Yesterday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the government’s proposal to ban social media use by children under 16, saying social media companies would have to take “reasonable steps” to enforce this.
While Albo claimed it was for the “mum and dads” because “social media harms”, it sounded like the government was once again shirking its responsibility and failing to hold social media companies to account.
My experience with social media began at 13. At 14, I fell into the spiral of an eating disorder.
As a second-generation Indian, talking to those around me about my eating disorder was difficult, layered with cultural stigma and a misunderstanding of mental illness.
Additionally, being one of the few brown girls in my school, it felt like the beauty standard was everything I was not — thin and white.
When I finally saw a GP with a family member, he said I would outgrow this phase of my eating disorder. My GP failed to diagnose me for three years, saying it would “affect my employability”.
I felt isolated, misunderstood and ashamed.
Social media helped these feelings to dissipate. I found creators who posted about their recovery from an eating disorder which made me feel seen and heard and gave me the language to explain the constant battle in my head over food, numbers, exercise and body dissatisfaction.
However, then came the content which exacerbated my eating disorder. This content, masked as being about recovery, was pro-eating disorder and diet content — “what I eat in a day”, gym workouts, eating challenges and “advice” videos and posts. My feed was filled with them. My algorithm felt inescapable. No matter how many times I hit the “not interested” button or headed into my settings to block out words, the dieting content was lurking everywhere.
Research presented at a roundtable in September 2023 by the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences found that for those currently diagnosed with an eating disorder, it was 4,137% and 322% more likely that the next video delivered to you by the TikTok algorithm would be eating disorder-related or diet-related, respectively.
The harms of social media are clear and urgent. But a ban is not the answer.
Several experts note that age verification has been challenging to implement and very costly when trialled in other countries like the UK and the US.
Organisations such as the Butterfly Foundation, online youth mental health service ReachOut, and medical research institute Black Dog have said that the ban is not enough — that simply cutting people off social media won’t address the fundamental issues.
This is particularly true when you consider 73% of young people, like myself, have used social media as a tool for mental health support. On top of that, around half of young people with mental health challenges use social media as a substitute for professional support.
We need evidence-based research methods to address the complexities and issues associated with social media.
In May 2024, at a roundtable co-hosted by the Butterfly Foundation and Senator Zoe Daniel, the charity presented recommendations to address social media and its harms to body image.
These included modifying the Online Safety (Basic Online Safety Expectations) Determination 2022 by requiring social media platforms to remove pro-eating disorder content and advertisements from their platforms on identification or notification, with consequences for inaction including fines or other punitive measures, and amending the Online Safety Act 2021. The organisation also asked social media companies to allow users to reset their generated algorithms and support the Australian public in reporting to the eSafety Commissioner when they see material that could negatively affect their body image.
Instead of putting this responsibility onto government and tech companies to amend legislation and regulate harmful content, the proposed legislation fails to require technology companies to provide any protections for users to identify inappropriate content.
As a woman of colour with lived experience of an eating disorder and a participant in the roundtable, I have seen that a social media ban merely shifts the onus onto young people, disempowering them as they are told social media causes harm, yet the content causing harm is not regulated.
Experts have also said that a ban means young people will find new and unregulated ways to access social media or use methods such as Virtual Private Networks, increasing the risk of the existing harms of social media.
We need a holistic approach consisting of media literacy training in the school curriculum and research on marginalised communities and the unique impacts they face.
Most importantly, we need the government to fund health care, and for social media companies to take responsibility by regulating and removing harmful content.
If you or someone you know is experiencing an eating disorder, support is available by calling Eating Disorders Victoria on 1300 550 236 or visiting eatingdisorders.org.au.
