Kids Social media ban – a closed process that’s leaving loopholes for kids – and bullies

Kids are savvy, more savvy than 99% of their parents, and most certainly more-so than the lawmakers of the land.  That doesn’t mean our kids are criminals, but hey, if they wanna work out how to get around the WiFi not working at home, they’ll do it.

So why, if we’re introducing law that imposes sweeping changes on hundreds of thousands of young people today and many more in the future, shouldn’t there be a strong and exhaustive public consultation?

Take this note from the Youth Affairs Council in Victoria who said that “Due to the one-day timeframe to make a submission to this inquiry, we raised serious concerns and disappointment about the lack of genuine consultation with young people who will be impacted by the ban”

Um, one day to submit?  Now I’m not sure what’s behind that, but right now the Government, via the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts is planning the implementation of this legislation and that includes the formation of the “Online Safety Rules” which will govern the who, what and how of this ban.

The process of drafting those is underway, an the Department has confirmed to EFTM that they plan to lead a “targeted consultation on the draft Online Safety Rules to seek direct feedback from a wide range of stakeholders including young people, parents and carers, digital industry, and child development, mental health and legal experts.”

By “targeted”, they mean closed.  So I can’t make a submission, nor can you.

And what’s in those Rules?  Well importantly – which platforms are covered by the ban and which ones aren’t.

EFTM understands that the Department is initiating conversations with the Social Media platforms right now, and that the draft rules currently exclude – as has previously been reported – gaming, messaging, and YouTube.

Why is YouTube exempt from the Social Media Ban?

Yep, YouTube is not a Social Media company. 

At first glance, you’re thinking – of course not, they are a video platform!

But isn’t that also what TikTok is?

Oh, all the long-form TV like content on YouTube – sure.

Well I asked my 13 and 14 year old kids just how much of that “regular” YouTube they watched, particularly when they were not 13, and therefore were not yet allowed to have TikTok et al.

We called it YouTok, because my kids were watching “YouTube Shorts” which is – YouTube’s version of TikTok.

They told me that 75% of their time was spent on Shorts.

So why is YouTube excluded?  “Education”, it’s used extensively for educational purposes – and that’s true, there’s some awesome how-to and learning content on there.  But show me a 14 year old seeking that out.

Nope, they are scrolling YouTube Shorts.  So I took a brand new phone, created a Google account in the name and birthdate of a 14 year old boy, and downloaded Tiktok and YouTube.  For hours I scrolled, categorizing each video into Entertainment, Adult, Children’s Content, Education, General and Commercial.

It’s a fine line between General and Entertainment, but if I felt it was published to make you laugh, smile or cry, then Entertainment it was.

If I felt anyone could learn something from the video – Education it was.

I watched 357 TikTok videos.  50% were General, 36% Entertainment, 2% Commercial, and 12% was Educational.

Over on YouTube, similar results in some ways, but very different where it mattered.  24% Entertainment, 52% General, 21% Commercial, and Just 5 of the 354 videos I saw were Educational.

Now I get the issue that School Teachers might want kids to watch an actual YouTube video, and that I’m talking about Shorts – the thing is, Shorts is where the kids are in their spare time.

And here’s the bigger challenge.  YouTube is free, open and available for anyone to watch – without a login.  Introducing an Age Ban on that content would mean locking down the entire site for everyone – so you betcha that’s what YouTubes Government Relations team were lobbying.

But the fact is, you take away TikTok, and kids will go to YouTube, making the same content, watching the same content and making the same comments, pleasant, encouraging, or hateful.  Who’s stopping It.

What about messaging?

Well it would be a tough call to ban SMS messages, of course, but has no one considered the hate that can spill over from one person to another via messaging apps like Telegram, Signal, or WhatsApp, let alone the intentional exclusion that can occur from leaving one child out of a group message – just like it can be a low level form of bullying when a child is excluded from a gathering of classmates.

If this legislation is going to take aim at the mental health of our kids, it doesn’t go far enough.

Online Gaming is all good!

And how many of our lawmakers have sat in an online gaming lobby after a session where one person let the team down or didn’t perform to the standards expected of these known or unknown teammates.

That’s brutal, and could push some kids to a bad place.

So why are we not discussing that?

And don’t get me started on Discord – the source of many a hateful chat message.  Billed as a gaming companion for chat, it’s now a place of communities and groups, again, with no guard rails on who can say what and what the consequences are for that.

Can the Social Media Ban work?

I’ve said from the start it’s a good intentioned campaign that shouldn’t lead to a ban of this style, we should be looking into education and training for kids, parents and teachers to handle the things kids are being exposed to online..

More over, we should be talking about the anonymous comments that happen online with no ability for those parents, teachers or kids to even confirm or pin down just who’s saying it.

Oh, and speaking as a parent of a 13 and 14 year old, what’s the situation for those kids under the age of 16 who area already “legally” on these platforms – do they have to get off? Or is this a staged ban kids that turn 13 from the end of this year?

So many questions.