URGENT: The Australian Government is rushing through its social media age ban
You have less than 24 hours to provide submissions on the bill
The Labor government introduced new legislation today to enforce a minimum age of 16 years for social media.
For some reason, they’re in a huge rush.
The Senate has been given only two business days to review the bill before its report is due next Tuesday, which means Australians have been afforded only one day to provide submissions.
The social media age ban has bipartisan support. A motion was put by the Greens requesting to extend the Senate inquiry into the bill through to February, but the majority of the Coalition were absent from the chamber during the vote, allowing Labor to block it (with the support of a few Liberals).
Like everyone else who has just found out about this, I haven’t even read the bill yet, but am getting this out so that you can make a submission by tomorrow, Friday 22 November 2024 if you wish (time not specified. I would go with COB AEDT to be safe).
Due to the short timeframe of the inquiry (!!) the committee has requested that submissions be limited to 1-2 pages.
Make a submission to the inquiry here.
Read the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 [Provisions] here.
What the government says about the bill
It will deliver greater protections for young Australians during critical stages of their development.
It will require social media platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent under 16s from having accounts.
The law places the onus on social media platforms – not parents or young people – to take reasonable steps to ensure these protections are in place.
It will ensure young Australians have continued access to messaging and online gaming, as well as access to services which are health and education related, like Headspace, Kids Helpline, and Google Classroom, and YouTube.
The government will introduce stronger penalties for online safety breaches, which will see digital platforms face fines of up to $49.5 million for systemic breaches.
The bill creates a new definition of ‘age-restricted’ social media platforms. This will include Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, and X, amongst others.
It will contain robust privacy provisions, including requiring platforms to ringfence and destroy any information collected to safeguard the personal information of all Australians.
What others say about the bill
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, the regulator who will implement the ban, has so far dodged endorsing the bill, comparing a blanket age ban to banning kids from the water rather than putting up pool fences and teaching them to swim.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson Young delivering the results of the Senate inquiry into social media: “What is not in the recommendations is a blunt age ban on social media.” (The full report, released this week, can be found here.)
Greens Senator David Shoebridge has warned that all Australians will be required to go through the age assurance process online in order to implement the ban, raising privacy and data protection concerns for all users, regardless of age. Senator Shoebridge also said that a blanket ban will encourage kids to use VPNs to participate in an unregulated online environment, rather than making online spaces safe.
Source: David Shoebridge on X Communications Minister Michelle Rowland “misunderstood the purpose and findings of our research,” said University of Oxford professor Andrew Przybylski after Rowland cited his research in support of the bill. Przybylski said he did not agree that his research provides justification for the social media age ban.
“Australia: where a 10yo can go to jail, but a 15yo can't go on TikTok...” - X user @StrewthQueen (the age of criminal responsibility in Australia is 10).
“Children and young people have rights to free speech too, as outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Government’s new Bill banning social media for Australians under-16 fails to respect those rights…” - Free Speech Union of Australia on X.
“Seems like a backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians.” - Elon Musk
“I am concerned about the impact of social media on children, but this bill is a Trojan horse to create digital IDs, which is a giant leap into the totalitarian dystopia depicted in "Black Mirror," and already in place in China. And [Prime Minister Anthony Albanese] has proven censorial and untrustworthy.” - Twitter Files journalist Michael Shellenberger.
I have not seen any specific posts lately but I have previously seen activists for protecting kids from online porn praise age assurance/verification policies.
My thoughts
There is reliable evidence that heavy smart phone and social media use harms kids and young people. Jonathan Haidt (Substack here) is the go-to for this.
Kids are encountering porn online at younger and younger ages. Social media exacerbates bullying, self-esteem problems from a constant feed of touched up images, and predators can use smart phone mediated apps to lure children into inappropriate interactions.
The question is not whether these things can be harmful, but what do it about it, and how to balance these measures with benefits afforded by social media use as well (e.g.: education and connection).
The Australian Government tends towards blunt solutions to problems that sit at the nexus of social and digital phenomena - the heavy handed and totally misguided misinformation bill being one example.
What technology will be used for this process? We don’t know yet, because the tender for the government’s $6.5 million age assurance technology trial was only awarded a week ago, to a consortium headed by the world-leading Age Check Certification Scheme (ACCS).
“Age assurance technologies include methods that verify a user’s identity credentials to accurately determine their age, as well as methods that estimate the age of a user – for example, using biometric markers or digital usage patterns,” says the award announcement.
We do know, however, that eSafety’s Age Verification Roadmap is tied in with Australia’s recently legislated Digital ID framework, to which the government has allotted $288.1 million over the next four years.
So while Digital ID may not be the first stop on the road to online age assurance, it is likely the final destination.
As raised by Senator Shoebridge and a host of others, all Australian social media users will be required to go through an age assurance process in order to implement the age ban.
Unfortunately I have not yet had the opportunity to fully explore alternative solutions, including digesting the recommendations of the Senate inquiry into social media, which you can read in the report here.
So, that’s all I’ve got to say about that for now.
If you wish to make a submission to the Senate inquiry into the social media age limit bill, make sure you do so by close of business (AEDT) tomorrow, Friday 22 November 2024, and keep it to 1-2 pages so the committee can consider it in the single day they have been allocated to do so.
Make a submission to the inquiry here.
The Aligned Council of Australia has partnered with Australia vs the Agenda to offer tools and suggestions for making your submission and following up with further action, which you can find here.
Read next: ‘Australia passes landmark under-16s social media ban’
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Pardon the language, but this is complete dodge-fuckery.
This is how they want to end online anonymity, usher in complete online surveilllance, and finally enact the 'driver's licence for the internet'. It will, as you note, ultimately tie in with the legislated digital ID - the only question then being, when/how to they link a centralised digital currency to it, and a social credit system.
Here's the submission I emailed to the committee earlier tonight, if it helps anyone:
Dear Environment and Communications Legislation Committee,
I am writing to express my deep concerns about the proposed Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024. These concerns, shared by family and many friends and colleagues, are manifold and serious, and the key elements are expounded below:
1. First and foremost, the enaction of this legislation would require digital verification for all people to utilise social media, e.g. through a digital ID, so as to identify those under 16. Requiring digital identification for social media is the first step in removing online anonymity, whereby gov’t agencies and corporate entities can surveil what citizens say and do on the internet—a gross breach of the right to privacy.
2. While we can agree that social media is potentially harmful for children to be on, it is not, and should not, be the role of governments to police this. This is a parental right, and government should support this right, not subsume it.
3. The specifics and mechanisms of how the age verification, for all social media users, would work have not been released. Rushing through this bill without disclosure of how it would work, and without proper public consultation thereof, is an abrogation of due process. It suggests that there are likely to be flaws or potential violations of people’s rights in the process, and that it is likely to entail substantial future amendments or complications.
4. There is a general concern of increased data collection, by both private and public entities, through requiring digital verification, which raises material privacy concerns for individuals.
This bill is, at its core, a violation of people’s privacy and anonymity online. It should not have even been formulated—let alone rushed through, with one just day for public submissions. This rushed process is deeply undemocratic, and I and my friends and family will do our utmost to ensure that any of our representatives supporting this bill will not be re-elected.
Regards,
Thankyou Rebekah. I did not realise that I, as a septuagenarian, would have to prove I'm not under 16. Another sneaky way of government pushing their totalitarian ID through?