Why I’ve changed my mind about the social media bill – and why other parents should too

I have a confession to make. I’ve done something that politicians aren’t expected to do. I’ve realised I was wrong and changed my mind.

I have two teenage daughters and three teenage stepsons, and when the federal government announced that they were going to ban social media for under-16-year-olds, I was onboard.

Like all of us, I’ve seen and heard of the toxic harms of social media. And one thing I think we can agree on is that the government has a responsibility to protect children and young people from preventable harms. So at first glance it seemed like a great idea, and I was ready to back it in.

But as I read and listened to experts, my colleagues, constituents and young people themselves, I began to wonder if what we’re getting is just a simplistic kneejerk reaction. It may play well with parents who only see a headline on the news, but will it actually do the job?

Social media for many young people is a place to build community and ensure they don’t feel alone, and may be the only place some feel safe seeking support. This is particularly true for people in rural and remote communities, and those from more marginalised groups.

We have heard a lot from the parents’ perspective, but the voices of children and young people have been conspicuously missing from most of the debate and commentary. That’s despite the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child asserting in article 12 that children should be “provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child”. And, in article 13, that children have the “freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice”.

On top of this, even politicians tasked with looking at it have noted that the causal link between social media and harms aren’t clear. And that the risks associated with social media use are not driven by social media itself, but by business models that thrive on engagement-based algorithms and lack of protections and safety features for users. Moreover, we are naive if we think young people aren’t going to find ways around this ban or move to more unregulated spaces like the dark web.

Those are some of the more philosophical reasons why I’ve shifted my position. But there are some practical ones too. For example, there is the fact that the bill is vague and leaves it entirely up to the minister to figure out how it will work. And when asked by my colleague Rebekha Sharkie about the mechanics of age verification, the minister couldn’t give a clear answer.

Is every Australian going to have to hand over their driver’s licence or passport to Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk just to access an app on their phone? And can we trust them to use and store such information appropriately?

There is also the fact that, despite all the histrionics about protecting children from harm, the government has dropped plans to ban gambling advertising, shelved their Environmental Protection Agency, kicked environmental law reform into the long grass and continue to cheer on fossil fuels. Surely our kids deserve protection from predatory gambling companies and the climate emergency too.

If we truly want to get serious about protecting our kids online we could better regulate social media companies and their algorithms. We could put the onus on them to implement safety by design. And we could steer kids towards more respectful behaviour.

This proposed ban is a blunt instrument being rushed through before an election. It ignores the nuances and restricts young people rather than focusing on those responsible for the harm. There are any number of things the government could be doing if they were serious about preventing harm, but I reckon in this case they are just playing pre-election games and the opposition is more than happy to go along for the ride.