There's a good reason why the social media ban won't work, and the government knows it
Trying to access Facebook or Instagram while on school grounds returned only an error message. But the grown-ups in charge hadn't kept up with the meteoric rise of the blogging platform that peaked in popularity in 2014. It was open season.
The teachers couldn't have known their selective ban would allow us to dedicate more time to our craft. One of my classmates quickly ascended to the status of 'Tumblr-famous', landing a modelling contract. Tens of thousands of unsuspecting followers relished nuggets of life and style advice dished out from the Year 8 homeroom.
And because girls shouldn't have all the fun, I'm reliably informed that X, then known as Twitter, was at the same time experiencing an unlikely surge in sign-ups from young men trapped in the ivory towers of private school boarding houses.
Porn sites were blocked. The social networking platform that happily hosts graphic content was not.
As recently pointed out by The Sizzle tech newsletter editor Cam Wilson, it's comical that most Australian parents, the very people the government seems to be appeasing with its kids' social media ban, believe X is an appropriate space for minors. You only have to open the app once in an open-plan office to learn what you can be exposed to with a wayward scroll.
'Unsuspecting followers relished nuggets of life advice dished out from the Year 8 homeroom.'
At another Sydney school, boys were rumoured to have uploaded adult images of my underage peers to a communal Google Drive. Who needs social media at all?
Children will always find a way to circumnavigate your online roadblocks because they know the terrain better than you – or I, as a geriatric Gen Z – do.
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