The Labor Government has decided to ban anyone under 16 from using social media.
Despite having no idea how to regulate or enforce this ban, they’ve just gone ahead and announced the policy anyway, saying that social media platforms will have to work it out.
The same platforms that are targeting teens and children with advertising, mining their data and perpetuating mental health issues in young people are now in charge of keeping them ‘safe’.
This policy comes months after the Victorian Labor Government backflipped earlier this year on their commitment to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14.
It seems bizarre that a child as young as 10 is considered on the one hand autonomous enough to be charged with criminal offenses, but on the other hand, not old enough to scroll on social media.
To put this into perspective, here’s a list of the age you can do things in Victoria:
- At 18 you are allowed to legally drink, and vote in elections
- At 16, you can get your Ls and start learning to drive in Victoria. This is also the age you’d first be able to access social media according to the proposed new law
- At 15 you can get a Medicare card and visit the doctor without a parent or guardian
- From 13, you’re allowed to start part time or casual work
- At age 12, you begin your first year of high school.
- In Victoria 10 years old is the age of criminal responsibility
At 10 years old in Victoria you can’t vote, can’t start learning to drive, can’t go to the doctor by yourself, won’t be able to use social media, can’t get a casual job and haven’t even started high school.
But you could go to jail.
These policies disproportionately effect vulnerable minorities in our community.
First Nations children are disproportionately incarcerated compared to white Australians.
This entrenches generational disadvantage and trauma in First Nations Peoples and perpetuates systemic violence and racism in our country.
LGBTQI+ youth also rely on access to social media to establish peer support and provide education and community.
Jailing children doesn’t work. Social media bans don’t work.
Rather than relying on an expensive and outdated prison system to take care of justice in our state, or predatory tech giants to regulate social media platforms, we need to implement policies that have evidence to back them up.
Here’s what we know works:
- Educating young people on how to safely use social media and interpret the information they will inevitably come into contact with on these sites.
- Addressing the underlying causes of crime and funding community correction, restorative justice and diversion programs.
- Making sure people from all cultures and communities feel celebrated, included and welcome in Australia.
