Australian father of teen sextortion victim backs banning young children from social media

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Wayne Holdsworth became an advocate for banning Australian children younger than 16 from social media because his son took his own life after falling victim to an online sextortion scam.

Mac Holdsworth died last year at his Melbourne family home at the age of 17 after a 47-year-old Sydney man who purported to be an 18-year-old woman demanded money for an intimate image the boy had shared.

Since then, the grieving father has taken his tragic story to around 20 schools to warn students of the risks of social media.

“I saw firsthand the damage that social media could do. I saw Mac, my son, get sexually extorted on social media,” Holdsworth said. “His mental health deteriorated at a rapid rate.”

Online predators began approaching the teenager before his 16th birthday and his father believes such a ban could have saved his life.

Australia's House of Representatives on Wednesday voted for such a ban and the Senate is expected to make it law soon.

Holdsworth said most of the 3,000 students he’s spoken to, from age 12 to 17, agree with a ban on children under the age of 16.

“They come up to me and they say, ‘I’m so glad that this is going to be implemented,’” Holdsworth said. “Even the kids see it now that they’re going to be protected from those predators outside that are preying on them.”

He said three girls approached him after a school address on Monday to tell him that they were being subjected to sextortion. One had already handed over 2,500 Australian dollars ($1,600) of her parents’ money to a blackmailer.

Holdsworth said he was the first adult they had confided in.

“The parent won’t know until the credit card statement comes out,” he said.

“So it’s prevalent. It happened last night and it’ll happen tonight,” he added.

Holdsworth described the government plan to ban children younger than 16 from social media as “absolutely essential for the safety of our children.”

But not all parents are convinced that banning young children from social media is the answer.

Critics say the legislation was rushed through Parliament without adequate scrutiny, would not work, would create privacy risks for users of all ages and would take away parents’ authority to decide what’s best for their children.

They also argue the ban would isolate children, deprive them of positive aspects of social media, drive children to the dark web, make children too young for social media reluctant to report harms they encounter, and take away incentives for platforms to make online spaces safer.

Independent Sydney lawmaker Kylea Tink on Tuesday became the first member of the House of Representatives to speak publicly against the bill, which would make platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram liable for fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to prevent young children from holding accounts.

“As a mom of three young adults ... I’m very aware of the negative impacts of social media and the challenges of parenting in this digital world,” Tink told Parliament. “I also recognize, however, that my children are digital natives and are very literate about how these platforms work. For this reason, I encourage everyone involved in this debate to ensure they are listening to the voices of young Australians when it comes to this decision-making process rather than assuming that the grownups in the room know best.”

Tink was among 13 lawmakers who voted against the bill in the House on Wednesday. They were overwhelmed by 102 legislators who voted for it.

The platforms have urged a Senate committee that examined the legislation on Monday to delay a vote until after a government-commissioned evaluation of age assurance technologies is completed next June.

The four-hour committee meeting on Monday attracted 15,000 written submissions.

X Corp. told the committee that billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's platform had “serious concerns as to the lawfulness of the bill," including its compatibility with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

“There is no evidence that banning young people from social media will work and to make it law in the form proposed is highly problematic,” X said.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said the legislation was “inconsistent with what Australian parents have told us that they want, which is a simple and effective way for them to set controls and manage their teens’ online experience.”

Under the bill, parental consent for children to use social media does not override the ban.

Lizzie O’Shea, chair of the Digital Rights Watch charity, which aims to uphold the digital rights of Australians, said she was appalled by the process and limited timeframe the government used to pass such significant and contentious legislation.

She said she was very aware of the serious risks posed by social media platforms, "but I do not support a ban personally because I understand both the limits of that particular policy and the expert evidence that is coming out from people who work in this space about the problems for young people being excluded from those spaces,” O'Shea said.

Her concerns centered on privacy, negative mental health impacts on excluded children and the possibility that young children would find ways to access social media spaces that would become even less child friendly as a result of the ban.

“I’m profoundly aware of the dangers of large social media platforms running a certain kind of business model that prioritizes data extraction and exploitation of vulnerability over the public interest or the building of community and the protection of democracy," she said.

Swinburne University digital media expert Belinda Barnet, who supports the ban, feels she is part of a minority among professionals in the digital field.

“I like it mainly because I think many of the social media platforms as they exist right now are not suitable environments for young children,” she said.