Article
As a disabled person who grew up in country Western Australia, I met my first disabled friend on social media. Since I’ve grown up, I’ve found my life, income, and community thriving online. With looming social media bans for under 16’s what community, knowledge, and representation will be stripped away from the next generation and those without ‘strong enough’ ID?
When outside isn’t safe
Isabella Choate, interim CEO of the Youth Disability Advocacy Network (YDAN) tells me that when they became house bound due to chronic illness at 15, they lost all their circles of friends, and it was social media that rebuilt their community.
For many disabled young people including those who are immunocompromised, with physical disability, and with communication differences, “going outside and talking” isn’t accessible to them. And it’s a deeply ableist implication to say that online connection and community aren’t “real relationships” despite what the Prime Minister claims.
Isabella reflects on the way that YDAN reaches its 12-25 year old membership providing vital and accessible information via social media.
“The [government and health] systems we currently have are not meeting the needs of the disability community – if you are going to remove access to community and knowledge through social media you have to make sure that knowledge is represented through systems, but it’s not. And there is no indication that will change.”
Social media is a simultaneous lifeline and gateway to the outside world particularly for young disabled folks, and its proposed restriction may constitute a human rights violation.
“Given the potential for these laws to significantly interfere with the rights of children and young people, the Commission has serious reservations about the proposed social media ban” said the Australian Human Rights Commission highlighting Inclusion and Participation as key reasons against the ban.
Burden of Proof
Aside from the concerns about privacy, providing proof of age via methods using existing government tools like myGovID (recently rebranded to myID) or passport verification poses serious accessibility concerns for adults with disability as well.
Disabled people and in particular the Blind and Low Vision community have restricted access to photo identification such as driver’s licenses. For those who are unable to drive we're often limited to non-standardised 'proof of age' cards.
Although proof of ages cards are supposed to be equivalent identification, the reality is this that online forms and other mechanisms are not set up to accommodate this kind of ID.
Erika Webb, a Disability and Access advocate wrote in a LinkedIn Post earlier this year:
“I accept there is definitely a need for safe guarding and ID checking, but I have never been able to do an online Proof of ID without issues, all because I don’t have a Drivers Licence.”
“I am frustrated and exhausted, the organisation is most likely not going to be able to use me as a Volunteer, the people I was going to support miss out and the online Proof of ID processes still continue to discriminate.”
Passports, a more powerful form of ID and not dependent on your ability to drive are not a viable alternative. With the cost of obtaining a passport 13 times the average of state-based ID, yet another layer of inaccessibility.
Social Harms
Although the Prime Minister is set on proclaiming that “social media causes social harms”, he’s yet again overlooking the social harms caused to the disability community. With not only young disabled folks disproportionately impacted but disabled adults too – why should we have to take on the burden of yet another barrier to community?