The Greens are one of the only groups in the parliament against the social media ban for under-16s. It will come into effect next month and Sarah Hanson-Young says it is going to have a pretty major impact on young people’s lives:

Look, I understand that governments wanting to do something. But this, I think, what will end up see something that it will work for some families, and parents will empowered to be able to say – no, you’re not allowed to have Snapchat or Instagram until you’re a bit older. But for a lot of kids, they will be able to get around those systems. They can have a fake account. They could use and access all of the information in a log out mode, use somebody else’s account. And for those kids, now, there’s going to be no way of keeping track of what they’re seeing and how dangerous that is. Because there’s no requirement on those platforms to keep their platforms in any way safe for young people. So I do think that we need restrictions and regulations – absolutely. But what I’m concerned about is prohibition in this way doesn’t look after the vulnerable at the very least, and I think certainly, there’s going to a lot of kids who are going to get around this pretty quickly. The other issue is, of course, we that school holidays is starting very soon. For some young people, this week is the last week, and others, it will be over the next couple. Kids are going to be school. They’re going to be going home, being out of that environment. And disconnected from their friends and I’m worried that over summer, without a requirement on these platforms to provide safe spaces for our children and young people, we are going to see Australian kids falling through the cracks and finding themselves in some pretty dark places over summer.