Facebook regulation ‘simply won’t work’
July 23, 2011 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
Updated
Parents currently do not have a direct legal right to access their children’s Facebook accounts.
The use of Facebook by children is again being thrown under the spotlight, with an expert warning the Government to avoid regulating the social networking site.
The nation’s attorney-generals gathered in Adelaide for the second day on Friday to discuss the legal right for parents to check on their children’s accounts.
Changes to privacy laws as well as the classification of online games in Australia were at the top of the agenda.
An options paper considered by the attorneys-general also discusses whether Facebook should raise the user age limit from 13+ to 18+, while requiring proof of age to sign up.
Parents currently do not have a direct legal right to access their children’s Facebook accounts.
Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland says concerns about young children posting inappropriate content on Facebook is a legitimate issue, although making concrete legislative changes would be difficult.
But senior lecturer Peter Black, who specialises in internet law at Queensland’s University of Technology, says a “heavy-handed legislative response” is not the answer.
He says there are real problems associated with going down a path of legally forcing children to make Facebook accounts available to their parents.
“For a start, it becomes quite tricky technically to be able to do that, and then I also think there are legitimate privacy concerns there,” Mr Black said.
He says to counter the “moral panic” surrounding social media sites such as Facebook, teenagers and parents should instead be familiarising themselves with the platform in a safe and appropriate way.
Mr Black says the real risk in legislating Facebook would be that the site would simply withdraw from the Australian market, rather than complying with a scheme the Government introduces.
“I would have thought that the Federal Government and the state governments would have been cautious about imposing additional regulatory burdens upon IT companies and platforms in Australia,” he said.
“It might just be easier for those companies to move out of Australia and not provide access [to the public], which would obviously be a detriment to Australia’s online culture.
“It just seems to me to be fraught with risks and problems when there’s very little benefit from going down this particular path in the first place.”
And he says any age restriction placed on Facebook would probably be very easy for children to bypass.
“The time and the money would be better off spent raising awareness so that children, teenagers, adults and parents are aware of the risks and know how to protect themselves,” he said.
“It’s the same argument we’ve been having in this country for the last several years with the proposed internet filter.
“Any sort of filter or system like this, in addition to the free speech concerns, simply isn’t going to work.”
social-media,
internet-culture,
information-and-communication,
law-crime-and-justice,
federal-government,
australia
First posted
-
Print
-
Email this -
Permalink
-
