MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – Wayne Holdsworth has become a lawyer for banning Australian children under 16 on social media because his son took his own life after falling victim to an online sextortion scam.

Mac Holdsworth died last year at his family’s home in Melbourne, aged 17, after a 47-year-old Sydney man posing as an 18-year-old woman demanded money for an intimate picture he the boy shared it.

The grieving father has since taken his tragic story to around 20 schools to warn students about the dangers of social media.

“I’ve seen firsthand the damage social media can do. I saw Mac, my son, being sexually extorted on social media,” Holdsworth said. “His mental health deteriorated rapidly.”

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

Australia’s House of Representatives voted for such a ban on Wednesday, and the Senate is expected to bind it soon.

Holdsworth said most of the 3,000 students he spoke to, ages 12 to 17, agreed with the ban on children under 16.

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

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

Holdsworth said he was the first adult they trusted.

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

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

Holdsworth described the government’s plan to ban children under 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 proper vetting, wouldn’t work, would create privacy risks for users of all ages and take away parents’ authority to decide what’s best for their children.

They also argue that the ban would isolate children, deprive them of the positive aspects of social media, drive children to the dark web, make children too young for social media reluctant to report the harm they do welcomes and will remove incentives for platforms to make online spaces safer. .

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

“As a mother of three young adults … I am very aware of the negative impact of social media and the challenges of parenting in this digital world,” Tink told Parliament. “I recognize, however, that my children are digital natives and are very familiar with how these platforms work. For this reason, I encourage everyone involved in this debate to ensure that they listen to the voices of young Australians when it comes to this decision-making process, rather than assuming that the adults in the room know best.”

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

The platforms demanded a Senate committee which considered legislation on Monday to delay the vote until after a government-commissioned review of age assurance technologies is completed next June.

Monday’s four-hour committee meeting drew 15,000 written submissions.

X Corp. told the committee that billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s platform has “serious concerns about the bill’s legality,” including its compatibility with the UN 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 for it to be law as proposed is extremely problematic,” X said.

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

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

Lizzie O’Shea, president of the charity Digital Rights Watch, which aims to support Australians’ digital rights, said she was appalled by the process and the limited time frame the government had used to enact such important and controversial legislation.

She said she is well aware of the serious risks social media platforms pose, “but I personally don’t support a ban because I understand both the limits of that policy and the expert evidence that comes from people who work in this space. about the issues for young people who are excluded from those spaces,” O’Shea said.

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

“I am keenly aware of the dangers of large social media platforms running a certain kind of business model that prioritizes data mining and vulnerability exploitation over the public interest or community building and the protection of democracy,” she said.

Swinburne University digital media expert Belinda Barnet, who supports the ban, believes she is in the minority among digital professionals.

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

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