The South Australian government has outlined its proposed new laws banning social media for young people which could see duty-of-care thrust into the hands of media companies. But many questions still surround the model, which may set a precedent for other jurisdictions.
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00:00276 pages, detailing the potential online future for South Australian children.
00:09It should not be open to governments to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that social
00:14media isn't doing our children harm, when we know it is.
00:17Under a bill proposed by the state government, social media companies would have to take
00:21all reasonable steps to prevent children younger than 14 from accessing their platforms, or
00:27they could face fines in the millions of dollars.
00:30The state should go down the path of imposing a statutory duty of care on social media service
00:37providers.
00:38A regulator would be appointed to oversee the system and issue fines, but details around
00:43the duty of care on companies is still unclear.
00:46Young people will have to prove in some way their age if they do want to use these social
00:52media platforms.
00:55Exactly how that's going to be done is still not clear.
00:58And while the plan has the tick of approval from the eSafety Commissioner, others believe
01:03it won't allow children to discover the internet on their own.
01:07Simply responding to the risks by banning it is not acknowledging the substantial benefits.
01:14South Australia would be the first state to implement a social media ban, and while some
01:19think it should fall to the Commonwealth, other states are showing interest.
01:23If we can progress it at a state-by-state level, then we'll look at doing that here.
01:28We won't let kids be kids.
01:31It's so important that we take the insidious impact of social media out of their lives.
01:36The South Australian government is yet to give a timeline for when the ban would be
01:40implemented into the state.
01:42The proposed bill will now go into public consultation.