Australia has taken a bold step to protect childhood by becoming the first country in the world to bar under-16s from social media. For many parents watching from the UK it is hard not to feel a sense of relief that someone has finally acted. But that relief is tinged with the desperate disappointment that our government is still refusing to follow suit.
The push that led to this decision in Australia did not begin with a think tank report or a parliamentary committee. It began at home, when the wife of the Premier of South Australia read Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation and turned to her husband with a simple message. We need to act.
Within months Australia moved ahead with legislation that puts children’s safety ahead of the interests of social media companies. She was not a campaigner or a politician but a parent who looked at the evidence and reached the same conclusion that I along with millions of parents have already reached instinctively, that social media is not safe for children.
The social media feeds children see are not the same as those adults see, because the algorithms that shape these platforms are frighteningly effective at learning what holds a young person’s attention. Boys are often pushed towards pornography and violent content, while young girls are flooded with material that encourages them to hate their bodies and themselves. Children can be targeted by strangers, drawn into sextortion or exposed to disturbing material long before any parent even knows what is happening.
We have reached a strange place as a country. We regulate toys down to the last stitch, and a teddy bear in a child’s bedroom has probably undergone more safety testing than the smartphone we place in their hand, even though that device can open the door to pornography, violence, self harm and exploitation.
Seventy per cent of teenagers have seen real violence online even though only six per cent searched for it. That is not curiosity. It is the algorithm.
And over the past year I have sadly met far too many brave parents who have lost their children after online harms. One of them is Ellen Roome, the courageous mother of Jools, who most likely died after a blackout challenge on TikTok. When we last met she said something that has stayed with me ever since. Every time our group meets, it gets bigger.
That is a devastating thing for any parent to have to say, and every day that we delay action more children and more families are affected. This is why I care so passionately about this issue and I think we have a duty to act.
You don’t need me to tell you that parents, teachers and children are crying out for us to do more. Yet the response from government has been another consultation. Many Labour MPs privately accept that change is needed, but the government has offered them a so called urgent consultation that took weeks to appear and does not even consult on how to implement a ban. Instead it asks whether a ban should happen at all, which does not begin to meet the scale of the challenge we now face. The other options floated are half measures. Curfews are one example, even though harmful content does not suddenly appear late at night and children are exposed to it throughout the day.
In contrast, on Monday MPs in the UK have the chance to vote for a cross party amendment to ban social media for children once and for all.
That is why I welcome the campaign from Mumsnet and others to Raise the Age, alongside their own Rage Against the Screen campaign. Their powerful adverts across the country have struck a chord with parents who know instinctively that something has gone badly wrong, and Mumsnet has long been a voice for parents who simply want their children to grow up safe and healthy.
Parents and teachers are trying to take on some of the most powerful technology companies in the world, and they are doing so largely alone. Many of the heads of big tech companies do not even allow their own children to use these devices, which should make all of us stop and think.
MPs now have the privilege to make this change and they should stand up and be counted. If they truly want to protect children and support parents then they should vote to ban social media for under-16s.
Parents who feel strongly about this should make their voices heard. The Raise the Age campaign has created a simple way for people to contact their MP and ask them to support these changes. If the Government will not listen to those of us raising these concerns in Parliament, then it should listen to parents up and down the country.