Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has taken aim at tech behemoth Meta, labelling its claims social media has not harmed children as an example of gross arrogance.
Executives from the company, which owns Facebook and Instagram as well as messaging platform WhatsApp, appeared before a parliamentary inquiry in Canberra on Friday.
“I don’t think social media has done harm to our children,” Meta’s vice-president and global head of safety, Antigone Davis, told the committee.
“I think that issues of teen mental health are complex and multi factorial.”
(AAP: Lukas Coch)
Ms Davis said she would “respectfully disagree” when it was suggested Meta was not doing enough to protect kids.
“Meta are showing how out of touch they are and how arrogant they are,” Mr Albanese told reporters in Melbourne on Saturday morning.
“Every parent knows that social media can have a damaging impact on the mental health of young people, on social exclusion, on the bullying that can occur online, on grooming that can occur in a dangerous way online as well.
“What we need is for social media to acknowledge that it has a social responsibility to look after the people who are, after all, its customers.
“Parents will be alarmed at the arrogance that Meta showed in their submission to this inquiry, for refusing not only to accept any responsibility that they have, but refusing to acknowledge that there’s even a problem.”
Meta grilled over commitment to Australian journalism
In the same committee, Meta was grilled on its commitment to Australian journalism, months after the company announced it would not renew commercial deals with media outlets.
The deals came about as a result of the former government’s introduction of the news media bargaining code, which was designed to force tech companies to pay for the benefit they derive from having Australian news content on their platforms.
The agreements, including those made with the ABC, have provided millions of dollars in additional revenue to media companies, directly supporting jobs.
On Friday, Meta’s regional director of policy, Mia Garlick, said “all options were on the table” when asked whether it would block all Australian news content.
The suggestion was that the company could avoid the need to pay for such content by preventing it from being posted on its platforms.
“Every other law – tax laws, safety laws, privacy laws – we work to comply with,” Ms Garlick said.
“It’s just compliance would look slightly different in relation to this law if it’s fully enacted.”
Meta has already blocked news content in Canada, after similar laws were enforced by the Trudeau government.
Mr Albanese said Meta had a “responsibility” to keep news available.
“We think that the arrogance that’s been shown by these international social media companies is not aligned with the social responsibility that they have,” he said.
“For many Australians, they get their news from these social media organisations.
“And they should have a responsibility to pay for that news, to pay for that journalism that’s so important.
“They have a social responsibility in social media, they should recognise that, and they should fulfil the commitments that they had previously given.”