The mother of a teenage girl whose fake nude images were circulated online says banning children aged under sixteen from social media won’t fix the core problem.
In June, about 50 female students from Bacchus Marsh Grammar in Victoria discovered AI-generated fake naked images of themselves had been posted to social media.
A teenage boy was later arrested and released over the incident, while the school offered psychological support and counselling to the students involved.
Emily, who did not want to give her surname, said her daughter was among them.
“Even as a parent of a child that went through that, social media isn’t the problem — educating men and boys is the problem,” Emily said.
“I feel that has always been the problem with every debate that comes up.
“You educate the boy and they don’t behave in a manner where a girl feels unsafe.”
She said taking away social media for girls 16 and under was taking away their lifeline to understanding how to use their voice.
Emily also disagreed with the South Australian government’s plan to get children aged under 14 off social media.
“It comes down to trusting your kids,” she said.
“I believe in teaching kids about responsible social media.”
Susan McLean is skeptical of the federal government’s social media ban. (ABC Perth: West Matteeussen)
Social media ban ‘ill-thought’
Cyber Safety Solutions founder Susan McLean said she too was against the ban proposal.
“It is ill-thought out and totally unenforceable,” she said.
She said the government could have instead invested in education initiatives and empowering parents.
“[The Prime Minister] is talking about the fact that if you’re 14 and already there you’re going to be booted off,” she said.
“I think he’s away with the pixies if he thinks kids will voluntarily get themselves off [social media].”
Ms McLean said she spoke to about 350,000 students worldwide each year.
She said more than 80 per cent of children under 13 already on social media were there with parental permission.
“A parent has helped them to lie to set up their account, so raising the age to 16 is not going to address that or fix it, because parents will keep helping their children to lie,” she said.
“Especially as there are no consequences, the young person and the parent will not get into trouble if they’re there, so how is this going to work?
“Laws are useless unless they’re enforceable and enforced.”
National cabinet backed the federal government’s plan on Thursday.
Bacchus Marsh Grammar principal Andrew Neal says social media is a “Wild West”. (ABC News: Daniel Fermer)
Principal in favour
Bacchus Marsh Grammar principal Andrew Neal said the incident at his school reinforced his belief that social media should be off-limits to growing minds.
“There will be lingering issues for those girls that were affected but it’s been pretty well-handled,” he said.
Mr Neal said the incident also adversely affected Bacchus Marsh Grammar’s male students.
“I think one of the lasting impacts is a degree of resentment about that fact that students who had nothing to do with this process — and in fact were quite supportive of the girls that had been directly affected — over a fortnight were basically hammered by people who had no direct experience of the situation,” he said.
“They used social media to put their point of view across — expressions like all the boys were ‘toxic males’.”
He said people used social media to position themselves in an issue which they had very little understanding of.
“That’s another issue that proves why [social media] is such a problem,” he said.
Mr Neal said the argument that children would just get around the new bans was a “red herring”.
“We have restrictions in place in regards to students accessing alcohol and cigarettes,” he said.
