The Australian Federal election is Saturday May 3. This is an opportunity to make our key concerns known to almost 700 candidates wanting to secure your vote!

At Collective Shout we are non-partisan. But we do want to know if candidates - of whatever political stripe - care about the issues we do. And then cast our votes accordingly.

To assist you in casting your vote we have prepared five key questions for you to put to your candidates:

• Do you commit to supporting age verification to help protect children from p*rn and not allow the vested interests of the global p*rn industry to undermine the current trial?
• Do you support tighter regulations on Big Tech/social media platforms to hold them accountable for the harms they have caused, especially to young people?
• Do you support laws to stop the creation and dissemination of AI-enabled Deepfake Image Based Sexual Abuse and a global ban on nudifying and undressing apps? 
• Will you take action to tighten up Australia’s classification laws to stop explicit material including torture p*rn-themed graphic novels/comics to be in easy access of children including in public libraries?
• Will you support a new inquiry into advertising self regulation given frequent violation of the ad code of ethics and no penalties for non-compliance meaning more children are exposed to p*rnified depictions of women in public spaces? 

You can find all the background information you’ll need to make the case to your candidates here.

There are a few claims being made - even on our socials - that are critical of the Government's Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024.

We want to correct them.

‘Australia’s social media age minimum will reduce the online harms that are affecting young people…And it will stop social media companies from continuing to use predatory business practices to take advantage of vulnerable young people’

Andrew Leigh, MP, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasuries and Employment and member for Fraser, ACT, has written a significant essay explaining the rationale behind the Government’s move to implement raising the age of access to social media to 16, which we have supported. The essay was published by Jonathan Haidt, prominent social psychologist and author of the best-seller ‘The Anxious Generation’, on Substack yesterday. We thought it warranted an even wider audience so have extracted some key elements here. You can find the full piece here: (subscriber only – but you can sign up to Haidt’s ‘After Babel’ newsletter for free – here. 

Children should not be required to build capacity to keep themselves safe: Committee recommendations draw from our evidence

Collective Shout welcomes the final report of the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society which examines the influence of social media on users’ health and wellbeing. Collective Shout’s submission to the inquiry and Movement Director, Melinda Tankard Resist’s evidence before a public hearing were cited in the final report titled: Social media: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Movement Director Melinda Tankard Reist addressed the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society this week, arguing in support of age verification for social media platforms. Our participation in the inquiry attracted national media coverage – you can read some highlights below.

Age assurance technology could help enforce raising the age of social media access from 13 to 16

Collective Shout movement director Melinda Tankard Reist, who has been campaigning the Australian government to implement age verification for years to stop children being exposed to pornography, said while the technology was still evolving, the $6.5m trial should be commenced without delay.

For more than 10 years we have been campaigning for politicians to take serious action regarding young people's exposure to pornography. We had a big win recently with the Federal Government finally committing to an age verification trial. 

In the lead up to the Government's announcement our Movement Director Melinda Tankard Reist was interviewed on ABC Radio to discuss the links between porn and violence against women and the impact this is having on young people. Listen here.