Prime Minister Albanese has announced plans to ban children from social media. It has not been confirmed what age this would be, but suggestions range from between 14 and 16. Currently the most likely outcome will be total ban under the age of 14 and then requiring parental permission for 14 and 15 year-olds.
Most people support this move because we all now that social media can be harmful, and the younger the person the greater potential for long-term harm. We know that social media can be highly addictive, we know that there are many paedophiles on social media preying on children we know that there is a lot of porn and porn-like content on social media, we know that there is a lot of misinformation on social media, and we know that there are many social issues, such as bullying, that happens on social media. But before we embrace this new idea too quickly, there are few questions we should all be asking.
The first question I have is why only ban it for children, why not ban it for everyone? All the issues mentioned above are potentially problematic for adults, not just children. It is true that the younger you are the more likely you are to be adversely affected by those issues, but we all know of adults that don’t have the maturity to handle social media.
The second question is why ban for children under 14 when almost all social media platforms already have bans on children under 13 using them, this includes facebook, tik tok, Instagram and snapchat. Are 14 year-olds really that much more mature than 13 year-olds.
The third question is whether they will be banning children from the kids versions of the apps; such as youtube kids, snapkids, kids tik tok, or from social media platforms that are specifically designed for children; such as Zigazoo, Kinzoo, Popjam, Azoomee, Gecko Life and others. If the government is not going to ban children from these platforms then what is the point in banning them from social media at all, because most of the problems that exist on adult social media sites also exist on kids social media sites as well.
The Fourth question is why does the government need to ban social media, shouldn’t parents be encouraged to take some responsibility? Biblically speaking God has given parents responsibility for their children, not the government. So, what we really have here is another example of the government over-stepping their God-given limits and taking over what really should be the responsibility of the parent. The government claims that they are helping the parents, by making it illegal, so then the parents don’t have to enforce it. But the government is wanting to make it so that 15 and 16 year-olds need parental permission, so, they are still assuming that parents can and should make decisions in regards to their child’s use of social media, but just micro-managing when and how they do it.
Some have tried to compare this with the Government banning children under the age of 18 from drinking alcohol. But that is actually not an accurate portrayal of the law, the law prevents anyone other than the child’s parent or legal guardian from supplying them with alcohol. In the case of alcohol the law is designed to enable parents to stop their children from drinking alcohol, but ultimately leaves it as the parent’s responsibility. We should be taking the same type of approach with social media. The fact that most parent’s let their children use social media is the result of decades of undermining the authority of parents, and pushing dangerous ideas such as, children should be making their own choices and controlling their own destiny. What we should be doing is admitting that those ideologies are dangerous for children, and going back to biblical models of family and parenting where the parents are in-charge of their children. Instead, the government is now trying to claim that because the parents are no longer in-charge of their children the government must step in and take over the role of parenting their children. This is a very dangerous place to be in.
The fifth question is, how will the government enforce these laws? We know that children under 13 are already accessing social media by lying about their age, so, how will the government stop that from continuing to happen, particularly when it will involve taking away social media platforms from people that already have one. There is really only two options. One is that the government is unable to accurately determine their age and therefore this new law will be completely redundant. Or the government introduces online identification that will be mandatory for all social media uses, including aduts, that further encroaches on our privacy and freedom, and that gives the government more power and control over our online use.
The final question we should all be asking is, if there is a connection between this and the misinformation and disinformation bill that is being introduced at the same time? And I suspect there is. The reason why I am suspicious of this is partly due to the timing, but primarily because of the question around how the government will enforce these laws. If the government can gain greater capacity and freedom to control and monitor our online use, they will be able to more effectively enforce the misinformation and disinformation laws they are trying to introduce.
This misinformation and disinformation bill is very concerning for a number of reasons. The obvious problem is who determines what is misinformation or disinformation, and what is not? How can we be sure that they will get it right 100% of the time? Can we trust that these people will remain impartial and unbiased? Can we be assured that these people will know everything there is to know about every topic imaginable? Will someone be fact-checking the fact-checkers?
The fact is we already have a problematic record of people in power trying to smear their opponents by making false claims about misinformation & disinformation. Energy Minister Chris Bowen has declared much information around the nuclear debate as disinformation including verifiable statements from nuclear engineers. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese claimed that the reason why the voice referendum lost was because of misinformation being shared by those on the “No” side without providing any evidence for such claims. The idea that Covid19 spread from a lab in Wuhan was declared misinformation, but now it is accepted as a known fact. During the same-sex marriage debate many leaders of the “No” campaign expressed concern that the passing of same-sex marriage would result in the organisations such as private schools being pressured to employ homosexual staff members, and would open the door for trans-activism; these concerns were dismissed as misinformation, but are now the reality in which we live. There are many more examples that could be given, but these are sufficient to show that terms misinformation and disinformation are regularly used by those in positions of power within our society to shut-down debate and silence anyone that disagrees with them.
The reality is that this misinformation and disinformation bill is designed to give the government complete control over political debate, in order to silence those they disagree with. This will enable them to control public debate, which will allow them to spread as much misinformation and disinformation as they like. This bill is about controlling the narrative and shutting down truth, so that there lies are not exposed. The problem is to do this they need a greater capacity to monitor and control people’s online movements. This is where the proposal to ban children from social media comes into play. The government does not care about the well-being of children, they want more control. Banning children from social media allows the government to take the place of parents as the ultimate authority figure in their child’s life, and it allows them to increase the level of surveillance and control they have over what we do online. Making it easy for them enforce the misinformation and disinformation bill they are introducing alongside this ban; a bill that will give them complete control over the political narrative and allow them to silence descent, and stifle truth.
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