A ban, a billionaire and broken trust: the silencing of youth voices amid Australia’s social media ban
By Emma Pryse Jones
In rushing through the social media age ban, the Albanese government has prioritised the interests of News Corp over the advice of youth mental health experts.
Content advice: this story covers youth suicide in general terms, please come back to this piece if the time is not right for you.
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Murdoch, youth mental health, a 24hr public consultation, and a government grasping for a legacy. The social media ban or “delay” has had it all. From December 10, young Australians under the age of sixteen will be removed from the social media platforms that have become a part of everyday life. On the surface the policy seems attractive, but the closer you look the more protection starts to look like control.
While conversations about VPN’s and loopholes dominate playgrounds as millions of young people scheme against the government, there must be a larger conversation about the vested interests in our democracy, and how we have become a nation that can imprison twelve-year-olds yet won’t allow them access to social media until they are sixteen.
Despite millions spent, and years of inquiries and royal commissions into various domains of mental health and wellbeing, countless recommendations remain unimplemented by the Government. Communities advocating for these changes are often met with the same response: “change takes time” or “this is just how the system works”. Such words are now hollow when a policy never endorsed via thorough consultation can be pushed through government in record time. The message? We can act quickly, but only when it serves us (or the conglomerates that pull our strings).
In May 2024, NewsCorp launched its ‘Let Them Be Kids Campaign’. The campaign included a curation of stories about the perils of social media and a petition. NewsCorp claimed that “a generation of children is being lost to the billion-dollar social media giants because they are putting profits before people. Despite the striking irony, they failed to mention the elephant in the room: in a world where attention is currency, young people are choosing social media platforms over legacy media.
If NewsCorp had a history of caring about the wellbeing of young people, the initiative may have carried weight. Instead, its track record of demonising climate activists, immigrants, ‘youth crime’, along with silence on the 20,000 children wounded and killed in Gaza and promotion of the fossil fuel industry, makes that hard to believe.
A campaign wholly centred on young people, with no young people visible, reveals its true focus. The only young people featured were those spoken for by families sharing stories of suicide, a complex and multifactorial experience. The exploitation of parental grief in a campaign puppeteered by corporate interests, reflects the state of youth rights in Australia.
Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that children and the young have the right to express their views freely in all matters affecting them and these views are given due weight. Yet the governments’ 24hr ‘public consultation’ and invitational last-minute round were performative at best.
While social media was scapegoated for the cause of poor mental health, key organisations, academics and clinicians painted a different picture: the relationship between young people and social media is complex and bi-directional. It can cause harm, but it can equally create spaces of joy, pride, culture, information and entertainment.
The message from consultations and the sector was clear: we want safer, not less. We want safety by design, online safeguards and proactive social media safety skills for young people and families. We want young people to learn to swim in the waters of social media; it’s a necessary life skill in the 21st century.
Youth mental health organisations provided evidence identifying that social media often is the first-place young people seek help. It offers a free, accessible and anonymous environment to curiously explore experiences and seek support. While concerns of sextortion and online bullying harms are real, there is equally no way to know how many lives social media has saved or how many young people have been safely directed to support. Like any data in public health, it is easier to capture lives lost in comparison to lives saved.
The result of ‘consultation’? A blunt age restriction, no privacy protections for age verification, no stronger regulation of platforms, no duty of care, and no plan for improving digital literacy. The likely outcome? Further marginalisation of young people facing disadvantages and young people being pushed into unregulated, unsafe and potentially ‘underground’ platforms with little support or guidance as they aren’t supposed to be there.
While the ban may be distressing for young people who live in safe and supportive homes, we know it will disproportionately impact young people experiencing homelessness, hospitalisation, those in rural/remote areas, those of multicultural backgrounds with families overseas, First Nations young people sharing culture, and LGBTIQA+ youth lacking physically safe spaces.
When I was thirteen, I spent three months in a rural paediatric unit 60km from my friends and family. Social media was my lifeline that kept me connected, supported my schoolwork and eased my return to school without social upheaval. This policy matters.
We do not know the full impact of the ban yet, but it’s another blow to young people’s trust in the government (the same one that ironically prides its connection with young voters). For a policy aimed at supporting mental health, there has been no additional funding provided to youth mental health organisations to meaningfully support young people when their key avenue for seeking help is being taken away.
Young people do not need performative protection, they need to be valued, respected and a government that is willing to truly listen and build a future with them. Next time we talk about protecting young people, maybe we should start by protecting their right to be heard.
About the author
Emma Pryse Jones
Emma (PJ) is an advocate, peer worker, and researcher working within the matrix of Australia’s mental health and suicide prevention system. Growing up in rural Australia and drawing on her lived experience of complex mental illness and suicide, she works to place people back at the heart of policy, practice, and research. Contrary to mainstream media narratives, she believes children and young people are deeply resilient and infinitely capable of great things, even in the face of the world they are inheriting.
For more from Emma, you can find her on Instagram at @emmaprysejones, or follow her work on LinkedIn.
Interestingly most of the adolescents I teach support the ban. You could dismiss it as being influenced by parents and others but that would be denying their voice.
Quite a lot to unpack here:
First is the profound irony of NewsCorp publishing this paper, given its own involvement in the forced U.S. takeover of TikTok by Skydance.
The second, and more alarming point, is the trend of young people treating social media as a first resort during a crisis. This is deeply problematic for privacy. We have to acknowledge the accessibility, but it's really crucial to understand that every interaction is recorded, processed, and analysed.
Social media sites gather information, our devices profile us and sell their analysis to whoever pays, or whoever they partner with. Apple and Google do this on devices to avoid lawsuits and circumvent legal protections.
Their core business model is profiling and selling user data. This risk is magnified by the rise of online counseling beyond these platforms, creating honeypots for blackmail and data breaches. In short, these are not safe spaces for sharing deeply personal information. Their convenience does not make them sensible.