“This” nation may soon ban social media for children under 16
“This” nation may soon ban social media for children under 16
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his center-left government would run an age verification trial before introducing age minimum laws for social media this year.
Australia plans to set a minimum age limit for children to use social media citing concerns about mental and physical health, sparking a backlash from digital rights advocates who warn the measure could drive dangerous online activity underground.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his centre-left government would run an age verification trial before introducing age minimum laws for social media this year.
The move comes as parents increasingly call for their children to be protected online and with the opposition party promising a social media ban for children under 16 if it wins elections due by May next year.
The minimum age for children to log into sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok has not been decided but is expected to be between 14 and 16 years, Albanese said.
The prime minister on social media platform X said his own preference would be a block on users aged below 16.
Age verification trials are being held over the coming months, the centre-left leader said, though analysts said they doubted it was technically possible to enforce an online age limit.
“I want to see kids off their devices and onto the footy fields and the swimming pools and the tennis courts,” Albanese said.
“We want them to have real experiences with real people because we know that social media is causing social harm,” he told national broadcaster ABC.
“This is a scourge. We know that there are mental health consequences for what many of the young people have had to deal with,” he said.
But it is not clear that the technology exists to reliably enforce such bans, said the University of Melbourne’s associate professor in computing and information technology, Toby Murray.
“We already know that present age verification methods are unreliable, too easy to circumvent, or risk user privacy,” he said.
Analysts warned that an age limit may not in any case help troubled children.
It “threatens to create serious harm by excluding young people from meaningful, healthy participation in the digital world,” said Daniel Angus, who leads the digital media research centre at Queensland University of Technology.
The law would put Australia among the first countries in the world to impose an age restriction on social media. Previous attempts, including by the European Union, have failed following complaints about reducing the online rights of minors.
Besides, several countries, including the US, are attempting to legislate to spare children harm from social media, including bullying.
