Greens oppose social media ban for teenagers in Australia | 6 News

Sarah Hansen young is a green senator for South Australia also the spokesperson for communications the deputy chair of the joint select committee on social media and Australian Society it's good to have you here thanks for having me Leo it's good to be here so the proposal itself it's unclear exactly at what ages will be affected at this point could be as high as 16 could be as low as as 14 but what is the green position on all of it look we are obviously we you know we're concerned about how uh the social media platforms are uh continuing to be in in many ways unsafe spaces for not just young people though Leo like for for a lot of people U and these big tech companies have gotten away for far too long of self-regulation or even no regulation and you know they they feed on people's uh private data they sell it to advertisers they uh Target people with um pretty cative algorithms all of this is secret like there's a lot of problems with how the big social media Giants work but we are concerned that rather than tackling those issues a ban on teenagers being able to access social media um seems uh frankly uh the wrong way to go we're worried about the impact that this will have on young people themselves that uh and you know locking them out of what is clearly an important part now of uh community and society and rather than just Banning people we should be making those platforms safer making them take responsibility regulating them and protecting young people from the Insidious nature of their business business model so that's the algorithms that man are manipulative the targeting of uh advertising and the real um uh privacy uh intrusion that these big social media Giants have so you say they're you know talking with these plant forms and and addressing that harmful content we know though obviously at the moment you know both meta and Twitter aren't exactly big fans of the federal government and so it really remains seeing whether they would be compliant so um is that something that has to be consider yeah look I don't absolutely um we can't just ask these platforms to behave appropriately and set up safe spaces they need need to be forced to do that they need to be forced to follow um rules and regulations as has been done in other parts of the world and Australia is not the only country you know dealing with this the EU has brought in a digital Services act uh that bans uh social media Giants from being able to Target young people through advertising and to use their manipulative algorithms on young people that so it can be done uh but it's it's about forcing the the companies who are making massive dollars off users rather than cutting out young people from what is a a now really regular source of communication of learning of education and of course employment and I think you know it's a it's if I use this analogy Leo the beach is pretty rough um we we teach kids to swim we don't stop them from going to the beach we teach them to swim uh we put flags up we tell them to swim between the flags and uh and we have supervis ing adults and that is how you deal with um making a safe space for young people so how how would and again as we know right the proposal itself from the government is still being worked out but forcing these platforms you know can can they really be forc I mean these are Global Giants and you know if they didn't comply would we be talking about you know wanting to to ban them for non-compliance to find them what would happen there I do think we need to be finding um to force proper regulation on these big Tech platforms but they need to be responsible not young people and individual users these guys are making megabuck off people's individual data and you know keeping their algorithms manipulative but secret there's a lot of things that can be done legally to enforce proper rules um without making it the user's problem The Young Person's responsibility um but let me say you know this kind of knee-jerk reaction of uh the prime ministers in relation to this uh really you got to wonder how much this has been thought through one we don't even know what age it kicks in that's you know come on all right we we'll have a debate about that but what social media is included I mean are young people are going to be be kicked off Spotify now I mean that's AFF that's a social media giant these days are young people going to be able to access that music platform listen to podcasts share music with their friends um you know is is Spotify in or is it out is YouTube in or is it out um there's so many unanswered questions it feels to me that the prime ministers kind of responded quickly without really thinking through the details and look we'll see whether this can get passed through in legislation uh with the coming election which could be you know whenever even up to to May and there's only so many sitting days anyway but the Coalition is obviously uh supportive of a ban and Peter dud says he wants it up to 16 he says if he was elected he'd get that within 100 days it sounds like you know the government and the opposition those numbers should be able to get this through the senate or the greens actually going to be able to have an effective role in I guess in your view improving the legislation well we're going to look at the legislation when the legislation comes but let me be clear you you mentioned at the beginning that I'm the deputy chair of this social media inquiry this is a inquiry that the government themselves set up um all of the evidence we have had to this committee all of the experts they all say a ban on teenagers and young people being able to access social media is not the right way to go about making people safe the experts are saying this is not how to do it you know tackle the business models tackle the algorithms tackle the privacy issues um tackle the education of not just young people but their parents as to how to engage in the online world that would be far more helpful I see the a Australian uh psychologist Association out today saying This is not a good way of going so the experts and the evidence doesn't back this so we will be having a good look at this legislation when it comes through we'll do what we can but you know frankly if the Prime Minister and Peter Dutton just want to lock young people out of social media I don't think um they're going to be rewarded at The Ballot Box from young people um broadly speaking you know it doesn't matter whether you're 16 or 18 if you're hearing that the government is wanting to crack down on young people and blame Young people for being online lock them out I think there's going to be a lot of young Australians who are saying you know what what's what's with this why are we having to carry this and not the big Tech platforms well just on that you know a cynic might say you're just trying to get the young people's votes by posing or try to get the you know eventual gen Zed and gen Alpha vote what would you say well I think young people deserve to have a a voice uh in this debate and they deserve to have their voice listened to and that's what the GRS will do I'm I've been hearing all day from young people about you know how crazy an idea this is um particularly for that upper age group of 16y olds I mean frankly Leo you wouldn't have been able to do your you know launch your career um if this ban had been put in place um what a tragic shame that would have been uh Chanel contos would not have been able to expose um the horrors of um uh you know sexual harassment of fellow students uh in private schools and you know around the country if she hadn't been able to access this type of information and young people couldn't engage with her it social media is not all bad what is bad is the social media companies who refuse to make this online spaces safe for children and Target uh young people with advertising and uh these secret algorithms that's what's got to be stopped uh not young people engaging online Senator Sarah Hansen young always great to chat thanks so much thanks Leo [Music] [Music] [Music]