
13/06/2024
Over the past few years, we have been humbled to receive hundreds of emails and messages from you, sharing heartfelt stories about how social media has negatively impacted your children. You've told us that it has unsettled them, addicted them, depressed them, sexualised them, exhausted them, scandalised them, bullied them, extorted them, abused them, and even driven some to self-harm and su***de.
It is now time for your very real and raw stories to be heard by a wider audience, and particularly our lawmakers - our MPs, Ministers and even the Prime Minister - in Federal Parliament.
You may also wish to avocate for raising the social media minimum age from 13 to 16 years and express your desire to see the introduction of age verification to ensure that rules around age are actually enforced.
Submissions close in three weeks - on 28 June 2024 - so there isn't much time to waste.
You can be certain that Big Tech and its lackeys will be pulling out all stops in the next few weeks to paint a rosy picture of the state of affairs. They will - under the guise of “nuance” - try to obfuscate the essential truth of conflict and misery that social media visits upon countless families around the country.
But while they may be well-resourced and while they may have their quadzillions of dollars, we have an even greater love for our children. We hope to see parents overwhelm the committee with submissions of parental love!
The committee prefers to accept submissions via the online system here: www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/OnlineSubmission.
If that's not your style, we think a hand-written or typed letter can also be very impactful. These letters can be posted to:
Committee Secretary
Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
An email to socialmedia.joint@aph.gov.au is also acceptable.
SUBMISSION TIPS
Begin your submission with a short introduction about yourself and your family.
The best submissions are personal, highlighting your own family's experiences and perspectives.
Submissions don't need to go on for too many pages. One or two pages is fine and a good rule of thumb is to keep them less than five pages long.
You may wish to propose some solutions (as the committee looks to submissions for ideas to make recommendations).
Provide your return address and contact details with your submission (although not in the main body of the submission).
If you are extremely time-poor, then a short email submission along the following lines will still be a great help: "Dear Committee, I am a mother of three children aged 6, 10 and 13 years. Our family resides in Geraldton, Western Australia. We have experienced the negative effects of social media on our family in numerous ways. Our eldest daughter was bullied on social media earlier this year which required the intervention of the school and counsellors. I would like to see laws enacted that will increase the minimum age for social media use to 16 years. Equally important is the introduction of a meaningful age verification mechanism so that children cannot circumvent laws by simply ticking a box. Kind regards, Sarah Freeman."
For more information, please go to the inquiry’s home page at www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Social_Media/SocialMedia