‘Rewiring their brains’: Barnaby Joyce issues pornography warning

Barnaby Joyce has weighed in on a push to ban kids under the age of 16 from social media, revealing two powerful reasons he supports the proposal.

Barnaby Joyce has warned demeaning, violent pornography is “rewiring boys’ brains” backing tougher age limits for teenagers to access social media and porn online.

The former Nationals leader has backed a rethink of how old children and teenagers should be before they access harmful material, comparing the rise of uncontrolled social media and porn online as akin to drugs of addiction.

It follows claims that Australian teenagers are in the midst of a generational crisis because of toxic social media that is affecting their health and costing lives.

The former Nationals leader has warned violent pornography is “rewiring boys’ brains”. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Mr Joyce told news.com.au that he was genuinely concerned about the impact of pornography on a generation of young boys and men who have had a completely different upbringing to older men who did not see the material as youngsters.

“It’s not good for young guys to see a woman totally demeaned,’’ he said.

“And it’s common sense that there’s a chance, a greater chance and otherwise there would be the case, that they will go out and treat women without respect and lead to such things as domestic violence.

“It rewires their brain.

“It gives them an endorphin kick. Whether it’s drugs, whether it’s cigarettes, whatever it is, it becomes an addiction.”

Fears that parents are losing the fight against multi-billion tech platforms who continue to knowingly expose children to harmful content that is affecting their mental and physical health has sparked a new campaign called Let Them Be Kids, to raise the age limit to 16.

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Mr Joyce said there was all sorts of anecdotal evidence that it was influencing young men who then want to “act out what they’ve seen” in the worst possible way.

“It’s not the way dad treated mum,’’ he said.

“People have been saying it for so long. So why do we need a lesson in this? You stop seeing a woman as another human being and another person. You start seeing her as an object for gratification, full stop.”

Mr Joyce said he was genuinely concerned about the impact of pornography on a generation of young boys and men. Picture: Supplied

Social media and eating disorders

Mr Joyce said uncontrolled access to the internet was also playing a role in encouraging young women to have eating disorders.

In some cases, the algorithm was then feeding them material about diets and starvation and skinny bodies.

“If you go into the wards where they deal with people with eating disorders, you will find large people obsessed with what they saw on the internet, and a lot of this stuff is just cruel,’’ Mr Joyce said.

“It’s just a cat with a bowl of string rubbish.”

The Nationals MP said social media giants could fix the problem if they wanted to do it.

“The problem goes back to the multibillionaires,’’ he said.

“If they are so smart enough to create the algorithms that if I even talk about something like I’ve got a bad back, next thing I know, I’m seeing things on the internet about bad backs, if they’re smart enough to do that then I just don’t believe they don’t have the AI (artificial intelligence) capacity to go searching for words to go searching for phrases and to and to just knock them out.

“But it’s like saying you got to get off cigarettes, or you got to get off alcohol or heroin. Or you know, methamphetamines.

Mr Joyce said social media giants could fix the problem if they wanted to do. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Psychologists say suicide and self harm has skyrocketed in children under 19 and eating disorders are up 200 per cent over the last 12 years.

The utter explosion of social media use is blamed as a factor.

Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek told Sunrise that it was all part of the reason for the government’s $6.5 million trial.

“We need to make sure that we’ve got the age settings right and that the technology supports that,’’ she said.

“But Nat, like you know, the social media companies, if they wanted to do it they could probably do it tomorrow.

“The average age of kids that see pornography today is 10 years old. Can you imagine what that has done for young people and their relationships? It’s not good.”