DIGITAL LITERACY, NOT DIGITAL EXCLUSION
Curtin College professor Tama Leaver mentioned the instruments underpinning the ban – notably age-verification expertise – are nonetheless removed from dependable. Extra importantly, the coverage dangers sidelining younger folks relatively than equipping them.
“There are undoubtedly some harms and dangers that have to be decreased so teenagers do not expertise the worst bits of the web. However on the similar time, we’re additionally disenfranchising an entire group of younger folks,” he instructed CNA’s Asia First programme.
Leaver emphasised that training – not isolation – is the lacking piece.
“If we do not do one thing significant to assist younger folks ability up, (as an illustration) digital literacy … in order that at 16 (they) enter the digital world extra absolutely, then this shall be an abject failure,” he famous.
He added that social media offers often-overlooked advantages, corresponding to connection for teenagers with disabilities, neighborhood for these in distant areas and financial alternatives for entrepreneurial youths like Heryxlim.
“(We must always) get a way of (younger folks’s) experiences, the dangers (and) challenges that they’ve on-line and assist them navigate,” he mentioned.
“The largest factor that we did not do as a rustic is … hear carefully to younger folks.”
