Tanya Plibersek warns social media giants are throwing kerosene on the fire of violence against women | Samantha Maiden

The billionaire men who unleashed social media on the world don’t let their kids use it, so why should we, writes Samantha Maiden.

Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek fears a dangerous experiment is being conducted in real time on our children.

As the number of children glued to iPads from the age they can barely read to communicating via Snapchat as pre-teens grows, she wonders if we’ve made a terrible mistake.

Just a generation ago, parents my age attended school without knowing what a smartphone was, but now their use has exploded without effective guard rails governing what children can watch.

“I reckon I’m not the only one stopping to pause – and ask – should I have pushed back more against the absolute incursion of the internet and particularly social media into our lives?’’ Tanya Plibersek says.

“Should I have pushed back harder against my children’s use of social media?

“And is it too late to push back now?”

Her own children are now aged 13, 19 and 23.

Tanya Plibersek arrives for Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

“But lately I have found myself wondering if I should have restricted their use of social media until they turned 16?

“In fact the front pages of last weekend’s News Corp papers were asking the same question. Should we wait until our kids are 16 before giving them access to social media?

“There is something sinister in the fact that the people that invented and turbocharged these systems – the coders and the venture capitalists – are men, who as they grew up and had families of their own, banned their children from using the very tools that they created.

“Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive designed some of the world’s most desirable tech – but imposed strict limits on their own children using it.

“Instead, they sent their kids to Montessori schools where the products they design are banned.

“One popular school in Silicon Valley even restricts tech to the extent that students use pen and paper.

“The social media giants know they are deliberately reprogramming our kids. Like the big tobacco companies or gaming companies, they know a lifetime of profits depends on getting customers hooked young.”

Joanna Samargis and her daughter Sophia. Jo supports raising the age for social media verification to 16. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

From school teachers to high school students, the message is loud and clear: the explosion of social media and easy access to pornography is changing the way some young men think about what’s acceptable behaviour towards women.

Just a generation ago, many parents would argue that the problem starts at home.

But now, with children attached to phones 24/7 and living their lives online, many experts aren’t so sure.

Of course, unfettered access to technology, social media and porn is a parental responsibility.

But it’s increasingly difficult to police what children see online, and many children are savvy about negotiating their way around parental controls.

Some parents simply don’t have a clue what their children are consuming.

And those that do can find the issue difficult to navigate when so many children over the age of 12 largely communicate on Snapchat.

So what next? How to respond?

In a major speech to be delivered in Melbourne on Thursday, Tanya Plibersek argues it’s not too late to fight back.

It’s an issue that she has thought deeply about after her own daughter Anna Coutts-Trotter, 23, was the victim of serious emotional, physical, financial and sexual abuse by a man she trusted when she was a teenager.

“Honestly, I wanted to kill him for hurting my child,” Ms Plibersek, minister for environment and water, told ABC’s Australian Story.

But now she’s turning her mind to the way forward and she’s concerned that social media is turning the clock backwards for women.

“I’m worried that the work of the women’s movement and the family, domestic and sexual violence sector, and government, has run up against an insidious and powerful countervailing force,’’ she says.

“It feels like we take two steps forward, then get shoved back a step by social media-fed and led misogyny.

“It feels like a backlash.

Social media, she argues, is helping to drive violence against women and girls and artificial intelligence has the potential to make things even worse.

“And we parents don’t know the half of it,’’ she says.

“How do we know what our kids are watching and consuming on their phones, when each person’s feed is specifically tailored for them?

“And yet, as parents, when we ask why social media giants won’t help us by insisting on strengthening age verification or being more responsible with what they feed our kids, we’re accused of being censors and Luddites.”

Ms Plibersek argues she’s “not given to moral panic.”

“I’m an enthusiastic user of social media, for both getting my political message out – and posting photos of quolls and bettongs, bees and flowers,’’ she says.

“Most of the time the internet is marvellous – and I’m glad to live in a time when we have it.

But too many kids, she argues, are also getting their sex ed from online porn.

“Boys are learning how to treat women and girls from watching violent and degrading porn,’’ she says.

“The average age of first viewing porn in Australia is 10 years old.

“When they do become sexually active, the images imprinted on their young brains become embodied in real life. Girls are being convinced that uncomfortable, painful, violent, or degrading experiences are normal in sex.”

“Many parents want to bring older notions of childhood back,’’ she says.

“Less time on your phone, more freedom to explore and take risks in the outside world.

“It’s good for kids’ brains and bodies to explore this way and both the federal government and the states are looking at how they can support this with school phone bans and social media age restrictions.

“We can push back. We can reclaim our time and our brains, and our sense of safety.”

Originally published as Tanya Plibersek warns social media giants are throwing kerosene on the fire of violence against women | Samantha Maiden