnipotent, and laws this complex and far-reaching should not be passed in this way. This has not been the finest week for the Parliament.
These laws notionally ban children under the age of 16 from having a social media account, but they will affect all Australians. To ensure that someone is under the age of 16, all Australians will have to provide information to prove their identity and age.
The obvious concerns about privacy and restrictions on rights have not been properly scrutinised in the inadequate and truncated legislative process.
The rushed process is likely to lead to mistakes. And if this panicked attempt to reduce social media’s harms fails, it will set back any other attempt to make social media safer for kids. This law could end up being the legislative equivalent of urinating on a bushfire – it is completely ineffective and it may put at risk the safety of the instrument.
One of the more perplexing aspects of the proposed laws is that there is no mention of the word “parent”.
Parents feel helpless to tackle the onslaught of apps that children can choose from. There is a role for schools and communities to assist. But government should help parents, not replace them.
I have proposed amendments that would allow some children to continue to have a social media account with parental approval. For example, Florida’s laws allow 14 or 15-year-olds to have accounts if their parents approve. A 14-year-old can have a job and pay taxes, should we really blanket ban them from using social media?
Other situations may include the vocational use of social media. A young kid, Leo Puglisi, set up the hugely successful 6NewsAU when he was just 11 with his parents’ co-operation. When Leo was 14, he interviewed the prime minister on Twitter.
Why is the Prime Minister trying to ban future 14-year-olds showing the same entrepreneurial spirit as Leo?
A blunt law from Canberra will not fix the social media crisis. Only a partnership between parents, communities and government will work.
The law also contains a ridiculously broad definition of what is social media. All apps that enable online social interaction between two or more end users are covered.
This would cover the app Strava, which an aspiring young Olympian may use to track her bike rides. It would include Deputy, which many children use to communicate with their boss and other members of their team on rosters and leave while working a job in a restaurant.
I will move an amendment that seeks to narrow the definition of social media to cover only those apps that are associated with harm. The Florida law covers only those apps that kids use in an addictive fashion.
Despite being given only 24 hours to submit to the Senate inquiry, more than 15,000 Australians made a submission, most of them against the law. Some Senate inquiries are lucky to get 100 submissions.
The Senate rushed this law through, even though it will not take effect until 2026. There was plenty of time to extend the Senate inquiry to give due consideration to people’s concerns. Those 15,000 Australians deserve a Parliament that took their concerns seriously, instead they have been treated with contempt.
This clumsy attempt to keep children off social media will probably do nothing but continue the decline of trust Australians have in their democratic institutions.
