The Greens have criticised the Prime Minister\u2019s plan to ban teenagers from social media, labeling it \u201cknee jerk politics that lacks evidence and expert support\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They have called on the Federal Government to instead better regulate the tech giants and ban their use of predatory algorithms, data harvesting and advertising that target young people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Greens Spokesperson for Communications and Deputy Chair of the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Greens do not support banning young people from social media because we have listened to the experts. Parents are worried about the safety of their kids, but the Government\u2019s knee jerk policy lets the big tech giants off the hook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have participated in the Government\u2019s own Inquiry set up to examine an age limit ban in good faith. The PM on the other hand hasn\u2019t bothered to listen to any experts and instead is following Peter Dutton\u2019s lead once again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe urge the PM, stop following Dutton and his dangerous policies and be a leader in real reform that tackles the scourge of unregulated global platforms profiting off the suffering of everyone, not just our kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cExpert after expert is coming out today warning that a ban will not keep our young people safer or make platforms safer, and may actually cause more harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot even the e-Safety Commissioner supports a ban – the Government\u2019s own online safety expert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe don\u2019t ban kids from going to the beach – we teach them how to swim and make sure they swim between the flags. There are safety measures put in place to keep them safe – flags, lifeguards, adult supervision and swimming lessons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe need to teach children how to use social media and understand there are many positive benefits, particularly for marginalised kids, to being online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf the PM wants to make social media safer then he should get on with tackling the harmful business practices of the digital platforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSocial media giants should be banned from targeting our kids with algorithms and advertising, and from data harvesting, especially of private information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur online spaces should be safe for everyone and they should be safe whatever age young people get online. The EU and other countries have led the way and it\u2019s time Australia followed. This is the evidence the Inquiry has overwhelmingly heard so far and it should be listened to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Greens have criticised the Prime Minister\u2019s plan to ban teenagers from social media, labeling it \u201cknee jerk politics that lacks evidence and expert support\u201d. They have called on the Federal Government to instead better regulate the tech giants and ban their use of predatory algorithms, data harvesting and advertising that target young people. Greens … Continue reading “\u201cKnee Jerk\u201d: social media ban for young people lacks evidence say Greens”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29022,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29021\/revisions\/29022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}