CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact
As the Albanese government rushes to legislate social media age limits, Parliament is today debating the different what-ifs surrounding these landmark bill.
Several Opposition MPs have raised alarm about the privacy implications of this world-first legislation, with lesser-known backbenchers bending over backwards to paint an Orwellian conspiracy that seems to concern them more than the safety of children.
Albanese’s Minister For Communications, Michelle Rowland MP has today clarified that Australians won’t have to hand over ID when using social media.
Instead, the bill will focus on the issue at hand – without any caveats that could be misconstrued as the government’s attempt at controlling the media intake of the Australians that seem to matter most in this debate: adult men.
The issue at hand is, young people are sitting ducks for online predators who can contact them at any time on the many social media platforms that they spend hours scrolling each day, or the dangerous misinformation that causes them to consume chemicals as part of online trends, or mistreat very serious illnesses with unproven medicine, or the dangerous algorithms that can radicalise them into killing lots of innocent people.
While most of Parliament can agree those aforementioned dangers are actually worth legislating against, it is not yet known how the government plans to do this given today’s concession.
It may very well end up being a case of Australians needing to apply for a social media license through their MyGov accounts. However, this will likely cause concerns from the same backbenchers who fear this kind of accountability will strip Australians of their right to plaster the internet with hate speech from burner accounts.
Another option is to just, like, ban kids from having the type of devices that are capable of hosting social media apps? And anyone caught buying these kinds of devices for children could face the same kind of fines they would get for buying children alcohol?
Concerns that it may be unsafe to cut children off from being constantly contactable by their parents can be quelled by a reminder that kids can still use basic mobile phones that don’t have OLED screens? Like they used to? Because we still have cell towers that can host a phone call between non-smartphones?
Anyone who worries that this ban could affect learning could also be reminded that maybe kids don’t need laptops to learn how to read and count? Or for any form of education modules that anyone aged under 16 would ever have to worry about? Do pens and paper still work?
MORE TO COME?
