The Albanese government is failing to keep children safe online, turning its back on crucial safety tools and other technologies which big tech platforms are not making available to Australian families.
Labor’s social media ban is riddled with defects and does nothing to mitigate the harm caused to thousands of children who are either dodging the ban or fall outside its scope.
Why isn’t Labor taking action on technology which can be installed on devices to combat child sexual abuse material?
As the International Justice Mission is advocating, there are solutions to combat the horrific levels of online child sexual abuse including the live streaming of such material.
Why don’t parents have access to safety tools which are used by big business and government departments under big tech enterprise agreements?
The social media ban shows the government is big on announcements, hopeless on implementation and missing in action on tough policy solutions.
The Albanese government rushed out a social media ban, but it never did the hard work to make it work in the real world.
The eSafety Commissioner has conceded in her compliance update released today: “We have not observed a notable change in the number of cyberbullying and image-based abuse complaints involving age-restricted accounts across the platforms in January and February 2026 when compared to the same period in 2025.”
What we are now seeing is exactly what we feared. Kids are finding workarounds such as sharing devices and using false ages, raising the risk they are being pushed into unregulated and dangerous online spaces.
When thousands of underage accounts are still active, you cannot claim success as the government is doing. I also challenge Communications minister Anika Wells’ claim that 5 million under-16s social media accounts have been shut down which is not supported by data released by the platforms.
There is no question social media companies should comply with the law. But the government must own the fact its legislation is not working as promised. If the government has evidence that Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Tik Tok and YouTube are breaking the law, why aren’t they being prosecuted?
When it comes to protecting children online, Anika Wells is all talk and far too little action.