Name: ‘Collecting people's data’: Children band together to stop social media ban
Uploaded: 2025-12-03T09:23:55.000Z
Duration: 10 min 36 s
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To-infinitive

Well, there is a fortnight to go until the government's landmark social media ban.

We've known it's been coming for a while.

The Prime Minister and communications ministering field of questions from students.

Now, these are the people it actually applies to.

Kids under 16 will be prevented from accessing platforms including Instagram, Snapchat and Twitch from December 10th.

Unsurprisingly, many are curious, perhaps an even stronger word than that about the enforcement measures.

How will this delay be upheld and what measures are in place to prevent people from bypassing the security systems and creating fake accounts?

The responsibility is on the social media companies.

Now, we know that social media knows more about you than some of your friends know about you because of the algorithms and the way that it works.

It's been lodged in the High Court today.

The Digital Freedom Project has filed proceedings in a bid to stop the government's legislation, which it says improperly robs 2.6 million young Australians of the right to the freedom of political communication.

Joining me live is Shadow Communications Minister Melissa McIntosh.

What do you make of this legal challenge?

I don't have the full details of the challenges.

It's merging and obviously it'll be a court case.

But I'm not surprised that people are challenging this.

And to hear just, you know, a couple of weeks ago, and

I've been warning about this, that digital ID will need to be used to verify ages, which means these big multinational companies are collecting people's data through a third party operator.

There's just too many questions and people don't like it.

Kids who might be on YouTube doing their thing, you know, are challenging.

We had someone on the program saying, well, this is the best way young people can participate in any sort of political debate and have their voices heard.

Do you have sympathy for that or do you hope this challenge fails?

No, of course I have sympathy for young people who want to be involved online.

And I have to go back to the fact that the coalition did support the ban.

But ever since then I've come into this role, I've questioned whether it's going to work or not.

I think there's a high risk of failure on this and, you know, the absolute, you know, disgust that Australians have that they've been winked into having to provide digital id.

So there are many when you say having to provide it, that's not the government necessarily enforcing that.

There were multiple options for each social media company on how this would be enforced.

And I've spoken to many of the companies and even meeting with Meta, they've got a third party provider, but

If they, if somebody you know might not meet what their age verification face technology is saying, then they'll ask for your driver's licence or your birth certificate.

You've got to remember in that trial was 34%, I think at risk of getting it wrong, which is reasonably high.

So the age verification technology has been rushed.

The government said there would be no compelling for digital id.

Yet here we are, as you should, but it isn't compelling.

The government itself is not saying you have to give a digital id.

The government oversees the ESAFETY commissioner who does have the powers to compel digital id.

She said it to me herself and then said, but I don't intend to use it.

We support protecting Australian children.

We want this to work in the interests of Australian kids.

But with platforms only still being dribbled in now with digital ID and court cases, there's a high risk that it won't fulfil its intent, which was to protect Australian kids.

Could you say specifically what you'd do differently when you say it could fail?

Because most experts say if big tech companies want this to work, they will make it work.

Well, I think the setting of the date of December 10th and rushing it through and having a lot of PR exercises along the way like going to New York and announcing our success before it even happened.

Well, I probably wouldn't going back in time if we won the election, there's no point in, you know, we don't have the benefits of the full extent of government departments.

We barely have staff thanks to the government's cuts of staff.

So the work that we, of course, the dates, of course, ensuring that the technology is appropriate and of course ensuring that people aren't compelled to use digital id.

Right, but isn't that again within the means of social media companies?

They have many ways of detecting people's ages.

If they want to do that, they don't have to.

You've got to remember some of these social media companies are only getting told now that they're included in and I'm not standing up for the big tech companies at all.

But being told like a couple of weeks out, you're including, you must do everything in your power to ensure get kids off and kick them off.

When about the case though that even there could be a company that marks itself as Facebook for kids and then that will get brought into this.

There will be companies or social media platforms added to this all the time.

I actually am probably now more concerned about what's coming down the line with AI and technology that we haven't even thought about yet and kids access to that and moving off social media and exploring what other options there are.

Because if there are unintended consequences you think are more concerning, does that mean the social media ban is now a bad idea?

Well, these are things that have happened even since we went to the election.

AI is moving so quickly and discovering in the news recently that kids have best friends that are AI bots.

So they are concerning things that are coming down the.

So technology advancements and I suppose the prospect a kid gets a vpn.

So regardless of how well it's rolled out.

Because it will drive some people to other things.

You're now saying maybe the whole idea is not a good one.

I'm saying to you, we support the intent and we did support the legislation we were part of.

It was Peter Dutton as opposition leader that wanted this and we all backed that.

I wasn't the shadow communications minister at the time.

Perhaps I would have had a different stance if I was and made sure that everything that the unintended consequences weren't going to come to fruition so much.

It just feels like it's transforming into something else.

When adults are compelled to use digital id, that is a big problem for many Australians and I bet many of your viewers.

When you say adults compelled, I mean someone, I guess that is 18 and might look young.

I think I'll be alright if the camera zooms in.

The wrinkles are there from the children.