The nation’s social media scourge – highlighted by the Let Them Be Kids campaign – has taken too many young lives, with those under-16 to soon be banned from platforms.

Below are letters from six parents who, after suffering the most heartbreaking loss imaginable, are united to ensure social media in Australia becomes a safer space.

WAYNE HOLDSWORTH

Father of Mac

To the parents of Australian Children

The hardest thing I have done and will ever do in my life is leave Mac’s cold and rigid body in a pool of my tears and go into the kitchen and tell his 14-year-old sister Daisy that her beautiful and protective brother Mac had passed away.

We hugged and cried uncontrollably, we still do.

One of the reasons Mac took his life was that he was sexually extorted online.

Within 30 minutes one evening of being online he befriended who he thought was an 18-year-old woman who had quickly shared a nude pic of herself with her face visible and encouraged Mac to do the same thing.

Mac was told by the “18 year-old-female” that he sounded strong, handsome and an outstanding sportsman. All accolades that lured Mac into thinking he had met someone that was genuinely kind and appreciative.

After Mac had reciprocated and sent a nude pic of himself the communication ceased but Mac received a call from a foreign number, thinking it may be his new love interest.

It turned out to be a 47-year-old man from Liverpool, NSW – Minh Tri Doh – who demanded from Mac $500 or he would send the pic to Mac’s friends and family.

Mac had to go to footy training the next night and was embarrassed and ashamed and sent the terrorist $500.

Mac thought he had escaped a bullet and as he had sent the money that would be the end of it.

It wasn’t and the phone rang again and the terrorist wanted another $500, Mac came into see me then and I told him that he was the victim and he had done nothing wrong, it was a

moment in time when we hugged that night.

Minh Tri Doh and myself had a very animated phone call when he called again, it ended up him saying that he hoped Mac and I would die and he would send the photos out to everyone … he did.

It is alleged that Minh Tri Doh used his 15-year-old niece as the “bait” that night, not just for my boy but for other young blokes.

And if you read this Minh Tri Doh and deny you using your niece why don’t you come out of your black hole in the ground and tell me face-to-face. I gave you that opportunity and you hid behind your weak facade.

You pleaded guilty to receiving the proceeds of crime – the $500 – yet were able to use our legal system and plea bargain for that to be the only charge laid against you – we have to do better Australia as Minh Tri Doh received six months for influencing my Mac to take his life.

I have no doubt he continues to sexually extort other children.

Some people have said to me that the 16-year-old social media restriction would not have saved Mac as he was extorted at 16.

My response is simple – that the social media restriction being implemented on the 10th December 2025 will help enormously but it is not a silver bullet.

What is the silver bullet is the education supporting the reasons for implementing the world-first social media restriction.

If I had been educated and Mac had been educated on the perils of social media leading up to him talking his life he would be still here today.

Education is the key. Do not send nude pics to anybody anytime again.

I set up NFP Smacktalk and outside of my full-time CEO role in basketball in Victoria to mitigate the risk of other kids and families having to go through what Mac and we did.

I deliver a 45-minute free session to primary and secondary schools across Australia, sporting associations, clubs, corporates and the number has now reached 26,000 people in the past 12 months – over 200 hundred sessions.

But the important stat is that we have saved nine lives directly.

As late as two weeks ago a student approached me and told me he had been on the cusp of being sexually extorted and he said that he used all of his education that I had the pleasure of delivering to thwart the terrorist.

The scoreline that night – student 10/10, terrorist 0.

We have given our young Australians a poison chalice in access to social media – the tech giants know it and have been preying on our kids for years, but we have allowed it.

We now have legislation in place to save our kids, it will be bloody hard to tell your 14-year-old that he/she cannot use Tiktok and the like for two years, there will be tantrums there will be fights, it will be difficult but do you want your child to be safe from the terrorists out there that extort our kids as young as 8?

Sexual extortion is an industry and getting bigger.

I will leave you with this. Firstly, get educated and read the resources available to help you through, Newscorp are the leaders and the Let Them Be Kids campaign led the charge.

Get on my website and I will come and deliver a session to a group of parents, schools, corporates, etc – www.smacktalk.com.au

Secondly, you have a choice to protect your children and it will be hard initially or your child could end up like Mac and I can tell you first hand having to bury your child with the weight of blame around your neck for the rest of your life is so much more difficult.

I’m sorry I didn’t protect you Mac.

I miss you little mate.

Wayne Holdsworth

(Mac’s Dad)

EMMA MASON

Mother of Matilda

Dear parents of Australia,

I am the mother of Tilly Rosewarne who died by suicide on February 16, 1025 days ago.

When I gave Tilly, then aged 12, an iPhone, I had no idea that I was handing her a weapon which would be so integral to her demise.

I thought I was helping her be part of the group, while helping her stay connected to me when I was travelling for work. There is no doubt that I felt pressure in letting her have a phone and then as time progressed, allowing her access to social media.

I thought I was a “good parent” – believing that the security systems and the rules of use I set up would protect her.

I knew precious little of the social experiment I had unleashed into her life. It was an experiment that saw the fingers of the psychological heroin that is social media grab hold of her heart.

Social media is designed to be addictive, with infinite scrolling, auto-play videos, notifications, sounds and bright colours. It provides instant gratification with very little effort.

Looking back, our household changed as the battle to get Tilly to disconnect was waged every day; nagging her to put her phone down, to go to sleep, to just be part of family life.

“She’s a teenager, pick your battles” I thought, but I was fighting a powerful algorithm as well as fighting Tilly.

For Tilly the online bullying started slowly and then quickly escalated and got more serious when her school “friend” circulated a fake nude photo of her on Snapchat, reaching at first five children then 300 children by 4pm. By 6pm over 3000 children had received or shared this “snap”.

The impact of this was instant. In a small rural community this event was catastrophic for Tilly. She attempted suicide that night. It was the first of 11 attempts over two years. She wouldn’t leave the house. She stopped going to school. Stopped dancing. Stopped drawing. Stopped engaging in life.

As Tilly battled depression and anxiety, the algorithms of her social media kicked in, and the content became very dark.

After she died, police confirmed her phone history was full of Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok videos and images related to suicide, death and mental illness.

This was death by bullying – enabled by social media.

In the end, the hate messages telling her to “KYS” (Kill Yourself) got too loud and Tilly lost all hope.

Tilly’s death blew my family apart. We all now live in a world of trauma, of sadness and loss. Each one of us trapped in our private mantra of “she should be here”.

Birthdays and anniversaries are no longer celebrated, instead replaced with constant heartache because she should be celebrating with us.

Make no mistake, I know this new law will be hard – Tilly’s younger sisters (aged 14 and 16) who saw all that Tilly endured, are still addicted to their phones – Instagram, Snapchat – trapped in a digital world that sells “validation as connection” but in reality, delivers up online harm, addiction and isolation.

But it’s not all about Tilly – it’s about ALL our kids

Students 10 to 15 years of age are the most likely to be involved in online bullying. Enhancing social status with peers is the most commonly reported motivator for bullying.

Research by Harvard University has confirmed what we parents already know – what we see every day – the correlation between social media use and its impact on mental health, including increased depression, negative feelings resulting from comparison to others, higher levels of anxiety, insomnia, impulsive behaviour and lower self-image.

But the good news is that breaking from social media actually improves mental wellbeing and social connection.

So make a plan now with your kids.

What are you going to do with your kids to connect – movie nights, games nights, a bit of exercise?

Will your teen need more support? Then put things in place for this.

Be the role model.

Put down your phone and engage.

Stay curious with your teen about how they are coping and look for signs they are not OK. And stay strong.

I am always proud to be an Australian but on December 10, I will stand especially tall knowing that the Australian government said:

■ “No” to social media for children.

■ “No” to Australian children being monetised.

■ “Yes” to protecting children from online harms.

■ “Yes” to letting them be kids.

… #ForTillysSake

JODIE CARTER

Mother of Hamish

Dear Australia

It’s Friday morning the 7th of November 2025 and I’m sitting in my living room with the

dogs. The back door is open; the birds are singing and there is a gentle breeze.

Its really peaceful. Fridays are my Hamish Days. Hamish is my beautiful son who passed from suicide at age 12 in December 2022.

A moment in time froze and the most devastating and traumatic day of our lives that you cannot even begin to fathom.

Why would my 12-year-old son take his own life? How can that be? He was a child, how did he become so upset, depressed, hopeless, misunderstood and helpless that he felt his life should end.

That he was no longer needed here, that other kids told him he was a pussy, and no one liked him anyway so just go KYS.

KYS is short for Kill Your Self. This is the slang that our 9,10, 11, 12, 13,14 and 15-year-old kids use to talk to each other. To be cruel and to undermine confidence and bully.

Hamish had been bullied since Year 1. Half of his short life. He was six years old when another kid spotted a weakness and exploited it.

He continued to exploit it through primary school, and he recruited others to help him exploit it. That is hard enough to deal with at school when you are a little kid who doesn’t understand why your being picked on and what you have done wrong and how can you make this stop.

Hamish found solace in reading at home and watching movies and TV shows. Which soon led to games, Nintendos, iPads, YouTube, PlayStation and his own smartphone.

Much like all the other parents who were grappling with these technologies themselves, our understanding of the universe we had opened up to Hamish was very limited.

However, for a super smart kid like Hamish, it was easy. He had created fake profiles on every social media app you could imagine.

I had tried to limit use. I thought I blocked content and had timers on apps so he couldn’t use them constantly.

Nope, he had literally grown up with these things and knew his way around them in a capacity I could never hope to understand. I guess what he thought was fun and exciting at first – not to mention completely addictive, then became a 24/7 additional form of bullying and abuse.

There is literally no way out once a young highly impressionable mind has access to every single cruel, heinous, destructive thought, image, video that the darkest of human minds can conjure up.

Hamish has access to porn, terrorism, murder, suicide, drug use, violence, abuse.

The deepest darkest parts of the web and if he didn’t see it, his friends did and they shared.

Then our lovely friend the algorithm continued to feed this to him day after day, hour after hour. And what do you think happens to those impressionable young minds when their brains are developing? They drink it all in and that is what they learn.

They become addicted. It is a drug a never-ending release of dopamine and stimulation in the worst possible way.

As this horror starts to become normalised within their brains, this is how they talk to each other.

They are cruel because all they see is cruelty. Apps such as Snapchat are almost like an ‘easy to use bully tool’.

They can say the most awful things to each other and a record is not kept. Well, it may not be kept on that screen, but it is kept in your child’s mind and it replays in their head over and over again.

“Your’e a pussy, you’re useless, no one likes you, your fat, your dumb, your ugly, your stupid” There is no recourse, there is nothing monitoring this.

These are young kids using these apps whether we have consented to them using them or not.

Someone else's kids are allowed to use them and they have shown yours how to access them or they screen shot stuff and share it.

Instagram is a very cruel app. I’m a 53 year old woman and it upsets me to see

peoples perfect lives on there and I cannot handle looking at it or interacting with it.

How can our children handle the never ending feed of perfect people, bodies, lives,

etc that Instagram never shuts off.

OMG then there is TikTok.

When Hamish dies we found hundreds of screen shot suicide memes on his phone. They popped up on my iphone the morning of his funeral. He would of hidden them from me somehow – but once his phone was not in regular use and the detectives were accessing his information while they investigated his death it must of opened up something and a flood of these came through.

Plus photos of him standing on the cliff near where he died, standing on our roof, little videos talking himself down and screen shots of nasty conversations with others. There was also a horrible video some other kid took of Hamish being physically and mentally bullied at school by other kids and they had circulated it.

As much as I was in a haze of grief and really not functioning the reality of the social media cruelty and its contribution to Hamish’s death was now obvious.

He had been bullied at school for the last six years and at home, in his bedroom, on his PlayStation and laptop by social media.

Myself and our family fully support the new social media ban for under 16s.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to comply with this ban. How many beautiful, young children do we have to lose to suicide for people to understand the incredible damage this is doing.

Parents we cannot protect our children 100% of the time. Allowing your kids to use these apps is like handing them a firearm. Its not going to end well.

I feel so guilty for not having done more to protect Hamish. It’s a guilt I live with everyday. I grappled with all the school stuff and I took him to counselling and I followed the so called ‘experts’ advice.

But I couldn’t save him.

I couldn’t save him because it wasn’t just up to me to save him.

The creators of the content, the algorithms the advertisers that profit from our kids hurt, the massive conglomerates of Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google that fun our lives and control

the world.

They are damaging our children.

Those beautiful babies you are cuddling now that are six weeks old, your cute toddlers playing with their toys and pretending to be super heroes and princesses.

They grow up, they go to preschool. Maybe someone brings in a cute kids iPad with some fun games or songs on them to share, then they go to primary school.

Oh its bring your own device to school day. Then its this fabulous ‘Mathletics’ app you have to use for homework, watch this science video on you tube, its your 10th birthday – heres the

latest iPhone.

Don’t worry we can block the apps they shouldn’t be seeing. High school its google classroom and its every single day and night our kids are on laptops and social media.

These kids are our future, they will be working and running the country. If they make it past the deadly years of navigating social media, self-regulation, maintaining their self-esteem, being able to have a conversation in person, not on text, playing outside in trees, in nature, using their imagination.

Please, please, please, from the bottom of my heart, from Hamish’s heart, from Hamish’s legacy and all the beautiful kids in heaven now because they struggled to navigate this path our world created.

Please support this ban. Don’t buy your kids smartphones, don’t give them iPads, put the devices away. Take them outside, encourage their imagination, show them how to build things, make things, create things, show them how to grow food and love animals and show them how amazing and clever and beautiful and important they are.

Put your phones down and play board games and do a puzzle with them.

They are absolutely your gift and if you have found yourself like our family having lost a child to suicide we see that now.

The guilt and regret of the decisions we made lives on everyday and the huge hole in our hearts echoes where our Hamish was here to hold and to laugh with and cry with and watch him grow no longer is a heavy cross we must bear.

Its not one that you have to live with though. You have every chance in the world now to change this and watch your children grow and be everything they can. They are god’s gift as are you and believe me, living without them is the saddest, hardest, most heart wrenching, heart breaking thing we have ever had to do.

I cherish Hamish’s sisters, my beautiful daughters, my husband, my animals. They are our life blood and what is there in life without love and family?

Why are we even here?

Please be kind to one another and please understand if I could turn back time I promise you from the bottom of my heart I never would of bought that damn iPad, iPhone, PlayStation for a 10-year-old little boy that was not equipped for all the hurtful things that were contained in those little devices.

Yours sincerely

Jodie Carter

You are welcome to contact me if you have a comment, criticism, a question or a story. If our experience can help anyone and save another child that is my greatest wish.

VANESSA LOVE

Mother of Courtney

Do I agree with the new social media ban for kids under 16? Absolutely 100 per cent!!!

When I had my kids, social media like Facebook wasn’t a bullying platform. Facebook wasn’t launched until I’d had my fourth child.

Mobile phones didn’t have fast internet, it was very slow. I wasn’t aware of the extent of Courtney’s bullying, especially online, until after her suicide.

She had uploaded photos of her self harming onto Instagram and these keyboard warriors had egged her on to ‘cut deeper’, ‘show more blood’ and ‘just go ahead and kill yourself’.

Her bullying was also at high school, so between school and the online platforms, she couldn’t escape her bullies.

If social media was never invented, I believe Courtney would still be here.

I was bullied in high school, but phones weren’t a thing, so I knew when the home time bell went, that my bullying stopped until I went back the next day.

Children these days are subjected to 24/7 bullies and harmful, inappropriate content. Social media has a lot to answer for when it comes to child suicides and the out of control bullying without repercussions.

Hopefully this ban and new laws preventing kids from having social media accounts if they’re under 16, curbs this problem and we see less and less child bullying and suicides.

No this isn’t a ‘cure’, but it’s definitely a start! It will help protect next generations coming through where it will be the norm to not have access to accounts until they turn 16.

They won’t be exposed to the algorithms and become hooked. Parents should want to do everything in their powers to protect their children. Yes there will be push backs from the kids who have access now, ‘sucked in’ to the social media world where there’s been no protection for children under 16.

But parents will have the power to stop their kids from accessing illegal, harmful content like porn and beheadings for example.

All parents should back this ban as it will be the law.

When we have children, from the moment we lay eyes on them, we want to love and protect them at all costs.

I actually can’t fathom why parents wouldn’t want this ban to be put in place and made law. How many stories do we have to keep reading about children committing suicide due to bullying via portals like social media???

The statistics are way too high and whilst ever our kids keep having access to social media the statistics will just keep climbing.

No parent should ever have to bury their child like I had to, especially where these deaths could’ve been avoided.

Deaths like my daughter Courtney, and other deaths like Charlotte, Tilly, Corrine, Ollie and many, many more.

We need to protect our kids of today, tomorrow and beyond. Our kids shouldn’t be made to feel like suicide is their only option! We need to all be doing more!

There are so many services out there these days for kids needing mental health help, something that was very limited in 2012 when Courtney was accessing help.

So it makes me happy that there are so many more services, but along with these more services, the demand is greater than it was in 2012.

Mental health issues have become an epidemic in my eyes, for not only children but for adults as well.

Once this ban comes into place on December 10th, the need for help will only, in my view, increase and increase with kids not being able to access social media media platforms until 16 and over.

These platforms are addictive, because it’s how they are designed. Designed to hook you in, to keep accessing the content as you scroll and scroll and scroll. Kids need to be kids. Not become socially inept because they don’t know how to socialise and have an actual conversation with another person.

Kids don’t study school work like we used to when I was in school. Grades are slipping because kids prefer to be on phones accessing unregulated content or being Xbox/PS4 gamers.

Life is too short to be too busy on devices all day and night. If there was no such thing as internet, then Courtney wouldn’t have learnt how to tie a noose and hang herself successfully.

So let’s support this ban 110 per cent to save our kids.

Courtney’s motto was “keep fighting, stay strong” we must all do this in life, for ourselves but for our kids too.

My kids are all adults now, but I will always participate in articles, documentaries, or whatever way I can help spread awareness of the negative effects of social media access for our kids.

I will be Courtney’s voice. She lost her voice in the darkness of being bullied relentlessly. Charlotte’s parents Kelly and Matt, Tilly’s mum Emma, Ollie’s mum Mia, are all standing up being their children’s voices, whilst grieving, trying to make a massive difference to stamp out bullying via social media platforms and in schools.

They’re so inspiring to me, and I am sure they inspire a lot more adults and children, to want to help make this difference.

Tilly’s mum Emma recently spoke at the UN Conference in regards to Tilly’s story and wanting to put this ban in place to protect our kids.

I always believe that Emma is speaking on behalf of all children lost to suicide as a result of social media platforms and bullying, and also on behalf of all parents, like myself, who have buried a child due to suicide.

MIA BANNISTER

Mother of Ollie

This December, a quiet but powerful shift will take place. For the first time, social

media platforms will be legally required to take reasonable steps to keep children

under sixteen from creating or maintaining accounts.

This law isn’t about blame or control it’s about protection. For years, parents have

been asked to fight billion-dollar algorithms from the kitchen table, trying to safeguard

their children from an online world designed to hold them captive. We’ve watched

anxiety rise, self-esteem fall, and sleep, concentration, and connection suffer. Too

many families, like mine, have paid the ultimate price.

When I lost my son Ollie to suicide after his battle with anorexia, an illness amplified by

social media’s relentless comparisons and cruelty, I wished this legislation had

existed years ago. It might not have changed everything, but it could have given him

and thousands of others a safer start.

Yes, there will be challenges. Some teenagers will feel cut off, anxious, even angry. But

that discomfort is temporary. What follows, real connection, rest, resilience, and

rediscovery of self is worth every moment of transition. Childhood and adolescence

were never meant to be lived under a constant spotlight, measured in likes, or dictated

by algorithms.

This legislation marks a turning point: a moment when responsibility shifts from

parents to the platforms that profit from our children’s attention. It draws a line in the

sand and says, ENOUGH!

So, as we prepare for this change, let’s meet it with empathy and courage. Talk with

your children before the law takes effect. Explain why it matters – that this isn’t

punishment, but protection. Together, we can help them step away from screens and

back into life, into sport, friendship, family, and the simple, beautiful freedom of being

young.

For every child still here, and for those we’ve lost — this change can’t come soon

enough.

Ollie was 14.

ALI HALKIC

Mother of Allem

Australian parents,

Over the past 10 years, social media has infiltrated our lives, and in some cases has become consuming and addictive.

As adults, it has been challenging. But at the same time our children have been exposed and unknowingly to the risks and harm that have been caused over many years. The time has come to take a stand.

I lost my son Allem many years ago. Accepting that social media played a part in his death is something I struggle with daily. It is hard to accept social media could consume a perfect, healthy young man to the point that he could not escape and there was no other option but to take his own life.

Over the many years, questions have been asked, and the one that stands out more than others is what I would have done differently?

The answer is simple now: I would not allow my son to be on the platforms, nor allow accessibility to him which had at that time.

My lack of understanding and awareness was limited as to the risk associated around the social media platforms, but there is no excuse now.

If I did know then of the risks and the dangers around social media, and monitored my son’s activities and put controls in place to protect him, there is no doubt in my mind he would be alive today.

While I also do recognise the initial good that can come out of some social media platforms, the connectedness, community, involvement and even in some cases digital literacy, but saying all that and reflecting on the harm and evil greatly outweigh the benefits for our children, as parents, it’s time to take back the control of our children live, social media infiltrated us and was not invited but we can say no to our children.

And the risks outweigh any reward that could come from it for our children, let’s go back to basics, teach our children to socialise, interact with our families and friends, not hide their emotions behind screens before our very eyes.

Together we can change our social media culture and allow them just to be kids.

There is so much reach validating the true harm social media is doing to our young children, these are facts that we all need to take note. Let’s take control back of our children, unite, make a stand, have the village approach were we all unite and protect our children from the harm of social media has caused to so many young lives for far too long. Allow them to be children again and all parents need to unite to ensure we play our part.

In the memory of my beloved son Allem Halkic.

MAT O’BRIEN

Father of Charlotte

This is a letter from a dad who knows why change can’t wait

To our leaders, to every parent, and to anyone who’s ever worried about what social media is doing to our kids …

I write this as a dad who would give anything to turn back time. Our beautiful daughter, Charlotte, was full of light, laughter, and love. She had a heart that believed the world could be kinder — that “everybody matters, everyday.”

But the world that met her online didn’t always show her that kindness. And now, every day, we live with the ache of what might have been.

That’s why I’m speaking out. Why I’ll never stop speaking out. Because we can’t afford to wait any longer for change.

The Social Media Reform Laws — to raise the minimum age from 13 to 16 — are not about taking something away from our children. They’re about giving them back something precious: their childhood. Their peace. Their sense of who they are before the world tells them who they should be.

I wish we had all realised sooner just how much harm these platforms could cause. We thought we were keeping an eye on things, that we could manage it. But social media doesn’t come with an off switch — not for young minds still learning to understand their worth.

I wholeheartedly believe the delaying of social media by 36 months can save a lifetime. Even a short delay can make the difference between a child who feels crushed by the online world and a child who feels strong enough to face it.

These laws will finally give parents the power to say “not yet” — and to know the law stands behind them when they do. It gives mums and dads the chance to protect their kids without feeling like they’re fighting a losing battle against peer pressure, marketing, and technology designed to keep them hooked.

To the parents reading this — I know how hard it may seem. When your child is upset, when they say you’re the only one saying no, when you feel like you’re the bad person — please, hold your ground. You know what’s harder than this? Planning your child’s funeral. I now know the true meaning of hard.

If we can be strong together, we can change the story for the next generation. We can make sure no other family has to walk the road we’ve had to walk.

Let’s give our kids the gift of growing up in the real world before they face the online one. Let’s give them the time, space, and safety they deserve.

Because Charlotte was right — everybody matters, every day. And because 36 months really can save a lifetime.