Prime Minister says it’s time to act on social media sites harming kids

Anthony Albanese has said it is time to take “strong action” to protect young Australians from social media harms, throwing his support behind an age limit with “effective” enforcement*.

The Prime Minister said the federal government wanted to “respond positively” to Australian parents’ pleas for help tackling the issue, which has had “devastating” and “terrible consequences” for the mental health and wellbeing of children and teens.

As the premiers of Australia’s three biggest states come out in support of tougher regulation* for underage access to social media, the Commonwealth is seeking advice about what a feasible* and appropriate age ban would look like.

Mr Albanese said in addition to a $6.5 million age verification* trial, Labor had already quadrupled funding for the eSafety Commissioner* and launched a joint inquiry into the social media giants to examine the issues.

“We want to make sure that any measures that are put in place are effective, because one of the concerns is … that age protocols* may be circumvented* by users at the moment,” he said.

The PM said parents were rightly “worried sick” about what their kids have access to online, and praised the Let Them Be Kids campaign launched on Sunday by News Corp Australia, publisher of Kids News.

“I think this is an example of the media playing a really positive role on an issue that’s of such concern,” he said.

Currently major social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and X require users to be at least 13-years-old to create an account.

But there is no legal requirement to enforce the rule and experts have pointed to countless examples of underage users as proof the age limit across all platforms is not policed.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and communications spokesman David Coleman said in a statement the Coalition “strongly supports” age verification for social media.

“We’re seeing deeply disturbing trends in mental health for Australian children … and we believe social media is a key part of the problem,” the statement said.

“It is difficult to make the case for children under the age of 16 being on social media, especially when we’ve seen the harmful effects that it can have.”

Queensland Premier Steven Miles said he supported the age limit for social media to be increased to 14, and “tighter regulation” on access to under 16-year-olds.

“The Australian Government needs to pull the levers available to them to ensure social media companies are acting responsibly in our communities,” he said.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said it was “time” minimum age barriers on social media were raised, or that Australia set its own rules.

“Our responsibility is to protect our kids, prepare them for the future,” she said.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said his government was hosting a special summit* in October to bring together young people, experts, policy makers and the tech giants to develop a response to growing community concern about the mental health impacts of social media.

“My hope is that this summit will offer a practical way forward, so young people can still enjoy the benefits of technology, while living full, happy lives outside their screens,” he said.

Speaking to 2GB radio’s Ben Fordham on Monday, Mr Minns suggested that the sharp rise in self-harm rates among teenagers “coincided with the prevalence* of social media.”

“The statistics are really troubling, so from 2008 to 2022 rates of self harm doubled for girls between the ages of 15 and 19. And they tripled for children under the age of 14,” he said.

“I know a lot of the big social media firms say there’s other reasons for it … it’s garbage. It happened almost to the day that this became ubiquitous* in the community.”

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce pointed to inappropriate content and the devastating impact of online bullying as two very real dangers of social media for boys and girls and said, “we have to do something about them.”

WATCH THE VIDEO
The words from this mother about the serious consequences of her 12-year-old daughter’s social media addiction are all too real. Please note mother and child are played by actors to protect their family’s identity.

POLL

GLOSSARY

• enforcement: making people obey rules and laws
• regulation: controlling an activity or process with the help of rules and laws
• feasible: practical, workable, achievable
• eSafety Commissioner: Australia’s independent regulator for online safety
• protocols: system of rules and behaviour that people or organisations should follow
• circumvented: successfully got around a barrier in order to do something
• prevalence: something being very common or happening often
• ubiquitous: everywhere, something widespread or appearing to be ever-present

EXTRA READING

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National phone ban for schools?

TikTok biggest time waster for kids

How to balance online and offline fun

QUICK QUIZ

1. Which trial has received a $6.5 million commitment from the Labor government?
2. How old are users currently supposed to be to access the major social media sites?
3. What is the NSW state government hosting in October?
4. The Prime Minister said social media has had devastating and terrible consequences for what?
5. Which premiers from which three states have also backed the need for social media reform to better protect kids?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Let Them Be Kids
After reading all the terrifying statistics stated in this Kids News article, it seems like the only logical thing to do, as the Let Them Be Kids campaign suggests, is to stop kids accessing social media until they are at least 14 or even 16 years old, for their own health benefits.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and communications spokesman David Coleman state that it’s difficult to make a case as to why kids should be allowed on social media when we know how harmful it can be.

As a child growing up in this technological world, do you agree with what the experts are saying? Answer yes or no and state your reasons.

What would be the reasons you can think of, if any, for allowing children under the age of 14 onto these social media platforms?

Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Digital Technologies, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
If the government does bring in new legislation to ban children under a certain age from using these social media platforms, how would they begin to enforce it?

What sort of technology would they need to use to stop children setting up accounts as they do now?

Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Digital Technologies, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Conjunctions
Conjunctions are important in connecting ideas in a text and improving its flow. They help to join sentences, clauses or phrases to create a coherent and meaningful text.

Coordinating conjunctions are used to connect equal ideas or phrases – for example: and, but, or, so, yet, nor.

Subordinating conjunctions are connecting words or phrases that join a subordinating clause to the main idea. They provide additional information about the main idea – for example: because, although, while, when, if, since, until.

Complete at least two activities from the choices below:

Read the news article carefully and highlight all the conjunctions used in the text.

Write down the conjunctions you found and the words or phrases they connect.

Identify the type of conjunction used (coordinating conjunctions or subordinating conjunctions).

Explain the role of conjunctions in connecting ideas and improving the flow of a text.

Write a short paragraph about something you found interesting in the article. Challenge yourself to re-use three conjunctions from the text. Can you up-level them to a higher level conjunction? Does it make the sentence better or harder to read? (Sometimes, the basic conjunction is the best choice.)