Prof Elizabeth Handsley FAAL is CMA’s President.

What children need from the social media inquiry

Anybody who has opened a news site in recent weeks will have noticed: children’s online safety is having a moment. The Australian government recently brought forward the planned statutory review of the Online Safety Act, and then a parliamentary committee was set up to look into social media. This inquiry is broader than just the child safety angle, but things like age verification are squarely in its sights.

At CMA we have seen this as a great opportunity for us to advocate in favour of children’s right to access the online world safely, and for their parents to have governmental support in realising that right. But we also recognise that the empowerment of parents to take action in their own families can only go part-way in achieving what’s needed. There is a need for governmental regulation that puts maximum pressure on tech companies to design their products with children’s rights and developmental needs in mind.

In our submission, CMA proposes a combination of strategies to protect children’s rights and interests in relation to social media. Starting with the most general, we are arguing (as usual) for a stronger focus on the requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Business and Human Rights Principles. The Government has obligations under the Convention anyway, so it should be a no-brainer for it to build things like the right to privacy, and the protection of children from injurious content, into legislation and regulations. Another tack – which is getting a lot of traction around the world – is to embed a concept of the best interests of the child, and introduce a duty of care on companies to consider those interests in all their actions. The beauty of that approach is that a broad principle can be applied to new and unforeseen situations that arise after the rules were written – crucial in a field where technology is constantly getting ahead of regulations. The Business and Human Rights Principles are helpful because they involve private companies directly in the conversation: when the government regulates them, it’s only reinforcing what their own sector has adopted as necessary and important before.

The next two big-ticket items are restrictions on platforms’ use of persuasive or addictive design techniques that attract and keep children’s attention, and on platforms’ ability to access, store and share children’s data. These could make quite a dent in the business model, but this is precisely why regulation is needed. We can’t in all fairness expect any one company to do the right thing, because that would disadvantage that company in a competitive marketplace. It’s only government action that can affect the whole marketplace, in the public interest.

There has also been considerable interest in the introduction of new (higher) age limits to have a social media account, as for example the South Australian government is proposing. Many well-informed people express reservations about this approach, often from the perspective of scepticism that the necessary age verification would be effective. It’s true that ineffective regulation can be harmful in that it lulls parents and others into a false sense of security – so they and their children are even more vulnerable than they would have been without the regulation. But at the same time, regulation doesn’t have to be 100% effective to be worth having.

As always at CMA, we have an eye on just how decisions get made about age-inappropriate content. Everybody seems to agree that there is such a thing, but the systems we have for identifying it are woefully inadequate. And yet the need for a robust, evidence-based system has never been greater, as children encounter violent, exploitative and hateful content through the social media on which they spend a good chunk of their waking lives. We hope that the inquiry will take careful note of the state of the National Classification Scheme, and throw its weight behind the necessary reforms.

At the time of writing, we are putting the finishing touches on our submission. It will be available soon on our website under the ‘taking action’ tab, where you can find all the contributions we’ve made over the years to reviews and inquiries on a range of issues. CMA is always pleased to have these opportunities to be a voice for children’s rights and developmental needs as media users.

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