Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention
MO: Well, now the Morrison government last week announced proposed amendments to Australia’s privacy legislation, which aim to better protect Australians online and bring our privacy laws up to the digital age. Well, an important aspect of this is the impact social media, as I’ve mentioned on this show many times, can have on the mental health of Australian kids. And this is where Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention David Coleman comes in. David, good morning. Welcome to Tasmania talks.
AM Coleman Good morning, Mike. Good to be with you.
MO: First of all, what are some of the main changes, if you don’t mind, included in the amendment?
AM Coleman Yeah, sure. Well a couple of key points. The first is that we’re introducing a duty on social media companies to act in the best interests of children. And so what that means is that in the future, if they provide content to children, which is clearly not in their best interest. So, for instance, things like extreme dieting content or content about eating disorders or content about self-harm or all the other areas that people are so concerned about that will be in breach of the law. And that’s a very significant change, and they can face fines of up to 10 per cent of their entire Australian revenue if they do that in the future. The second key point is that in the future, they’re going to have to get consent for opening an account for any child under 16 from the child’s parent. So they’re going to have to take all reasonable steps to identify age, and then they’re going to have to get the consent of the parents. And again, if they don’t have parental consent for a child who’s under 16, they’ll be in breach of the law and they face fines of up to 10 per cent of their revenue in Australia. And for some of these companies, that’s tens of millions of dollars. So there they’re very significant fines for what is a very significant issue.
MO: And I know that you’re aware of the consistent increase in signs of distress and mental ill health amongst young people and social media is certainly part of the problem. I mean, as hundreds and thousands really of Tasmanians resort to social media over COVID, we’ve escaped reality. There’s Instagram. We’ve spoken about Tik Tok on this programme. I mean, that really does end up warping real life for a number of young locals. I mean, there’s often funny dance gets all the influencers, and the experts say that it’s all so great. But Tasmanians are being exposed to a real, darker side of the platforms that realistically are affecting their mental health, to the so many. The list is endless.
AM Coleman Yeah. And I think that example you gave Mike of funny dances and so on is a good one because sometimes kids will come into social media because of those things that are quite innocuous. And yeah, and don’t harm them. But once they’re in, unfortunately, what can occur is that they can get dragged towards content that is damaging for them. And that’s the problem. And a typical example is you might have a young girl that’s concerned about body image. The algorithm and the social media site picks that up and then starts to provide content that is potentially damaging for that child around extreme dieting and so on. And what we’re saying is that, you know, we know that we can’t trust social media companies to act in the best interests of children. It’s very, very clear we can’t trust them to do that so we’re going to force them to. And that’s what this legislation will provide for.
MO: Well, you mentioned, eating disorders, I mean, there’s a support service, the Butterfly Foundation. And I mean, that support service has absolutely skyrocketed, as young locals are clocking up more and more screen time. And I was reading in the past 18 months, they went over 230 Tasmanians seeking support for themselves and over 150 carers seeking help for a loved one. And that’s just the Tasmania branch’s co-ordinator. So, I mean, it’s a massive issue.
AM Coleman It is. I mean, we’ve seen significant increases in in signs of mental distress from kids for some years in recent times, COVID exacerbated it. But it’s been there for quite a few years. And you know, social media is not the only reason why that’s occurring, but there’s no question that social media is having an impact. As you mentioned, we’re seeing significant increases in kids presenting with eating disorders. Butterfly Foundation does fantastic work there, and what this legislation is about is really cracking down on these social media companies and saying- in the future, if you don’t act in the best interests of children, it’s against the law. So, you know, no ifs, no buts, it’s against the law. The Information Commissioner who’s a federal government appointee, will have the power to enforce this law, and that means going into the social media companies getting any information that the commissioner needs. So for instance, internal emails, internal documents, internal reports and so on. Because, you know, it’s not the sovereign state of Snapchat, it’s the sovereign state of Australia. We are going to assert that sovereignty and we’re going to use these laws to seek to protect kids from this damage.
MO: Calling for these companies to be accountable, such as Facebook and Twitter is way about time isn’t. I mean, it’s they’ve been getting away with so much for such a long time. And of course, you’ve had people that have well suggested and they’ve had their own person to suggest that they’ve been doing the wrong thing on Instagram, for example. I mean, all of that to me was quite frightening that it was a leak of their own internal research. It probably would be aware of that with the body image, as you mentioned the mental health of young people. So this legislation is absolutely dreadfully important and really is necessary for these laws to keep up with the digital age, isn’t it?
AM Coleman Well, that’s right. And the social media companies, their strategy over the years, Mike, has been effectively to say, look, it’s all very complicated. You know, we work hard to protect kids and they’ve sought to always, you know, stop legislation or not agree with it. The government’s already done a lot in this area through the Online Safety Act and another in other places. But this is about ensuring that they act in the best interests of kids and fining them if they don’t. And importantly, getting parental consent for accounts to be set up for under sixteen year olds because we don’t think that they should be able to set up an account for, you know, a 12 or 13 or 14 year old without parental consent. And what the companies have done for years, Mike is say, Oh well, it’s all very difficult technically to work that out. But in the last few months, Facebook has actually said they’ve identified 600,000 underage accounts on Instagram. Now, that sounds good until you realise that Facebook has got 2.8 billion accounts. So that’s a tiny fraction only 0.02 per cent of their users. And of course, a lot more than 0.02 per cent of social media’s users are, you know, kids who are too young to be there. And so it’s really important to give parents that control to say if a child is under 16, parental consent is required because this is an issue that a lot of parents struggle with, it’s a really difficult issue. And by ensuring that parental consent is required, that’s going to put parents back in control. And we think that’s the right thing to do.
MO: And if you speak to just about any parent with children that have a tablet or platform they use, you’ll find there is an issue. When I read – it came from your stats as well about children’s mental health that also in Australia, even before COVID, a consistent increase in signs of mental distress amongst young people. Since 2013/14 prescriptions of antidepressants for children aged just 12 to 17 years increased by more than 70 per cent, which compares to a 21 percent increase for the general population. You’ve got self-harm. Hospitalisations for young people have increased, particularly as we touched on for girls aged 14 and younger. That’s doubled since 08/09. Our emergency departments, mental health presentations for children have increased, which is dreadful. I mean, I accept that while the reasons for this are varied and complex, social media is a major part of this problem. And people say, and I’ve spoken to people that brushed aside, said, no, it’s not that. Be silly.
AM Coleman Yeah. Well, it is certainly part of the problem. And the fact is that young people themselves have said that. So, you know, headspace survey from 2018, young people identified social media as a key reason contributing to reduced mental health in the community. I mean, Facebook’s own research, obviously that’s been leaked recently highlights the mental health impacts. It’s certainly part of the issue, and the statistics that you just cited are really concerning. They are very concerning. And so as a government, what we’re doing is looking right across the board, whether it’s in the health system and all the investments we made in the budget and in other places in terms of young people’s mental health right across the education system and here in relation to privacy online. Because privacy online, the digital environment is a huge part of where kids spend their time today. And it’s not the case that we should listen to the social media companies and say, Oh, well, you know, they’re not a part of the problem or, you know, we shouldn’t regulate them. You know, they’ve had a long time to address these issues. It’s not like these companies showed up yesterday. They’ve been around for more than a decade. They haven’t addressed the issues. We can’t rely on them. And so we are going to, by legislation, force them to do what you know frankly, Mike they should have been doing all along, which is acting in the best interests of kids, but they haven’t. So we’re going to force them to.
MO: Francis Hagan, I think, is the person that Facebook’s own research revealed by her, the whistleblower, the platforms that she, even though they even know that it harms children, saying and I quote, “we make body image issues worse for one in three teenage girls”. So I mean, it’s wonderful to see that this is occurring. I just wish that had happened sooner.
AM Coleman Well, the government’s already done a lot here, as I said through the Online Safety Act and in other areas. But these two big changes are hugely significant because a duty to act in the best interest of kids means very clearly that the content that we’re most concerned about and linking to that content is clearly not in the best interest of kids. So therefore against the law, once this law goes through. The second thing is we know that there are kids who are on social media who are too young to be there, to absorb it all. And in the future, if the companies don’t take all reasonable steps to identify age and get parental consent, they’ll be in breach of the law. And the really important point here, Michael, one of them is that the fines a really substantial because these are big companies and if the fines were modest, there’s the risk of them, you know, not changing in the way they need to change, but the fines here are up to 10 per cent of their entire Australian revenue and for the for the main platforms, that is many, many millions of dollars. And so they will need to take these laws very seriously, and the Information Commissioner will be given all the tools that they need to enforce these all these laws because we need to see very significant change.
MO: I know that Facebook says it’s shutting down its facial recognition system in the coming weeks. Scrapping a feature that’s developed into a central element, they say, of photo sharing online. But of course, that raises amazing concerns amongst privacy advocates and regulators, and you’re saying about fines. Facebook last year reached a $550 million US settlement with the state of Illinois, which alleged the company was wrongfully using facial recognition technology on residents without their consent.
AM Coleman Yeah, well, it’s really important that fines are substantial because these are huge companies, some of the biggest companies in the world, and they’re also very sophisticated companies. Because when you think about it, when it comes to selling advertising and using data to profile users, they’re the most sophisticated companies literally in the world. But on the other hand, they’ve said when it comes to protecting kids and using those same skills to protect kids, they’ve said it’s all too hard. What we’re saying is, well, in the future, all of the skills that you have as a company, all of the assets that you use to sell ads, you should use those same assets and that same intelligence to protect kids, which they haven’t done in the past. They should have been doing it all along. But when these laws come to the parliament early next year and hopefully pass through the parliament, we will see that change in Australia. And if they don’t change, they’ll face massive fines.
MO: Let’s talk a little bit, and it’s slightly similar: trolls because just recently you had Ali Smith and her partner, Jake Glidden, stepdad, to Cleo young Cleo was found, and we’re so grateful and so wonderful after 18 days that four year old you be aware of the story. The trolls were amazing. The comments from online trolls, they were actually so malicious, nasty innuendo to these two parents as such. Imagine if there weren’t distressed enough. This is what is amazing for me, and one of the commenter said, look, if you weren’t guilty, why would you automatically say she has been taken? Would you be more confused? I’ve been through a lot of uglier ones I can’t even mention on Radio one woman on Twitter. I said the treatment of Cleo’s parents echoed the Lindy Chamberlain case and questioned whether Australians had learnt anything from that case. So realistically, down the track, there’s going to be sort of a stretch across here to trolling, and I know that we are dealing in Facebook where people, you know, if you put something up and someone comments to it, you know, there can be all sorts of ramifications.
AM Coleman Well, look, these are very serious issues. And those comments that people have put on online about the family are just absolutely disgusting and horrible. The PM and Barnaby Joyce have talked about this a little recently and about these issues because they are very, very distressing for people, very damaging for people. The E-safety Commissioner has already has in place some really important schemes for helping kids who have been bullied online. The Online Safety Act extends that to adults. But as the PM and Barnaby Joyce have acknowledged, there’s more to do in this area because the same laws that apply offline and in the real world should apply online, too. And, you know, the PM’s made it very clear that that’s something that is being looked at the moment.
MO: I know that there’s a Victorian MP naming names who was awarded an $875,000 payout by a court last year after it found a conspiracy theorist made a series of defamatory posts against her. So I mean, people are going to need to be very cautious. I think that side of it, because you’ve got the keyboard warriors think they’re quite safe, but no, they’re not.
AM Coleman Well, well, that’s right, Mike. And the key point is that if you if something is against the law offline and you can’t do it in normal day to day life, then that same rule should apply online. And the way the internet is developed over the last 20 years means that sometimes it can take regulation a little while to catch up because it will move so fast. But that principle, whatever you do offline or whatever you shouldn’t do offline, you shouldn’t do online is a really important one. And you know, as the PM said, there’s more to say on this issue in the future.
MO: Bringing our privacy laws up to the digital age. I mean, what else is included in this amendment outside of protection for kids overall?
AM Coleman Well, there’s a range of measures about protecting adults and in terms of ensuring that they provide their consent for exploitation of data and so on. And that’s where Michaelia Cash, the Attorney-General, is really focussed on this legislation. She and I have worked together very closely on the issues about children’s mental health because for me, as the PM’s Assistant Minister on Mental Health, that’s what I’m really focussed on because I think that children’s mental health is a hugely significant issue. When you think about it, there’s not really anything that’s more important than the mental health of our kids, and we know that social media has been a part of the problem here. We know that the social media companies haven’t done the right thing. They haven’t shown regard for Australian kids, and this law is going to change that and it has to because we can’t rely on them to do the right thing.
MO: And I’ve just had a text from Scott in Devonport, has text through to Tasmania talks, who said, can I ask you about your thoughts on the High Court decision, which holds page holders on Facebook responsible for other people’s comments?
AM Coleman Yeah. Well, look, I probably wouldn’t go too much into that, Mike, because that’s something that has only just happened recently and is being worked through, through the Attorney-General and the implications of that for defamation law. And that, as I say, my focus is about mental health and the mental health of kids and these this new legislation is going to go a long way to assisting in helping improve the mental health of kids and stopping these social media companies from what they’ve been doing for far too long.
MO: And I think if there’s any way you can push to get some more health professionals in Tasmania, that with the more support services for Tasmanians, because the bottom line is we need more qualified professionals here.
AM Coleman Well look in the in the budget we announced a very big mental health package, some $2.3 billion, and that includes a significant expansion. So half a billion dollars for a new mental health service called Head to Health, which will be clinics which are free for adults to access. We’ve also got a significant increase in headspace funding, about $280 million in the budget, and I’ve been speaking to to Bridget Archer in particular down there about some of the issues in the local mental health system. And certainly as we roll out the Head to Health clinics and as we look at the Headspace expansion, we’ll certainly be ensuring that Tasmania is a key part of that because mental health is a critical issue right around the country and certainly in Tasmania.
MO: And we’re catching up with Bridget shortly on this programme, as a matter of fact. So certainly, I’ll talk to her about that. Look, it’s great work you’re doing, and I’m glad it is happening and I’m glad that our young people are getting looked after in regard to the bill. I wish it well. I wish it well is all I can say, what is the next step?
AM Coleman So it’s out for consultation at the moment and that closes early December. And then we’ll be bringing it to the parliament to be legislated early in the new year. So yeah, it’ll be coming to the parliament shortly.
MO: Well, it’s been a pleasure talking with you. David Coleman, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention I appreciate your time this morning.
AM Coleman Thanks, Mike. Good to talk to you.
