TO: Committee Secretary
Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
FROM:
Dr Russell Blackford
Submission
to Inquiry re Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024
1.
I am writing to submit a brief response to the above inquiry. I am grateful
that there is an opportunity for the public to respond this Bill before it
is voted into law. However, I must protest in the strongest possible terms
against the inadequate time that we have been given to digest this Bill
and the body of controversial research that lies behind it (most notably the
most recent publications by Jonathan Haidt and his critics, including the
back and forth of their responses to each other).
2.
I am an academic philosopher with a special interest in legal and political
philosophy, including issues relating to liberal theory, secular government,
and traditional civil and political liberties such as freedom of speech. My
formal qualifications include an LLB with First Class Honours from the
University of Melbourne, a Masters degree in bioethics from Monash University,
and a PhD in philosophy, also from Monash University, where my doctoral
dissertation applied ideas from liberal theory and philosophy of law to certain
topical issues in bioethics. I am admitted to legal practice as a barrister and
solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria, and in the past I have practised
with a major commercial law firm in Melbourne.
3.
I am the author of numerous books including Freedom of Religion and the
Secular State (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), Humanity Enhanced: Genetic
Choice and the Challenge for Liberal Democracies (MIT Press, 2014), The
Tyranny of Opinion: Conformity and the Future of Liberalism (Bloomsbury
Academic, 2019), and How We Became Post-Liberal: The Rise and Fall of
Toleration (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024). Although I have retired from
paid employment, I remain active in research and publishing at the intersection
of philosophy, law, and public policy. I hold an honorary position as Conjoint
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Newcastle. I do not, of
course, purport to represent the views of the university in any way.
4.
As far as I can establish, the purpose of this Bill appears to be a
therapeutic one: legislators blame the apparent rise in mental health
issues among young people on their participation in social media. Perhaps there
is some truth in such claims. At the moment, however, they are
highly controversial among the relevant experts within the disciplines of
psychology and psychiatry. In the absence of a scientific consensus, there is
currently no sound basis for such legislation, which has grave implications for
the freedoms of both young people and their parents. The issue
requires deeper investigation that certainly cannot be conducted by
anybody in only one day. Even if some kind of regulation of access to
social media for young people is ultimately justifiable, there is no
guarantee that it should take the form of a blanket ban (with some specific
exceptions) applying to anybody under the age of 16.
5.
This legislation has been prepared, and is being pushed through the houses
of parliament, with unseemly and anti-democratic haste. Creating a forum
for public consultation that allows only one day for submissions is astonishing
and outrageous when there are important rights at stake.
6.
Finally, I am very concerned about tendencies across the liberal
democracies of the West to edge them closer and closer to being
authoritarian surveillance societies. In each case as it arises, some rationale
can be offered, but the cumulative effect is frightening. In this instance, it
seems that every Australian who participates in social media will henceforth
have to prove his or her age, thus revealing information about themselves
that they might otherwise wish to retain privately. Perhaps something can
be done to obviate this problem, but that cannot simply be taken on trust.
7.
Far more research and public discussion is needed before anything like
this Bill can be legitimately enacted by our federal legislature. I
strongly urge that the proposal be shelved indefinitely to
allow proper scientific and democratic processes to take place.
Yours
faithfully,
Russell
Blackford
(Dr
Russell Blackford, Conjoint Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of
Newcastle)
21
November 2024
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