Two mothers united in grief, anger and the confronting choice of jewellery they wear.
Emma Mason and Mia Bannister each have a necklace containing a small amount of their children’s ashes.
It’s their way of keeping them close after having lost their kids to online bullying.
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Emma’s daughter Matilda ‘Tilly’ Rosewarne took her life at age 15.
Mia Bannister’s son Oliver ‘Ollie’ Hughes took his at age 14.
The mums say the two teens were bullied to their graves in acts akin to social media murder.
“It destroyed my child,” Ms Mason said.
“It destroys lots of children.”
The two mothers were at the heart of the Federal Government’s push for Australia’s world-first laws to ban social media for under 16s.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has consulted extensively with both and even had them standing beside him while making major announcements on the new laws.
The mothers welcome the laws and believe they will save generations of children from harm.
“The whole point of the legislation isn’t to ban social media — it’s to delay it,” Ms Mason said.
“Allowing children time to grow up.
“Because they’ve been part of a social experiment that we didn’t sign up for — and we didn’t know was going to destroy them.”
The laws officially come into effect on December 10 and will impact ten tech companies: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Threads, X, Twitch, Reddit and Kick.
Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and Threads will impose the ban one week early, on December 4.
Ms Bannister says she hopes the ban will not only help children but parents too, saying the trauma of dealing with child suicide is a near-unbearable burden.
“Unfortunately, I found Ollie. So, I go to bed with that vision in my head every single night. Every night,” she said. “And that’s not something I’ll ever get past.”
“I can’t get that out of my head.”
They know that when the ban comes into effect, over a million Australian teens will potentially face disappointment, despair, frustration and anger.
But they are unapologetic.
“We’re going to win this because we have to win it. We have to protect our children,” she said.
“This has to be pursued.”
She agrees some kids will find a way around the new laws — but she says that shouldn’t deter the Government and eSafety Commissioner.
“There are kids that will have cigarettes, there are kids that have vapes and there are kids that will have alcohol,” she said.
“We have laws that say you can’t do this or that, but there’s always kids that will just not follow the rules.”
Ms Bannister points out that under the new laws, it’s the responsibility of the tech platforms to pursue any breaches, not the parents.
She is urging the Office of the eSafety Commissioner to come down hard on any company that allows access to under 16s.
They can now be fined up to $49.5 million per breach.
The tech companies will be forced to search and detect any underage accounts and swiftly de-activate them.
The two mothers say their campaigns for the new laws were motivated as much by guilt as grief.
Ms Mason, a lawyer from Bathurst, NSW, says social media was like ‘heroin’ for her daughter, and she blames herself for being ‘the dealer’.
“I am the one that said, ‘Yeah, you want a phone? Okay, I give in, you can have a phone’.”
“I thought it was a way for her and I to keep in contact when I was travelling for work.”
“But it was a social heroin that she couldn’t get out of. The harm kept coming and coming and she couldn’t disconnect.”
Ms Bannister feels the same.
“I thought it was connection, we could stay in touch. But I handed him a weapon essentially,” she said.
“I believe that when social media was unleashed on the world, it was the greatest social experiment of humankind.”
A survey cited by the eSafety Commissioner found 57 per cent of teens aged 13-15 were bullied online last year.
Of those, 13 per cent revealed they were told to hurt or kill themselves.
Tilly and Ollie would have belonged to that 13 per cent.
Now their mothers have been left to shoulder the burden — while carrying the memories close to heart.
“I keep him around my neck in this little canister — his ashes.” Ms Bannister said.
“Filling it was not fun, let me tell you.
“I carry him with me always. And I think about him always.”
If you need help in a crisis, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. For further information about depression contact beyondblue on 1300 224 636 or talk to your GP, local health professional or someone you trust.
