Call for better online protection for children

by Shaun Greaves, CEO Presbyterian Support Northern

Debate on banning children under 16 from social media is well overdue in New Zealand.

We need to take action now to safeguard our children and young people from escalating exposure to harmful digital content.

Our current safeguards fail to keep up with a rapidly changing digital world, and the sexualised landscape children and youth often encounter online.

Increasingly, our Family Works social workers and counsellors are supporting children as young as eight-years-old who have been exposed to unwanted sexual images, pornography and violence online through their phones and devices.

Content is becoming more graphic, violent and misogynistic, promoting toxic ideas around masculinity. It is distributed through digital channels, including social media, gaming and communication and messaging platforms, such as Discord and Snapchat.

The increasing amount of online sexual content is also exposing children to bullying and blackmail.

Our social workers are working with Intermediate school children with issues normally associated with adults, such as problematic porn use.

This can negatively influence children and young people when they are at impressionable and formative ages into acting inappropriately with their peers. It exposes them to harmful ideas that may normalise sexual coercion, connect aggression with sex, and objectify women and girls.

The problem is widespread and crosses all social boundaries. This is not a healthy way for children and young people to be introduced to topics of consent, boundaries and healthy relationships.

Worryingly, the volume of this kind of material is set to balloon as AI-generated content proliferates through digital channels and becomes more common.

Social media companies are rolling back safeguards; and algorithms are really successful in drawing in young people, particularly boys who feel socially disenfranchised as has been compellingly portrayed in the crime drama, Adolescence.

One of our senior trainers in the Shine Education and Training team, Dr Emma Barker-Clarke, completed a doctorate on Cyberbullying, Sexting and Nudes in New Zealand.

Based on interviews with 54 teenagers in friendship groups across a range of Auckland secondary schools pre-COVID, she found young people were too scared to share what they experienced online with their teachers or parents. Feeling there was nothing they could do, they were left with normalising content they were exposed to.

Dr Barker-Clarke’s findings showed that New Zealand children are trying to manage an unchecked and proliferating sexualised digital culture on their own. They fear telling their parents in case they lose their phones.

Her research also found that explicit photos were sent to girls by predatory strangers. When interviewed, the girls said that receiving the images felt like a violation. They also feared being blamed for receiving sexual messages or images, even if they were sent by a predatory adult.

Ironically, the phones initially provided by parents to keep their children safe are now a source of potential harm.

Dr Barker-Clarke found that generally, adults are fearful of talking to young people about anything that relates to sex and sexuality. Throw in the online world that they didn’t grow up in, and parents and teachers can feel out of their comfort zones. However, if we don’t have these conversations, we are not supporting young people with the challenges they experience.

Immediate action is required. We need a coordinated, concerted response from all services and sectors that engage with or have statutory obligations to children — from education and health services to law enforcement and policymakers.

New policy needs to be developed and legislation updated. Education initiatives that enhance digital literacy and our ability to talk about relationships need to be put in place.

Parents need better education on what they can do to help support and protect their children. They need to be having age-appropriate, non-judgmental conversations little and often about what’s happening online. They need to create an environment where, if something does go wrong for a child or young person, the child feels safe enough to confide in them. Children and young people need to know that their experience won’t be minimised and they won’t be blamed.

The corporates behind social media, gaming, communication and messaging platforms should be held accountable for making the digital world safer for children.

Under proposed new social media and technology codes being introduced in Australia, companies will have six months to introduce a range of new measures to prevent children accessing adult content online, including self-harm or high-impact violence material. If they don’t, they could face fines of up to AU$50m. We strongly support a similar multi-pronged approach introduced in New Zealand.

Our vision at Presbyterian Support Northern is a better life for everyone. Our kids deserve better. Our parents deserve better. Childhood is such a short amount of time in an average lifespan, just 12 brief years from age three to 15. We need to give them the best possible start to a good life.

We need to stand together across all sectors and act now to stop the tide of harmful digital content our children are trying to navigate on their own.