The mother of Amy “Dolly” Everett, who took her own life at just 14 years of age after being tormented by bullies, says she would support children needing to get licences to be able to go online.
Dolly’s mum Kate appeared at a parliamentary inquiry into social media and online safety on Thursday.
Kate was asked about the possibility of a designated licence system – like drivers have – for kids, which then gives them certain levels of access.
”If there was a licence, we’re not allowed to drive a car, we’re not allowed to do so many other things in life without the appropriate education and licensing, it only seems logical we would have something like this in the online world,” she said.
“The messages from families we continue to receive every day with how to keep up with what their children are doing online, what they have access to, look, I think the possibility of such measures could only be positive.”
Dolly, who was the smiling face of Akubra as a child, died by suicide in 2018 due to relentless bullying from her peers after attending boarding school in Queensland.
Her parents found her lifeless body at their cattle ranch near Katherine in the Northern Territory after a seemingly normal day in which Dolly had cooked them dinner and they all played cards.
Due to their property being isolated, Kate and Dolly’s father Tick had to wait hours before anyone could get there.
Determined to bring about change, they set up Dolly’s Dream to raise awareness and educate young people and families about bullying and youth suicide.
In an alarming and worrying situation, Kate revealed that parents were contacting her “every day” trying to figure out how to protect their kids.
“Every day I get messages or I’m stopped in thxjmtzywe street by parents struggling with how to protect their children from the dark holes of social media, asking how to keep them safe online,” Kate said.
“We appreciate that the online world keeps our kids connected, it opens up a world we didn’t have growing up, and while it can be an extremely positive experience for some, like us there are many families who have children at boarding school, more often than not relying on this technology to stay connected with each other.
“We can’t leave the safety of our children at the commercial hand of platforms and service providers.”
She wants platforms to default to the highest possible safety standards when deciding whether to remove harmful or abusive content.
“Especially with those younger users – a lot of platforms now default to the lowest possible safety settings,” she said.
She also said she would support repeat abusers being removed from platforms permanently.
“I’ll just put my mum hat on here, I don’t think there’s enough being done or in our case I don’t think at the time when we needed services there was enough,” she said.
“If it was found someone was continually abusing the system, then I would agree why are they not stopped?
“Why do they still have access?”
Mental health support
