Does Labour really think Facebook and all the other social media platforms are going to be paying any attention to its threat to crack down on them?

Yesterday, the party’s social media spokesperson Reuben Davidson warned “they will pay the price” if they don’t make the kinds of changes Labour will demand if it forms the next Government.

Which, essentially, is letting people decide whether they want to be bombarded with content or just see posts from people they know and accounts they follow.

Some social media platforms already allow this. Labour wants them all to do it.

The party says it will also bring in a social media ban for under-16s.

I think the ban would be a complete waste of time. But I do like what Labour is talking about with the social media companies being required to give people some sort of algorithm control, so they can decide whether they want to see random rubbish or just content from people they know and accounts they follow.

I know that would rely on the companies making the choice available and people making a conscious decision to switch off the random stuff.

But I think that would do way more to protect young people, especially, than any age limit. And I’ll tell you why. I’ll give you a couple of examples.

I was reading about two young people who really suffered because of random stuff turning up on their phones.

Varsha is the first one. When she was 13, she started getting workout videos in her social media feed and encouragement from girls she’d never met to start doing all sorts of dangerous calorie challenges.

Some of these anonymous girls bragged about how much weight they’d lost and how many times they’d ended up in hospital.

That started 11 years ago. She’s now 24 and still recovering from anorexia.

The other person I was reading about is a young chap in Melbourne. His name’s Flynn, and he was frustrated with his life and struggling with his mental health. Then those misogynistic videos from that awful Andrew Tate guy started appearing in his social media feed.

You guessed it. He was sucked into it and thought the only way he was going to improve his life was to become some sort of alpha male, putting women in their place, and all of that.

He eventually gave it all away after ending up in hospital.

These are just two examples. But they show the real danger of social media and why giving people the option of turning off the random crap would do us way more favours than a social media age limit.

It wouldn’t be easy. But we should, at the very least, give it a go.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who hasn’t been appalled by the cases here in New Zealand where a child has been killed and the people who know full well what has happened have kept their mouths shut.

They’re able to do that because of the right to remain silent, which National has announced it wants to get rid of in cases where a child under the age of 12 has been killed.

I’m one of those people appalled by those examples we’ve seen where it’s obvious someone knows something, but they haven’t said anything to protect themselves and/or those responsible.

The most well-known case would probably be the Kahui twins. But there have been others too.

But even though I’ve been appalled by these cases, I’m opposed to National’s plan, because however much we might not like it, the right to remain silent is fundamental.

Defence lawyer and former Crown prosecutor John Munro doesn’t like National’s plan either. He says the policy would have to go through the Attorney-General, Crown Law, the select committee and other parliamentary processes.

Then outfits such as the Law Society and the Criminal Bar Association would want to be involved and, most likely, they’d be opposed to it.

Not that that would necessarily stop National, if it forms the next Government, from doing what it wants to do. Because we’ve seen Governments before ignore concerns raised by the likes of the Attorney-General.

But I think what National’s proposing would be a step too far.

Not just because of the potential for innocent people to say stuff or be forced to say stuff that could work against them.

But, once you start taking away the right to silence in some situations, where do you stop?

If you take away the right to silence for people who might know stuff when a child is killed, what’s to stop more exemptions being added to the list?

Because, when it comes to the law, precedent is everything.

What’s more, forcing someone to speak doesn’t mean they’re going to tell the truth.

Also, the Bill of Rights isn’t a nice-to-have, or something you stick with only when it suits.

Ironically, perhaps, National has announced this policy three years since the killing of Lower Hutt toddler Baby Ru.

I mentioned the Kahui twins before. This is another case where people have used their right to remain silent and, three years on, no one’s been held accountable.

He would have been turning five this week if he was still alive. But he’s not, because of the blunt force trauma he suffered that was so severe it fractured his skull.

It’s useful to remind ourselves of that shocking case when we consider National’s plan, which would take away the right to silence for the likes of the three people who were on the scene when Ru was injured.

But even that’s not enough to make me think this idea of National’s is a good one.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ahead of his Christchurch Town Hall show, Live Aid co-founder and former Ultravox frontman Midge Ure sat down with John MacDonald to look back on more than 50 years in the music industry.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.