The Coalition hopes the federal government will agree to put aside politics to cut off children from social media, as it continues to push for a ban.
Shadow Communications Minister David Coleman said the harms of social media were evident, but the major tech companies were doing “nothing” about it.
Earlier this week News Corp Australia’s executive chair Michael Miller called for laws to force social media companies to play by the rules or lose access to the Australian market. It comes in the wake of Australia’s failed attempt to have graphic footage of a Sydney church stabbing removed from Elon Musk’s platform X.
The federal opposition has committed to introducing laws that would lock children and teenagers out of social media, saying under 16-year-olds do not need to be on social media.
Mr Coleman told ABC’s Insiders other content is restricted from children, but the internet remains a Wild West.
“We still have a classification system, we still have R-rated movies, nobody says, ‘Let’s show an R-rated movie to a 10-year old, and yet on social media they see worse things every day,” Mr Coleman said.
“Imagine if we went back 20 years and said, ‘You know what we’re going to do? We’re going to create an environment where kids can interact with any adult on Earth who can show them whatever they want, and we’re going to be okay with that,’ we would have said that’s absurd.
Most social media companies have basic minimum age policies, but there are few if any checks done to assure a person’s age when creating an account.
The federal government committed $6.5 million in the federal budget for a pilot of age assurance technologies that could make it harder for children to skirt minimum age requirements.
But communications department officials revealed at senate estimates that trial won’t require the involvement of the social media giants themselves, and rather would be an assessment by the department of the merits of existing age assurance technologies.
Mr Coleman said it was foolish not to force social media companies to take part.
“What should be happening is the government should be saying to the social media companies, under the trial, you need at your front door a process of age verification, when kids sign up,” he said.
“If the government needs powers to do that, we will wave them through.
“At the moment they’re saying the trial won’t require social media companies to do anything, which is absurd.”
The shadow minister rebuffed suggestions children would try to dodge age restrictions, saying people try to evade any law put in place, and that was not a reason not to bother introducing laws.
Mr Coleman said it was “self-evident” action needed to be taken, and it should not become a partisan issue.
“We should just get on and do it,” he said.