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Earlier this week, police arrested a boy after fake images of female students at Bacchus Marsh Grammar were shared on social media.
On Thursday, federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers described the spread of fake nude images of 50 female students in years 9 to 12 as terrifying.
“Not just as a parent, I think all Australians will see these kinds of developments and see them as worse than confronting. [They are] absolutely terrifying,” Chalmers told ABC News Breakfast.
Faces of the girls were used in images of nudes generated by artificial intelligence and shared on Instagram and Snapchat earlier this month.
Damian McKew, the foundation principal at Iona College Geelong, said societal challenges were constantly emerging for schools.
“You read on a day-to-day basis about AI. I didn’t know what deep AI was … until I read about it the other day. And I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, is that going to start impacting our schools?’ So you’re always on alert,” he said.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton pledged on Thursday to raise the minimum age for social media users from 13 to 16 if the Coalition won the next election. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also suggested he may support the move.
However, speaking at the Schools Summit, Rosebud Secondary College principal Lisa Holt and Robert Pyers, executive principal in the Education Department’s school performance division, said the concept of a minimum age for engaging on social media was unlikely to prove effective.
“We’re dealing with a generation where that’s who they are,” Pyers said. “We need to educate students on how to use [social media] and how to behave.”
Merry said social media had “infused their lives already”, believing bans and age restrictions were unlikely to have any impact.
He said this generation was too clever to rely on bans, and laws and regulations should instead target social media platforms.
All three agreed there should be a public education campaign for parents.
“I think it’s a partnership and I think parents really need the support,” Holt told the audience.