Anika Wells: “The Coalition and the Greens ignored the pleas of parents who want social media companies held to account for harming Australian kids.” Photo: Anika Wells.
The Federal Government is urging parliament to unite this week and pass legislation to further strengthen Australia’s social media ban for under-16s.
Labor’s bill gives the eSafety Commissioner greater information-gathering powers over non-compliance by tech companies and doubles maximum penalties for breaches to almost $110 million.
The legislation was introduced as urgent in June but was immediately referred to an eight-week Senate inquiry.
That inquiry has since recommended the bill be passed, and Communications Minister Anika Wells is now calling on the Coalition and the Greens to join with the government to make it happen.
“It’s been more than two months since the Albanese Government introduced an urgent law to strengthen eSafety’s powers to enforce the social media minimum age law,” the minister said.
“Australian kids and parents needed these laws eight weeks ago, but the Coalition and Greens teamed up to send our four-page bill to an eight-week inquiry.
“The Coalition and the Greens ignored the pleas of parents who want social media companies held to account for harming Australian kids.
“This is the kind of dawdling and delay that has enabled social media companies to get away with harming our kids for so long.
“We have to put politics to the side and pass this bill this week, so the eSafety Commissioner can hold social media companies accountable.”
More than five million under-16 accounts have been removed, deactivated or restricted since the ban began in December last year, but social media companies appear to be doing what the government says is the bare minimum to comply with Australia’s laws.
Legislation is also expected to be introduced this week to toughen the digital duty of care on big tech companies.
It will force the social media firms to stop harmful content on their platforms and to allow users to opt out of algorithms.
On that point, the Coalition is not so sure, however, expressing concerns the move could be government overreach.
Deputy Opposition Leader Jane Hume said Monday morning (7 September) the bill could be handing the Communications Minister too much power.
“We don’t feel that the minister should have the powers to determine what is and is not online harm,” Senator Hume said.
“Particularly without any parliamentary scrutiny. That would be of considerable concern.
“Now, we haven’t seen anything about this legislation. We’ll wait to see what it is that the government proposes.
“But of course, you could understand why there would be a natural suspicion. When the government tries to control the internet, it inevitably fails.”
Her comments echoed those of Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, who expressed his scepticism during a media interview on Sunday.
“I think everyone’s very disappointed at the way the government has implemented the initiatives to stop young Australians from getting access to social media – it’s something like a 4.4 per cent reduction we’ve seen which is just immaterial in the scheme of things,” he said.
“What we want to see is parents having more control over what their kids get to see on social media.
“We’ll wait and see this legislation. I’m deeply sceptical. I fear that this is just going to be an attempt by the government to censor social media … I do think that making the initiative that’s already been put in place for keeping under-16-year-olds off social media, I think making that work is crucial. I mean the government should be focused on that because it’s not working.
“So then going off and starting off on some other thing which risks being censorship of the internet – enormous ministerial discretion around censorship of the internet… look, we’re sceptical. I think there’s good reason to be sceptical about that.”
Anthony Albanese has written an opinion piece that was published in News Corp papers Monday morning, urging Federal Parliament to pass all the new social media legislation.
“When we passed our world-leading laws, we had bipartisan support. We said at the time we knew these laws wouldn’t be perfect and that it would take time to see the full impact,” the Prime Minister wrote.
“Now, the parliament has the opportunity to come together again to strengthen bipartisan laws and to hold some of the richest organisations in the world to account for choosing company profits over child safety.
“While we are strengthening the ban, we are taking the next steps to make interactions with the internet safer for all Australians – through our Digital Duty of Care.
“This landmark reform will put the onus on service providers to take reasonable steps to create a safe online environment for all Australians.
“We are also looking at what action we can take on harmful algorithms. The evidence is overwhelming. Algorithms are pushing people further and further to the extremes.
“They are driving users – often young people – down rabbit holes of harmful content.”
Original Article published by Chris Johnson on Region Canberra.
