NATION DIVIDED
Some youth advocacy groups and academics had warned the ban could shut off the most vulnerable young people, including LGBTQIA and migrant teenagers, from support networks. The Australian Human Rights Commission said the law may infringe the human rights of young people by interfering with their ability to participate in society.
Privacy advocates meanwhile warned the law could lead to heightened collection of personal data, clearing the path for digital identification-based state surveillance. A last-minute change to the Bill specified that platforms must offer an alternative to making users upload identification documents.
“This is boomers trying to tell young people how the internet should work to make themselves feel better,” said Sarah Hanson-Young, a senator for the left-leaning Greens, in a late Senate sitting just before the Bill was passed 34 votes to 19.
But parent groups pushed for intervention, seizing on comments from US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy who in 2023 said social media was worsening a youth mental health crisis to the point where it should carry a health warning.
“Putting an age limit and giving the control back to the parents, I think it’s a starting point,” said Australian anti-bullying advocate Ali Halkic, whose 17-year-old son Allem took his life in 2009 following social media bullying.
“For the 10 to 15-year-olds (the ban) will be hard to manage, but the next generation who are coming up who are seven, eight or nine years old, if they don’t know what it is, why is it important?” he added in a phone interview.
Enie Lam, a Sydney school student who recently turned 16, said social media contributed to body image problems and cyberbullying but a total ban may drive young people to less visible, more dangerous parts of the internet.
“It will only create a generation of young people who will be more technologically literate in bypassing these walls,” she told Reuters. “It won’t achieve the desired effects.”
“We all know social media isn’t good for us but the social media ban generally sees a lot of young people who are strongly against it.”
