Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) to a question without notice I asked today relating to social media.

The Prime Minister announced today that a re-elected Albanese government would ban the under-16s from using social media. It sounds great, yeah? I am all for sending a message that kids are damaged by excessive social media use, but my worry is that kids will be able to get around these bans. There is a heap the government could be doing right now to rein in the tech giants, but they don't have the courage to do it. The headline looks good, right? I reckon it's just a smokescreen for their lack of action on gambling reform. Suck that one up today!

Like I said, there is a lot the government could be doing now to let tech giants know that the government is serious about protecting Australian kids and adults from social media harm. At a hearing of the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society, Meta said their products do not harm children. They should have an acting award. I wasn't in the room, but apparently they said this with straight faces. They've got to be kidding, yeah? Australia does have a regulatory framework for online safety, but the act was written in a world where just removing the content would fix the problem. That's important, but it doesn't address the use of algorithms and the way big tech giants design them to pull in kids and keep them there.

Company documents from Meta cited in a US case describe several Meta officials acknowledging that the company designed its products to exploit young minds. These include a May 2020 internal presentation called 'Teen Fundamentals', which highlighted certain vulnerabilities of the young brain that could be exploited by product development. The presentation discussed teen brains' relative immaturity and teenagers' tendency to be driven by emotion, the intrigue of novelty, and reward, and asked how these characteristics could manifest in product usage. In that case and others, Meta said they would rather parents and app stores do the policing. They've passed the buck and you've allowed them to get away with it. You've got to be kidding me! They want the parents to do this with the kids, when it's not even their product. You should be ashamed of yourselves today!

Honestly, it just keeps getting worse. One Facebook safety executive even suggested that cracking down on younger users and what they might be exposed to might hurt the company's business. How about that—right out there? In 2021, Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, blew the whistle, telling US senators that Facebook's products harm children and stoke division and that Facebook could do something about it if they wanted to. She said:

These problems are solvable. A safer, free-speech respecting, more enjoyable social media is possible … Facebook can change, but is clearly not going to do so on its own.

During her testimony Ms Haugen blamed Facebook's algorithm and platform design decisions for many of its issues.

Earlier this year, at the National Press Club, Ms Haugen warned a 'bumper sticker solution' like banning children under 16 from social media could jeopardise a historic chance for meaningful change. In other words, it's just a lazy way of trying to get around it. She said, 'In the case of bans, you're almost saying the problem with these platforms is the children, not the platforms themselves.' It's the platforms that are the problem, not our children, and until you start holding them responsible and doing something to those platforms nothing is ever going to change—okay? Nothing is going to change! This is becoming a joke—your government over there—and I've had enough of it. The government should take a look at what Europe is doing. Have a damn good look at what it's doing. They have the Digital Services Act. They regulate the algorithms. That's the one—regulating the algorithms. What's stopping you?

Even if our government had the spine to look at serious regulation like Europe's, it wouldn't solve all the problems. We need to teach our kids to be digitally literate. In Finland they teach kids from primary school age critical thinking skills. That's right—they're called critical thinking skills. That's so they know what they're looking at, so they know how to check what is true and what isn't. We could also be teaching emotional intelligence when our kids are at primary school, but you don't want to invest in that either. You just want to continue to do what previous governments have done and keep putting bandaid fixes on things. That is why you never get the solutions that you want. That's why you've got kids out there on the streets out of control.

This is your fault. This is your government, this is your responsibility, and you are failing our children and their future. You are failing them because you don't have the courage to stand up to the tech giants. You are going to be the people responsible for the failure of the future. It is going to be your government, because of your lack of courage. What is new in this place? You want to put a bandaid here and a bandaid there, instead of stinging the queen bee where it needs to be stung—right at Meta. This is Meta's responsibility, and you're not holding them accountable—what's new? You're not holding people accountable for what they're doing in destroying our kids' lives in Australia. You should be ashamed of yourselves today.

Question agreed to.