Tech titan Meta guilty in Northern Territory youth crime crisis, says Chief Minister Eva Lawler
Eva Lawler has written to Meta Australia’s managing director accusing it of ‘encouraging and reinforcing’ youth crime among some of the country’s most vulnerable children seeking social media fame.
Northern Territory Chief Minister Eva Lawler has accused tech titan Meta of “encouraging and reinforcing” youth crime among some of the country’s most vulnerable children seeking social media fame.
Ms Lawler has demanded an urgent meeting with Meta, saying her government is considering following other states in launching “post and boast” legislation that could lead to jail time for anyone sharing videos of committing a crime via social media, following a rise in crime that has seen a two-week youth curfew imposed on the Alice Springs CBD.
It comes just over a week after children under 18 in Alice Springs were forced off the streets in a move aimed at stopping the riots and violence that have plagued the red centre for months, with police and sources on the ground noticing a significant drop in illegal behaviour such as parading stolen cars in town.
Ms Lawler, who faces an election in August, wrote to Meta Australia managing director William Easton on Thursday, calling on him to meet with her and Police Minister Brent Potter to discuss ways in which the tech behemoth can “reduce criminality and harm” among NT youths.
“Police who are enforcing the youth curfew in Alice Springs … said that young people in the town who were engaged in illegal behaviour and posting it to social media have stopped coming into the CBD because there is no central place where people can commit crime, share it on social media and receive online infamy from their friends and peers,” Ms Lawler wrote in the letter.
“This anecdote suggests there is immense power that social media platforms have in encouraging and reinforcing this illegal behaviour in our streets.”
Youths of Alice Springs use social media to advise friends and even rival gangs when they have a stolen car, allowing for groups to gather in the Alice Springs CBD and watch the fracas.
In early March, an 18-year-old was killed while he was riding in the window of a stolen car.
Youths post videos of driving dangerously as well as photographs of them in possession of prohibited weapons. including firearms and bows and arrows.
Eight males – including two juveniles – have been arrested so far following last week’s rioting that sparked the NT government intervention, where 150 people gathered at Hidden Valley town camp “armed … and engaging in violent conduct”, after earlier attacking a popular pub and forcing staff to barricade themselves and their patrons inside.
It resulted in the NT Police Force sending 33 “auxiliary liquor inspectors”, who had gone to Darwin to undergo training to become police constables, back to Alice Springs, as well as an extra 25 police officers.Ms Lawler said she was determined to get on top of the violence and anyone under the age of 18 found in the central business district would be “taken home or taken to a safe place”.
On Wednesday, a riot at the Don Dale youth correctional facility, which spilled into Thursday morning, resulted in a police officer being taken to hospital and a building set on fire.
Police had been called to the correction centre in Darwin around 4pm on Wednesday following reports of 14 children climbing on to a roof and “throwing projectiles” resulting in the hospitalisation, with prison staff fearing it was a matter of time before someone was killed.
Early on Thursday morning, six children remained on the roof but by 9:30am they had been returned to custody.
Ms Lawler told the Meta boss in her letter it was “critical that criminal and anti-social behaviour” was not “amplified and given a platform” on social media.
“Social media algorithms are poorly understood in the community but they can have powerful impacts on influencing what young people view and engage with,” she wrote.
Ms Lawler told The Australian that social media companies needed to “step up and do more to protect young Territorians”.
“There needs to be strong systems put in place to prevent criminal behaviour being shared and then going viral.
“There’s no doubt that at least some of the youth offenders in the Territory continue to commit crimes because of the online infamy and notoriety it brings them,” she said.
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