PROTECTING young people online must be balanced with their rights to education and participation, Jersey’s children’s rights watchdog has said, after Australia introduced a world-first ban on under-16s using social media.
Jersey’s Children’s Commissioner, Dr Carmel Corrigan, said she was watching the Australian legislation closely and stressed that any response from the Island must consider children’s rights.
“It is important to balance children’s rights to education, information and participation in the digital environment, alongside their right to protection from online harm,” she said.
“While taking longer and needing more investment, we think that a range of other measures will better serve children and society.
“These include a tighter regulatory framework for online platforms, strengthening digital literacy skills for everyone, improving support for children affected by online harm, and making sure that children’s views are heard and inform any legal or policy changes.”
Her comments came as local ethical-technology campaigner Emily Jennings said the move may embolden some Jersey parents to restrict their children’s phone use – but cautioned that no single measure could resolve such a “highly complex” issue.
Australia’s new rules require platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit and TikTok to remove accounts held by users under 16 and block them from registering new ones.
The ban, which came into force yesterday, is intended to protect young people from cyberbullying, harmful content and online predators, though critics warn it risks isolating vulnerable teenagers and pushing them into unregulated corners of the internet.
Ms Jennings described the move as a “step in the right direction” but warned that it would be difficult to replicate in Jersey.
“It may be enough for Jersey parents to say to their children: ‘Australia is a bigger country than ours, and they say this is bad for children – so I’m not going to let you use it’,” she said.
“But it would be very expensive for Jersey. We’re a small, law-abiding, community-centric society. There are other ways we can get to the same result. We can promote real-life play and socialising. You don’t need a sledgehammer here to get people to abide by the law.”
She added that “age-gating the hardware” – restricting access to smartphones and devices themselves – and regulating “addictive design” were also key.
“There will always be a way around software, so we have to do this at the hardware level,” she said.
The debate comes after a major review by the Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel last month found Jersey is lagging behind the UK in protecting children from online harm.
Panel chair Catherine Curtis said the government is due to respond to the review’s recommendations by 19 December.
Speaking following the Australian government’s ban on social media use for under-16s, Deputy Curtis said her panel found that digital literacy and online safety must be embedded into education, that platforms should be required to monitor and remove harmful content and that children must be consulted during the development of Jersey’s online-safety strategy.
There has been criticism in Australia that young people were not meaningfully consulted before the law was enacted.
“The overall point is that while the government must develop an online-safety strategy, the review recommends that children still have access to the digital world, as is their right,” Deputy Curtis said. “They are digital natives. However, we expect parents, schools, children’s services, the government and online platforms to take responsibility and to provide measures to minimise harms.”
