This is what happens when a government is driven by symbolism over the policy process:
A child protection organisation cited by the prime minister in an opinion piece arguing for his government’s policy to ban younger teens from social media says the ban is unlikely to make any difference, and could create more harm for kids.
…The foundation’s chief executive, Sarah Davies, told Guardian Australia that while it was not opposed to raising the age limits on social media, it did not believe it would make any difference.
“The other, more concerning, thing is it might actually create more harm,” Davies said.
One major concern about raising the age of access without stronger regulation of the platforms, Davies said, was that children could end up accessing accounts set up for adults, and then seeing adult content meant for adults – and might be reluctant to seek help if exposed to harm online.
“If we raise the age and younger children are still accessing it, it might drive that help-seeking behaviour underground,” she said.
Of course, it will. Kids are designed to push limits. If you take away what they love, then those limits will be pushed even harder.
Don’t get me wrong, Facebook et al are poisonous. Ideally, there would be guardrails. But the Albanese government’s ‘search and distract’ mission is not it:
Davies said there needed to be serious reform on the regulation of tech companies – not just social media – including banning the selling of data of young people, restricting recommender algorithms and forcing tech companies to give users the highest privacy settings by default.
The Australian Association of Psychologists said the government’s proposed social media age ban laws were “a distraction from the real issues at hand” – making social media and online spaces safer.
The chief executive of Headspace, Jason Trethowan, said banning access to social media was “a blunt instrument that may have unintended consequences” if not weighed against the benefits social media offers young people.
Weighed against the polls, is all that will happen.
