Following the news that phones are set to be banned in schools in England, some local campaigners still said the proposal does not go far enough.
Emma Lawlor from Smartphone Free Childhood Guernsey said if any other product had been associated with the range of harms now linked to the online world, it would have faced stricter regulation long ago. ‘Consider nut allergies – when children died, families demanded action to protect others. Nuts were banned in schools,’ she said.
‘We didn’t wait for randomised controlled trials or more evidence. We did not say the evidence wasn’t conclusive, or we need to do a survey to gather everyone’s thoughts, or that most children like nuts so we wouldn’t act. Yet here we are, with children being harmed daily by what is happening on the phones they are carrying around with them all day every day, and we are not taking any action.
‘We would like to see a ban on social media for under-16s and a brick-phone-only policy in all schools.’
Deputy Sally Rochester already said the Bailiwick had several choices available in terms of tightening restrictions and regulations.
‘We can implement the Online Safety Act because we have a permissive extent clause, which means basically that we can take that legislation, implement it in a proportionate way, and then ask Ofcom to regulate the tech companies to achieve the aims of the legislation. So that’s an amazing opportunity that we have, and we are, as a government, working on that.
‘It’s not perfect legislation. We know there are weaknesses in it, and we know that Ofcom isn’t regulating as strongly as some would wish to see, but we know that that is an opportunity we have available, and we’re working towards that, which is great.’
However, she said it would be much easier if the UK was to act first by extending the school ban to social media for under-16s.
‘I would be pushing hard for us to be able to use that same legislation in Guernsey,’ she said.
‘The idea of a social media ban for under-16s is a lovely idea, but unless we’ve got the means to deliver it in Guernsey, then it’s pointless talking about it. I’m talking about it now because I can see that it might be coming down the track in the UK, and it might be an opportunity that’s available to us.
‘It’s easier to follow the UK where you can use the levers that they have to act.’
Emma Martins, former data protection commissioner for Guernsey, who made a submission to a UK scrutiny panel looking at online harms last year, said that introducing effective regulations around smartphones and social media could be challenging, not least because many of the platforms which were the most problematic were in a different jurisdiction.
‘But even when enforcement is difficult, it is vital for governments to clearly signal society’s standards of right and wrong by enacting laws that reflect shared values and seek to prevent harms to its citizens,’ she said.
‘Laws shape norms, guide behaviour, and affirm the moral as well as legal principles a community stands for. The alternative is to do nothing, which I do not think should be an option. If we accept the situation, we condone it, and in doing so risk normalising an environment which is insufficiently responsive to risks and harms.
‘Indifference legitimises, and there are lots of us who are not indifferent but as individuals there is a limit to what we can do and how we can influence things.
‘We need government, as part of the social contract we have with it, to step in when we are not powerful enough, and we are not powerful enough. Parents are over-faced and need to be supported, not blamed.’