Girls' Brigade CEO Judith Davey-Cole
In July this year, the Online Safety Act came into force in the UK, and in Australia, there’s a ban coming on in December 2025, which is designed to limit the harmful impacts of social media. The policy has been touted as a world-first and is being watched closely by leaders globally.
Australia could use a range of technologies to implement its social media ban for under-16s, but all have risks or shortcomings, a report has found.
Under the new laws, platforms must take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent Australian children from creating accounts on their sites and deactivate existing ones.
Though the move is popular with many parents, experts have raised concerns over data privacy and the accuracy of age verification technology.
As The Girls’ Brigade, we support the intent of the ban - protecting young people from the very considerable harms that can come from social media - cyberbullying, exposure to harmful content and mental health risks linked to excessive screen time and online pressure.
We treat adults and children differently in the real world – you are allowed to do different things at different ages, but we haven’t yet got to the point where the internet can reliably distinguish between people’s ages. That is why all this work is going on in the UK, including the work emanating from the 2025 Online Safety Act, from Australia and elsewhere to crack this. The recent report from the Age Verification Providers Association shows that good progress is being made, although a range of solutions will be required, not just one single thing.
Girls’ Brigade know from our research that young people spend much of their time online. Quite apart from the fact that children and young people like being online, we know that there are many benefits too. But we’re also aware of the dark side of the internet and social media and the terrible harm that it causes.
We advocate for education and empowerment, not just restriction.
While we offer safe, enriching alternatives to online engagement that integrate physical activity, teamwork and developing life skills, we know that being online is very important to some groups of young people.
Take young carers, for example, who can’t always leave the house due to their caring responsibilities. We know that being online can be a lifeline in terms of maintaining friendship groups and purposeful activities in rural areas where it’s just not practical to travel long distances to attend youth activities. Online youth groups also help young people maintain links with trusted adults and friendship groups when making transitions like going to college or university, or starting a new job, which often means you need to move away from home.
So, we provide safe online spaces too, with digital safeguarding being built in. In addition to doing online crafts, bible study, badgework and so forth, we also run online programmes like Staying Safe in the Digital World. Just as an example, we explore with the girls and young women who attend: what is truth? How do you know whether the images and posts you see are real or whether they’ve been enhanced? We then contrast this with biblical truth. And - of course - we teach them how to question – how do I know whether this is real? How can I check? Teaching children and young people to go beyond face value, think carefully, and question more deeply is a critical life skill for 2025 and beyond.
Between us, we have a great opportunity to engage young people in thinking critically and faithfully about their digital lives – helping them to stay safe and be a positive influence on the world. Come and join us – give us a call about becoming a volunteer or about your children joining one of our groups.
