Interview with Stacey Lee, FIVEAA Afternoons

STACEY LEE, HOST: You know all about the Premier's plan to ban children under 14 from social media. Well, today the Federal Government has announced that the onus will be on the platforms to enforce this ban. It won't be up to parents or young people to try and navigate the rules, and they won't be getting fines and penalties themselves for it. Michelle Rowland is the Minister for Communications and joins me in the studio. Good afternoon Minister. 
 
MICHELLE ROWLAND, MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS: Hi there, great to be here. 
 
LEE: Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. So how is this going to be enforced, you know? How's Facebook and Instagram going to know the onus is on us and we need to make sure we're doing it? 
 
ROWLAND: Well, what we announced today are the legislative design principles. The Government has committed to introducing legislation this year to have a minimum age for access to social media. And part of that legislative design is that the onus is going to be, exactly as you say, on the platforms, not on the users. We don't want to penalise children or parents. We want the platforms to do better, and we're going to do that in a couple of ways. The first is around incentivising them to create low-risk apps and low-risk spaces that people can access at certain ages. Because we know that some of these platforms, they really are designed to keep people's eyes on their on the feed, and people doom scrolling; the infinite scrolling that occurs, that screen time addiction is really an issue that impacts not only on mental health, but on physical wellbeing. So, the onus is going to be on the platforms. 
 
We are going to not have penalties applying to individual users or parents. So, by having higher penalties as well. Currently the Online Safety Act has a penalty regime which really hasn't been designed to be fit-for-purpose. And when you have fines for these big tech platforms, that are less than $1 million, you really have to …
 
LEE: A drop in the ocean, really.
 
ROWLAND: It really is not fit-for-purpose.
 
LEE: So what will the fines be? 
 
ROWLAND: We've got that under review at the moment, under the Online Safety Act review, that's being done independently. I'm going to have the results of that in the coming weeks. But I think it's fair to say that if your listeners think about the fines that go to breaches of competition rules, for example, and other areas of the corporate world, you really need something that is commensurate with the size and is really going to incentivise better practice.

When you're talking about social media platforms that have revenues in excess of nations, it really does need to be large to be a good incentive. So we'll get the advice on that, and we fully intend to act on that.
 
LEE: Are they multi-millions, tens of millions?
 
ROWLAND: Well, I think when you start talking percentages of revenues, which is the kind of penalty regime that is in competition law, for example, you start to get a better idea of what we're talking about here.
 
LEE: Okay. 
 
ROWLAND: In Australia we're fortunate that we do have an existing legislative structure. So what we're proposing here is an amendment to the Online Safety Act. We've got a regulator in the eSafety Commissioner who's going to provide that oversight. This isn't a set and forget: we're going to continue to monitor this as well.
 
Your Premier, Malinauskas, also made a really useful announcement today about having this kind of training in schools. And the Federal Government really supports that. We've got our own initiatives through the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, meaning that schools can access these online tools for media literacy.
 
Because let's face it, I'm sure your listeners will agree, there's no magic pill here. It has to come at a number of angles. It has to come at device management, but also the kind of content that is being pushed and also an educative component. So all these things coming together, I think, are very positive.
 
LEE: So it sounds like there's still a lot to be worked out, and it sounds like the review is key to that, because I must admit, when I read the change today, or the announcement today, I looked at it - I had to re-read it and re-read it, and I went, is this a bit of an announcement you make when you really don't know what announcement to make?
 
ROWLAND: Well, let's be clear: we've announced that we are going to legislate this year. We are taking solid advice from the experts, and the Summit has been a really good source of that. Because, let's face it too, there is no single agreement on what an age should be, so there's going to be disagreement about that. 
 
But we want the decision we make to be evidence-based. That will be in the legislation. So there is a bit to work through here. But I do want your listeners to understand that this work is ongoing. It builds on a lot of work that's already been done. But the fact that we are going to introduce legislation this year, I think, gives a really good indication that this is serious reform, and we're determined to make it happen. 
 
LEE: Yeah. How would it interact with the State legislation? Of course, Premier Peter Malinauskas has said he wants the ban to be in place for children under 14. What if your review comes back and its children under 15? Where would South Australian kids sit, would it be 15 or 14? 
 
ROWLAND: It's a really good question. And I think the good thing about Premiers Minns and Malinauskas, they've said they want a national regime here, so they're willing to look at all the evidence. The French report was very useful in that, in providing a good basis for how this reform could be achieved. But all of us are on the same page here: we all want an age to be specified. It needs to be an age based on evidence. And both premiers have actually said they want a national approach, and I think that's what all of your listeners want. You don't want fragmented ages in different States and Territories. It just doesn't work.
 
LEE: So it'll just be the one piece of Federal legislation.
 
ROWLAND: Correct.
 
LEE: Okay.
 
ROWLAND: And both of them have made it very clear that they want the Commonwealth to lead in this area. The Albanese Government is determined to do that.
 
LEE: What about things like Instagram Teen? They announced that about a month or so ago. The Premier was asked about it on 5AA this morning by our Brekky show, Dave and Will. Here's what he said.
 
[Excerpt]
 
PETER MALINAUSKAS, SA PREMIER: Look, what Instagram are doing there is to their credit, and I think it's in response to the rising level of concern amongst parents. But what- you know, Instagram is certainly one of the services that is, I think, lined up for an age limit to be applied to them.
 
[End of excerpt]
 
LEE: So it's not really an answer there. But with Instagram Teen, of course, it's sort of a specific social media account that they want for teenagers. Would that also fall under this? Or would there be a ban that just says no, teenagers aren't even allowed a teen account of Instagram?
 
ROWLAND: Well, first we welcome any move by the platforms to make their services safer. And Instagram Teens has been produced coincidentally after the Government announced that we were going to legislate. Whether that's coincidence or whether that was somehow …
 
LEE: Maybe they were just planning on doing it anyway.
 
ROWLAND: Perhaps. But either way, it is a good result. But it doesn't obviate the need for action in this area. Let's remember, Instagram is just one platform. It's not all platforms.
 
But again, talking about the kinds of exemptions that could apply here, if the platforms are developing low-risk options, that's what parents want to see. They want to see safer spaces for their kids. We know that we're on the second generation now of digital natives. Social media is a part of all their lives. It does have some really good qualities, but it's the harms that we need to deal with. And if we can get low-risk options, then that is a positive thing.
 
LEE: How far will the legislation go? Because I guess this is dealing with the issue now, and it's an issue that we're all in because technology has advanced so quickly. And I didn't have a mobile phone when I was in primary school and there certainly wasn't social media, but now kids do.
 
What about if the legislation is in place, if there is a specific age where it's banned, if Instagram and then Facebook come out with teen accounts, will you then legislate for, I guess, an off-boarding where the kid turns 18 and then they have complete control of their accounts? Or what happens? When do they transition into being an adult on social media? Is that something you're looking at as well?
 
ROWLAND: We certainly are. And by legislating an age, we are thereby saying, look, this is the age where we believe there needs to be some controls. Beyond that age, let's face it though, you might have your birthday, but the harms don't end.
 
The issue is, you will continually be fed content depending on what you're doing if you reach a certain age. So we're addressing them at both sides. We're looking through our Online Safety Act review at recommender systems, for example. I've instituted rules about the need to take the best interests of the child into account when apps and other platforms are being designed.
 
I think the key thing here is to ensure that we don't have a set and forget. Legislation happens; it's not job done. There really is going to be an ongoing requirement to monitor this, how it's working. We've now got some of the first data that's coming in, and your listeners will be familiar with some of this data around some of the correlations between social media use between hospitalisations, eating disorders, for example.
 
LEE: Eating disorders, yeah.
 
ROWLAND: This needs to be continually monitored. So, I want to be clear to your listeners, this is not a set and forget. This is something the Government is committed to, ensuring it remains fit-for-purpose. The regulations in place change accordingly with technology, and we can understand whether or not it's working. But I'll say this: doing nothing is not an option.
 
LEE: Okay. And just finally, a timeline. When's this all going to be in place? When will it be real?
 
ROWLAND: We're going to introduce the legislation this year. We hope that it gets support right across the Parliament so it can get through expeditiously and we can have that in place. We're setting a transition period of a year. But again, as you saw with Instagram Teens, when technology or any industry sees that regulation is on the horizon, it does, in itself, provide an incentive to do better. So, the message to the platforms is: do better. We are going to legislate. But again, we want to incentivise the industry to make sure that they create safe spaces for young people.
 
LEE: Okay. Well, we'll see how it goes, Minister. Thank you so much for your time today.
 
ROWLAND: My pleasure.