Morning. My name is Sharon Claydon. I'm the Federal Member for Newcastle, but the Chair of the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society, and we've just brought down a very important third and final report from the committee with a number of key recommendations.
This is a report building on earlier recommendations. You may recall that the second interim report really lent into the challenges that follow as a result of Meta's decision, that's the parent company for both Instagram and Facebook, their decision to no longer honor the financial deals that they had with Australian media organizations to carry their content online. So, this third and final report from the committee really focused on the impact and influences of social media on Australian society.
Really the big take out message of this report is that big tech is now on notice there will be a requirement for social media companies to comply with Australian laws. So, we made a recommendation around ensuring the enforceability of these laws on big tech and making sure that they comply when operating in the Australian jurisdiction, our priority, like the government's, has been around ensuring the online safety of all Australians and particularly children.
The committee took a lot of evidence around the social harms being caused through the ongoing evolution of social media in Australia, we know that 81% of Australian people are now using social media on a regular basis. This is set to increase. So, we know that social media is here to stay, but how do we ensure better protections for Australian users? So the committee is saying one making sure that all of our Australian laws and our demands around protections for kids are going to apply it to these big global tech companies when they're operating in Australia or where Australian users are online, for them, it's making sure that big tech take step up and take responsibility for themselves about ensuring that they're taking proactive measures around prevention, and that they then deal with the removal of harmful content and such on a really, really timely, speedy basis.
The committee took a lot of evidence about how bad that process is today, so things like the demand particularly from younger users, but indeed, most Australian users want to have greater control over the content that they see, whether that be user generated content or paid advertising. So, the committee recommended the capacity to be able to alter, to reset, or indeed turn off the your personal algorithms and recommenders.
We wanted to ensure that young people would be part of any co-design process around new regulatory frameworks about the use of social media in Australia and we wanted to ensure greater protection of personal information because, as it was put to the committee, whilst a lot of people think that the their use of social media is free, the real danger there is, when you think that that product is free is because you have become the product for big tech. They're interested in your personal information and harvesting that to on sell. Now that is something that is of grave concern, of course, to most Australian users. So really, it's saying to big tech, you've got to rethink some of these business models that you are operating with in Australia, we've got some solid recommendations about increasing digital competency and social media skills. That's an ongoing process.
It's got to be particularly aimed at those vulnerable groups in Australia, but we want to make sure that indeed, we are lifting the competency skills of all Australians. The government, of course, has already done some fantastic announcements and picking up on a number of the recommendations around a statutory duty of care that was a very strong part of the committee's evidence, the fact that the social media companies do need to lift their game.
In terms of the better protection of young people, of young Australians, the governments now announced the trial to restrict use and access to social media to 16 years and above. To be fair, the committee has received a range of evidence on where that exact age would fit. We talked to a lot of different stakeholders, but we were really keen to see the outcome of the age verification trial that the government's undertaking now, so we'll all be looking closely at that, as I know the Australian people will.
One thing that we are all absolutely united on here is that big tech is going to require a social license in order to conduct their social media business here in Australia, no more. Nobody is immune, especially big tech companies, from the need to have a social license to operate in this country. I hope that the social media companies will come on board. Government will be taking time to look at the recommendations, and I hope that they are giving some very serious thought and the way that they might do business in a way that ensures the safety of all Australians on their digital platforms.
Thank you.
