While Act and the Greens are keeping their eyes on Australia’s social media ban for under-16s as it comes into effect today, both parties agree the case should be examined before any action is mooted here.
Act Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour appeared alongside Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson on Herald NOW’s political panel this morning to discuss the long-awaited RMA reforms, Australia’s world-first social media ban for under-16s and the latest 1News Verian poll.
During the conversation, the political rivals were asked whether they think at least some aspects of the social media ban should be replicated here, given the medium’s degenerative impact on youth mental health and development.
Seymour told host Nadine Higgins that it would be “foolish to rush into” a blanket under-16s ban at the same time as Australia, saying that doing so “might actually make things worse”.
“The whole world is going to be watching Australia today because nobody knows if it will work.
“And there are people who make very reasonable arguments that all you’re going to do is force children into darker areas of the internet, back on to social media using VPNs, but now unwilling to talk to adults about what they experience.”
He acknowledged parents’ concerns around algorithms, uncensored content and predatory behaviour as “real problems that need to be addressed” but said the recommendations that will arise out of Parliament’s select committee inquiry into social media harm should provide clarity.
“[We shouldn’t] rush headlong in when there is actually a live experiment going on that we can learn from and do it better.”
Davidson said the Greens were mindful of social media’s impact on youth but their concerns extended to all people.
“Many of us have friends and whānau in our own circles who we have lost, where the big billionaire tech giants - offshore owned - have been mining our local content, have been hosting misinformation and disinformation, have not been paying their fair share of tax at all, and have been getting away with hosting this very harmful content.”
The power of Big Tech companies needed to be curbed, she said, but the Greens were taking a more cautious approach.
“We are unsure that a ban, which ends up punishing young people for the harm that Big Tech giants are causing, it ends up being a type of punishment on young people. We absolutely need to keep them safe, but we’d like to work across parties to come up with actual tools that rein in the unregulated power and harm that these Big Tech giants host.”
Act and the Greens said action should be taken and accountability served, but the magnitude of their concerns differed.
Seymour likened the situation to the introduction of radio in the early 1900s and the subsequent establishment of the Broadcasting Standards Authority.
“I think all businesses in media, for the history of media, have walked the line of how do we get audience attention versus how do we be responsible. The same thing happened with radio 100 years ago.
“People were concerned about that and rules were created and they reined in, and I don’t think radio does quite as much harm as people initially thought.
“You’re going to see something similar around the world with these social media platforms.”
Higgins questioned whether the two could be equated.
“I’m just drawing the comparison that when new technologies are introduced at whatever time, generally there’s a lot of concern, there’s always the temptation for some people to push the limits and potentially do stuff that others see as disruptive to the community, and then it settles down and comes back into line, usually with some kind of government regulation along the way,” Seymour said.
“That’s the process that we’re going through.”
The Federal Government-sanctioned social media ban has been designed “to protect young Australians from pressures and risks that users can be exposed to while logged in to social media accounts”, according to eSafety, Australia’s national online safety regulator.
Ten platforms have been restricted so far, although the list is subject to further changes.
The ban came into effect todayafter the Anthony Albanese-led Government passed the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 (SMMA) in November 2024.
The European Union passed a similar resolution this month, and the United Kingdom has recently launched age restrictions on select content.
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