Preparing young people with disability to use social media safely

To mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day, our CEO Kate MacRae outlines what Australia’s new social media minimum age requirements may mean for young people with disability and how our Be Safe Online resources are filling a critical gap in online safety education.

The implementation of Australia’s world-first social media minimum age requirements may have unintended consequences for the more than 946,000 young Australians living with disability, leaving them more at risk of social isolation or harm.

The rise of social media and the online world has provided young people with disability opportunities for social connection and participation in communities that might not be easily accessible to them in the physical world.

Whether it’s communicating with friends and family on social media, playing video games with peers, or learning new hobbies by watching videos on YouTube, the ability to be online is so important for young people with disability. It acts as a level playing field that doesn’t exist for many in day-to-day life.

However, with this greater participation comes greater risk. We know that young people with disability who access information online are more likely to be exposed to harmful content, be threatened or bullied, coerced into sharing personal information or private images, and targeted by scammers.

This Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we are reminded that our challenge as a society is to balance the very real need to protect young people of all abilities from harmful content online, with the unintended consequences of removing access to the community and connectivity that social media provides young people with disability.

To respond to this challenge, Scope has developed Be Safe Online, a set of online safety resources targeted for young people with communication disability and low literacy, developed with support from an eSafety Commissioner Online Safety Grant.

These resources, co-designed with people living with disability, their parents, carers and educators, are filling a much-needed gap for accessible written information about online safety.

The risks that social media and the online world pose to young people with disability is well known, but the important role these platforms play in people’s lives is equally evident.

Our expert team set about developing these resources to inform and educate, supporting and empowering young people who may have difficulty communicating, to be safe and take advantage of the many benefits of being online.

The resources have been universally well-received. They’ve been described as a gamechanger by parents and educators.

With the approaching implementation of social media minimum age requirements, we believe it is more important than ever to make sure all young people with disability have access to these resources early on to ensure they are well prepared.

That’s why we’re going to continue our work to get Be Safe Online resources in the hands of parents, carers, educators, and most importantly, young people with disability, so that when they enter the online world, they have the educational materials and information to support them.

Find out more about Be Safe Online.

Read Kate's article on LinkedIn.