Wayne Holdsworth sent this message to a Senate inquiry considering legislation to impose bigger fines on tech giants failing to comply with Australian law.
"A whole lot more dads like me that were uneducated will grieve and cry every day," he told the inquiry on Friday.
His teenage son Mac Holdsworth committed suicide after being sexually exploited on social media.
The proposed changes would see the fine double to $99 million for companies like Snapchat, TikTok and Meta if they fail to prevent children under 16 from being on their platforms.Â
Mr Holdsworth believes the fine should be $500 million.
"The tech giants monetise our children and it is not in their commercial interests to restrict children's access on these platforms," he said.
Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, earned $60 billion between April and July.
"They are billion-dollar profit centres who've monetised our children and profit from the havoc that they wreak," mother Emma Mason said.
Her child Tilly died in similar circumstances, aged 15 and likened the platforms to "social heroin that is killing our children".
"We haven't banned children from social media. We banned tech giants from accessing our children unless they can prove that they're going to do so safely," she said.
The laws forbidding social media use raced through parliament with bipartisan support in December 2024, but fierce debate has erupted over the proposals to tighten enforcement.
Meta said since then it had removed more than 750,000 accounts on Facebook and Instagram in Australia, assessed to be belonging to people below the age 16.
Four of the major social media platforms were also to face questioning on Friday.
Both YouTube and TikTok have used submissions to the inquiry to outline efforts to meet the existing ban requirements and said they were open to working with the eSafety commissioner.
X, formerly Twitter, won't be providing evidence to the inquiry on Friday, but has raised concerns about the bill in a submission.
It said expectations to compel evidence were unrealistic, increased penalties were "disproportionate and inappropriate" and broadening the powers of the commissioner could lead to "ordinary Australians" being investigated.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the law had to evolve along with an ever-changing technological landscape when he introduced the reforms on Monday.
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