Another recognisable voice has just joined the legislative conversation about kids’ online safety this week. Kiwi filmmaker and online safety expert Rob Cope has revealed that he wrote his own long-considered bill over the summer holidays. While he fully supports efforts to protect minors from the ills of social media, he proposes a more impactful and long-lasting place to start solving this problem.

“I definitely support MP Catherine Wedd’s proposed bill to ban social media for children under 16 and I’m really encouraged to see the Prime Minister setting aside resources for this area of work,” says the co-founder of Our Kids Online who has spoken before tens of thousands of parents and teachers over the last seven years.

“But before we tackle social media – a complex beast with boundaries that are hard to define - we need to start at the very first rung on the ladder, which is providing access to safe internet for children and youth under 18 in Aotearoa.”

Cope agrees that social media is “a massive concern” but dealing with this as if it’s the whole solution would be like building a house before the foundations are laid. The basic protections our children need are found in filtering harmful and explicit content for all minors - on phones, at home, and in public, he says. This is exactly what is proposed in Cope’s The New Zealand Child Internet Safety Act: Protecting Minors from Harmful Online Content.

“You could see this as the foundation, and then social media protections built on top of this. Ideally, New Zealand would filter the internet for minors as I’ve proposed and, then afterwards, look at how to protect our tamariki from social media.

“For 30 years, the internet has remained unfiltered for most of our kids and, naturally, we’ve asked ourselves and countless others why the majority of parents haven’t already seriously considered filtering. I think it's a natural subconscious belief that ‘If it was really that bad, the government would’ve done something by now.’ But they haven’t – not for 30 years. It’s long overdue, and our kids are paying the price,” says Cope.

Under his proposed legislation, routers and phones would automatically filter harmful content for those under 18, while adults remain free to browse as usual.

To those who would argue that filtering legislation is too hard or too expensive to implement, the dad of four responds with a challenge: “How can we afford not to? We’re pouring millions into mental health support for our youth every year and we now know that a growing proportion of that distress is down to an unfiltered online world. If we can stop the harm before it happens, we’ll not only protect our children – we’ll ease the pressure on families, schools, and already overwhelmed mental health services.”

Cope stresses that this mess is not a technology issue - the tools already exist in various forms; it is a legislative issue.

“Let’s not fail our tamariki because of a lack of creativity or effort. We’re a nation of pioneers — Kiwis are known for their hard work and innovation. Let’s roll up our sleeves, collaborate, innovate, and do what it takes to keep our kids safe online.”

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