Australia’s world-first social media ban has passed the parliament, but it will do little to protect Australian children, writes Melissa Marsden.
The Albanese Government's new social media laws masquerade as making the internet safer for children despite statistics showing the outside world has a reputation for being more dangerous.
Whilst in most states in Australia the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 10 years old — yet there is a distinct lack of anti-bullying legislation.
On an average night in the June quarter of 2023, 812 young Australians aged 10 and over were in detention because of their involvement – or alleged involvement – in criminal activity.
There are no details as to whether these convictions resulted from online or offline crimes. However, the sudden push by the government to ram new social media laws into effect suggests it is not the children who perpetrate crimes that are under scrutiny.
Statistics show that young people are most likely to be in detention if they are male, aged between 14 and 17, and are of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) descent.
Whilst it is questionable as to whether these crimes were committed online or offline, the rate of youth detention for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 10-17 years was higher than the rate for other Australian young people in all Australian states and territories.
In September, twelve-year-old Sydney girl Charlotte ended her life after experiencing rampant bullying despite her parents raising the issue with her school.
In a statement, the girl's family said:
“When the most recent case of bullying was raised, the school simply said that they had investigated, and the girls denied it.”
Were tougher anti-bullying laws legislated rather than removing access to online communities that children often use as an escape from bullying, could instances like these have been avoided?
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), in 2023, 298 Australian young people (aged 18–24 years) took their own lives.
Ninety-four of those deaths by suicide occurred among children and adolescents – aged 17 and below– with the majority occurring in those aged 15–17 (71.3%).
In the years before social media, bullying was often physical and verbal.
According to Edith Cowan University:
“In decades past, bullying was mainly associated with schools and playgrounds — a problem that ended when children returned to the safety of their homes."
In 1999, Bullying in Australian schools was rampant, with over 20% of males and 15% of females aged 8 to 18 years reporting being bullied at least once a week.
In 2022, Melbourne-based freelance journalist, Mel Buttigieg, wrote that in the 1990s, kids’ physical bullying – whilst not always direct – was constantly perpetuated in full view of teachers and students.
As a child who grew up in the early 2000s – having been born in 1996 – I too can confirm that this lack of response to bullying was widespread.
Around the same time I joined social media, I experienced severe bullying at my private primary school. I was chased from one end of the school to the other, blockaded in between the lockers and the library toilets by my bullies, pushed on the school bus, and taunted daily.
My ability to block my bullies from social media provided a welcome reprieve from the daily taunts and abuse.
At this point, I had already been isolated from my friends after having a traumatic brain injury and acquiring a disability — which meant my school thought segregating me from my peers was the best solution.
While in-person bullying is still an issue in many schools, cyberbullying has taken over as the major concern for the health and wellbeing of school-age children”.
In a study published in Nature Communications, UK data shows girls experience a negative link between social media use and life satisfaction when they are 11-13 years old and boys when they are 14-15 years old.
And, whilst the concerns surrounding these statistics are warranted, the blanket approach to the Australian legislation fails to account for vulnerable groups who have benefited from the escape that social media brings.
A reporter for Channel 6 News, Maggie Perry said,
“The government’s plan to prevent under 16s using social media will not protect them – instead, it will cut off many vulnerable and isolated children from vital online support communities”.
These voices have been conveniently left out of the political discourse on Australia’s world-first social media bans, they have been the voices most marginalised from mainstream public and political debate for decades.
The laws do not come into effect until next year, begging the questions: if they are really about saving the lives of children, why wait?
And, why exclude those the legislation proposes to protect from the conversation?
Melissa Marsden is a freelance journalist and PhD candidate at Curtin University. You can follow Melissa on Twitter @MelMarsden96, on Bluesky @melissamarsdenphd or via Melissa's website, Framing the Narrative.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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