I thank the member for Fowler for her contribution. The Albanese government is continuing its international leadership on online safety. We led the world with the under-16s social media ban, which has been taken up in countries around the world, including in the UK, Spain, Malaysia and many other countries, and we're leading the world again with establishing a digital duty of care.

This legislation sets basic safety standards for those engaging in the digital tools we use every day. It's fundamentally about two things: safety and choice. The idea that businesses have a responsibility for the products that they create is one of the oldest obligations in law. Negligence is founded in the concept of businesses having a duty of care for their consumers. It's something that we expect in things that we use every day, from food and drinks to the cars we drive, to the buildings we live and work in. This bill extends these obligations to online services, like social media, online games and AI chatbots.

This is not about limiting freedom of speech. There's already, I fear, misinformation out there about this bill. We've received emails from constituents concerned about restrictions on freedom of expression. We understand that freedom of speech is absolutely vital to our democracy, and I reassure those people that have written to us that this bill will not restrict freedom of speech. It will not prevent you from criticising the government or our policies, or from engaging in public debate about a range of issues. It will not stop you from disagreeing even strongly in the public sphere. This is about keeping people, particularly young people, safe online. It's about putting the obligation on social media companies to take reasonable care to prevent foreseeable harm. It's also about giving people more choice in what they see online.

There were many speeches yesterday that touched upon the online environment, how the anger and aggression that has, sadly, become endemic in Australian society finds its worst expressions online and how the online environment even fuels it. This anger and its symptoms—the worst being violence against retail and hospitality workers, hospital workers, paramedics, teachers and politicians, at every level of society, it seems—is not going to be solved by this bill alone, but I believe this bill is part of the solution.

Our under-16s social media ban, which passed with bipartisan support, has already shown that effective regulation can help improve safety online. It's already resulted in over five million accounts being deactivated. We recognise that not every account that is held by a young person has been deactivated, and that they often find ways around it; they're very resourceful in that way. I think it's particularly difficult for the generation that had social media and have been asked to delete their accounts. But, as a parent, I know it will be easier to say no to my kids signing up for social media. My daughter is becoming a teenager now and we haven't let her sign up for social media because there is that norm in society now that teenagers, that young people, can't sign up for social media in the first place—and their friends won't be online, so we won't have that group pressure. As a result of the under-16s social media ban, we're hearing about some good outcomes. Teens have reported greater engagement in sport, better sleep and a reduction in bullying online just since our reforms took effect. We're making meaningful progress, but there's still more work to do, and that's what this bill is about. This digital duty of care is particularly focused on strengthening the safety of young people.

Under this legislation, all online services, including games and AI chatbots, must protect people under 18 from harmful content like pornography and material or conduct that encourages, promotes or instructs disordered eating; that encourages or promotes hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality; that glorifies crime or encourages dangerous stunts or seriously harmful practices; and that involves abuse, harassment or bullying, or any other material or conduct or combination of material and conduct that may cause serious harm to children. Under-18s will also be protected from design features that will have negative behavioural impacts, like addictive features that cause kids to stay up late and to lose sleep.

These steps address concerns that I hear from parents and people across my community. Algorithms that have targeted vulnerable children and young people come up amongst teachers and parents chatting at the school gate or at the local footy, and they come up with young people themselves. Young people know about the harm an unfiltered and unregulated social media presence can have on them and their friends. Often they're even more aware of it than adults are. I've spoken to students at East Doncaster Secondary College and Box Hill High and with our youth advisory committee, who understand online harms all too well.

As I said, one of the harms we're addressing is disordered eating. These laws will require platforms to prevent minors and users from being targeted by material that promotes eating disorders. In Australia, over 1.1 million people are living with an eating disorder. Twenty-seven per cent of these people are aged 10 to 19—and that's a figure that's doubled since 2012. Eating disorders are amongst the deadliest forms of mental illness, and for those that seek help it takes an average of one to six years to recover. A 2015 study of teen girls reported that social media users were significantly more likely than non-social media users to have internalised a drive for thinness. Now, 10 years later, the risk of young people being fed targeted and harmful messaging that can exacerbate eating disorders is significant. Robb Evans, who lost his daughter, Liv, to anorexia, has spoken about the ways in which social media can magnify mental illness. Liv, after searching for low-calorie recipes, was fed reels providing her advice on how to survive on just 200 calories a day. Her feed actively directed her towards more extreme and harmful content. Thanks to the bravery of people like Robb who have shared their stories, we now have an opportunity to protect vulnerable young people in the future from these exacerbating factors.

We've also heard in the House from the Minister for Communications and the Minister for Education how algorithms' bias towards misogynistic content means that accounts registered to teenage boys will be directed towards antiwomen, dehumanising content within just 23 minutes of being created. Within two to three hours, a teen boy's feed will be filled with videos promoting violence and sexist attitudes and war cries like 'your body, my choice. This is material they are force-fed purely because of their age and gender, and it tells them that social and personal frustrations are caused by gender equality. It is not woke to want our young men to have healthy, respectful attitudes towards women and to want to have healthy, respectful, equal relationships. It is a foundation of a decent society. This is especially the case in an environment of rising sexual violence and negative attitudes towards women.

This bill will also require that online services, including games, must protect under-18s from being exposed to pornography. Young people shouldn't be getting their sex education from pornography that normalises things like choking or violence or degrading acts. Online services will also need to protect young people from content that glorifies crime or dangerous stunts. Research done by the eSafety Commission showed 46 per cent of children have seen dangerous online challenges. In recent years, trends like the skull breaker challenge and the squishy toy microwave trend have resulted in significant harm for many Australian children and young people who are exposed to them. This includes spinal cord injuries, seizures, severe burns and head trauma.

When we consider the capacity of social media platforms to cause serious distress, the story of Emma Mason and her daughter Tilly comes to mind. Tilly Rosewarne was 15 when she died by suicide, and her mother, Emma, says:

This was death by bullying but it was enabled by social media.

Tilly's family are all too aware of the real-world harm that can be generated from online abuse, as Emma has so powerfully said. She has taken her Let Them Be Kids campaign to the UN and shared her story across the world. Now the world knows that tech companies are all about the algorithm and not the human cost of what's going on. As long as social media companies are the ones setting the rules, the safety of our children will not be the priority. As Emma has said, these reforms will save lives, and they will keep more kids safe.

This bill also places greater obligations on big tech companies to ensure their products are safe and gives adult Australians greater choice about what they see online. Social media companies like Meta and TikTok, online games like Roblox and more recent technologies like AI chatbots all have had ample responsibility to fulfil their social responsibilities, and far too often they have failed to do so, even when compelled. This bill will require them to do annual risk assessments of the harms the features on their services could cause Australians and put systems in place to prevent those harms.

Very importantly, this bill will give Australians the option to opt out of the social media algorithm. The option must be accessible, prominently displayed and not make your feed harder to navigate. If people choose this option, it means they'll only see content from friends, family, businesses and content creators that they choose to follow. Again, this is not about restricting freedom of speech. It does the opposite. It is about giving people more choice. For too long, big tech companies have avoided their social obligation. This bill puts the onus back on them. It will give Australians more choice. It will make them safer and it will make our young people safer. I commend this bill to the House.