Australia’s SydneyIn addition to proposing fines of up to $32 million for systemic violations, Australia’s center-left government on Thursday filed a measure in Parliament that would outlaw social media for minors under the age of sixteen.
In an effort to enforce a social media age cut-off—some of the strictest regulations implemented by any nation to date—Australia intends to test an age-verification system that might incorporate biometrics or official identification.
The proposed age limit is the maximum that any nation has established, and it would not be exempt for pre-existing accounts or parental agreement.
This reform is historic. In a statement, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, “We’re sending a message to social media companies to clean up their act, even though we know some kids will find workarounds.”
Although independents and the Green Party have called for additional information on the new law, which would impact ByteDance’s TikTok, Elon Musk’s X, Snapchat, and Meta Platforms’ Instagram and Facebook, the opposition Liberal Party intends to support the bill.
According to Albanese, kids will have access to online gaming, messaging, and health and education-related services including YouTube and Alphabet’s Google Classroom, as well as youth mental health support portal Headspace.
The Albanese-led Labor government has been claiming that children’s physical and mental health is at risk from excessive social media use, especially for females who are exposed to negative body image representations and misogynist content targeted at boys.
Many nations have already committed to enacting laws to limit children’s use to social media, but Australia has one of the strictest policies.
A social media ban for children under the age of 15 was mooted in France last year, but users were able to get around it with parental approval. For many years, the US has mandated that computer businesses obtain parental approval before accessing the data of children under the age of 13.
Social media can be detrimental to far too many young Australians. Michelle Rowland, the minister of communications, told Parliament on Thursday that nearly two-thirds of Australians aged 14 to 17 have seen highly damaging content online, including as suicide, drug misuse, or self-harm.
Social media companies, not parents or children, would be required by law to take reasonable measures to guarantee that age-verification safeguards are in place.
According to Rowland, the new law will include strong privacy safeguards, such as mandating that platforms delete any data they gather in order to protect user privacy.
“We are making significant changes to hold platforms accountable for user safety because social media has a social responsibility,” she said.
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