Is Australia’s u16 Ban on social media a Prelude to Full Censorship?

 

Australia’s social media ban for u16’s went into effect on December 10 of this year. The reason(s) given by our government and specifically PM Albanese, was to protect our young from online sexual predators and bullies, ensuring their “safety” from these online criminals.  

Generally, as a retired teacher and a father of a young man who was born into the advent of the internet, on the surface, this sounded like a good idea. My second thought was knowing the young at that age, they will undoubtedly find a way around the censorship. This of course defeats the whole purpose of the new law. My next thought was much more cynical. Observing the Australian government over the last two years, there has been many attempts to censor certain content, and going into battle with social media platforms. It is a fact that ‘censorship’ or the suppression of ‘free speech’ is a central tool of authoritarian governments. Let’s face it; governments always lie. One must ask: Is this u16 ban on social media a prelude to blanket censorship for all?  

There are many reasons against the u16 social media ban.  

By imposing this unpreceded new u16 ban, we can admit at its core; it undermines parental rights and authority. Our all-knowing government, “big brother”, has essentially called parents incompetent, and is unable to educate our children about social media. As a retired schoolteacher, I know that the age around 12, peer influence grows. I believe Australian parents are quite capable guiding their young and learning from their mistakes. 

This new law may also drive children to unmonitored platforms that could well pose equal or greater risks. It is obvious that these politicians did not think this through... 

This follows that this new law lacks robust scientific evidence. There is insufficient data linking social media to harm.  

I have worked with children at this age and am entirely aware that this law will deprive these children from the positive benefit of support networking – LGBTQ. Autistic youth support and of course anonymous sharing. Banning access to social media is an insult to their maturity and autonomy. Leading them to believe they can’t discern between right and wrong.  

Lastly, there are privacy concerns that are intrusive about age verification, that leads to serious privacy issues for adults.  

This Australian government have always pushed for new censorship laws. For a detailed comment, see my piece in September 2024,Articles, Essays & Consideration: Australia’s Authoritarian attempts to Punish Free Speech.  

This new law appears to be a steppingstone for outright censorship and free speech. Indeed, rather than a law of full-blown censorship for the entire citizenry, they have started with our young. Soon the government could reinforce their ‘all knowing status” and begin a ban on all social media. The Australian people are not intelligent and mature enough to decern true from false, right from wrong, and must be spoon fed vital information from a single source – the government.  

Censorship is a tool for tyrants.