The Albanese government’s half-baked social media ban is giving parents false hope and failing to keep children safe online, according to Shadow Minister for Communications and Digital Safety, Sarah Henderson.
Labor’s announcement it will double the maximum penalty for breaches of the social media minimum age law to $99 million and legislate enhanced information-gathering powers confirms the Coalition’s long-standing concerns the ban was deficient.
“Labor’s social media ban is half-baked – poorly designed, rushed and badly implemented. That the eSafety Commissioner was not given the powers she needs to enforce compliance against the multinational tech giants shows minister Anika Wells is incompetent,” Senator Henderson said.
“Rather than fly around the world taking credit for Coalition policy, Anika Wells should have stayed at home and done the hard work to ensure this policy was properly designed and implemented.”
“Today’s announcement is an embarrassing admission that Anika Wells’ oversight of the social media ban has been flawed and chaotic which is compromising the online safety of children.”
“Like Keir Starmer who used the ban as a high-stakes distraction to try and save his leadership, Anthony Albanese is also using this announcement to distract from his disastrous Budget of lies, broken promises and higher taxes.”
There is little evidence to suggest teenagers have turned away from social media as a consequence of the social media minimum age law.
A landmark study by Australian researchers published last week in The British Medical Journal found 85 per cent of under-16s were still accessing social media and the ban was unlikely to improve adolescent mental health in the short term.
It concluded there had been “limited implementation, incomplete compliance, and substantial circumvention of social media restrictions”.
In March, the eSafety Commissioner’s compliance update revealed the age-ban is dramatically failing with 70 per cent of children remaining on social media.
We’ve seen platforms added at the last moment, confusion over the definition of an age-restricted social media platform, and widespread reports of circumvention of age verification.
Recently, Ms Julie Inman-Grant said the ban was “a very blunt force approach” which was developed “very quickly”.
In comments* which highlighted the minister’s incompetence, Ms Grant said she “was not really keen on it when it was first discussed”, adding that the ban was “very thin scaffolding” which did not provide her with “potent powers”.
“The government continues to mislead Australians with claims that more than 5 million under-16s accounts have been removed, deactivated, or restricted when we know a large proportion are Google accounts used for Gmail and other purposes unrelated to social media,” Senator Henderson said.
“The online safety of children is of critical importance. Yet, Australian parents and their children are being badly let down by a government which has severely dropped the ball and a minister seriously out of her depth.”
“Much more needs to be done to keep children safe online including giving parents access to mobile device safety tools, combating algorithms which fuel addictive ‘doom scrolling’ on social media feeds and blocking live-streaming to prevent the horrors of child sexual abuse,” Senator Henderson said.