The Australian government passed a law on Thursday banning children under 16 from using social media.
law It forces tech giants such as Instagram, Facebook owner Meta, TikTok and Snapchat to block minors from logging in or face fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars (about 32 million U.S. dollars). Trials of methods of enforcing the ban will begin in January, with it taking effect a year later.
Some countries have vowed to pass legislation to curb children’s use of social media, but Australia has the strictest policy.
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Websites such as messaging apps, online gaming services and YouTube that do not require users to log in to access the platform will not be subject to the ban.
Book explains mental health risks for children
The spark of Australian law is “Anxious Generation”a book written by American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, details the impact of social media on teenagers.
The 2024 bestseller contains internal emails revealed by Meta whistleblower Frances Haugen, showing the tech giant understood the health risks of social media to children but allegedly refused to do so in the name of free speech, privacy and age checks Technical limitations are controlled by implementation.
In fact, in June the U.S. Surgeon General called Post health warnings on social media.
According to Reuters, the wife of the politician who leads Australia’s second-smallest state read Hayter’s book earlier this year and told her husband to take action.
“I remember clearly the moment she said to me ‘You have to read this book, you have to do something about it’,” South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas told reporters in Adelaide on Friday , the morning after the country’s general election.
“I didn’t reasonably expect it to happen so quickly,” he added.
Malinauskas restricted young people’s use of social media in his state, which accounts for just 7% of Australia’s 27 million people, enacting the world’s first nationwide ban in just six months.
The pace highlights the serious concerns Australian voters have about the issue. With an election due in early 2025, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese knows this is a hot-button issue.
An Australian government YouGov survey found that 77% of Australians support a ban on social media for under-16s, up from 61% in August before the government officially announced it. Only 23% opposed the measure.
Rodrigo Praino, professor of politics and public policy at Flinders University in South Australia, said: “The federal government, including the Prime Minister, immediately recognized that this was a problem that needed to be addressed (and) it was best addressed nationally. Allowing children to freely use social media has become a global problem.
Meta, X strain sparks investigation, media campaign
When Malinauskas, a father of four, got a call from his wife in May, Facebook and Instagram owner Meta had said two months earlier that it would Stop paying content royalties to news outlets Globally, it could trigger Australian online copyright laws.
Meta’s decision is one of the reasons the federal government has decided to launch a wide-ranging inquiry into the social impact of social media, including the merits of age restrictions and the knock-on effects of Meta’s removal of royalties.
Meanwhile, opposition MPs began calling for age restrictions on social media, amid a legal battle between X and Australia’s electronic safety regulator over the spread of false and graphic content related to two public knife attacks in Sydney in April.
In May, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, the country’s largest newspaper publisher, launched an editorial campaign to ban social media for children under 16, calling for ” Let them be children”.
By mid-2024, News Corp mastheads and parliamentary inquiries were airing touching stories of parents whose children had been killed or lost as a result of social media-related bullying and body image issues.
After Malinauskas unveiled the state policy banning children under 14 in September, Albanese took to the media the next day to say his government would enact a federal version by the end of the year.
“Parents want their children to get off their phones and onto the football field,” said Albanese, who, like Malinauskas, is from the center-left Labor Party. “Me too.”
However, South Australia’s proposed ban is largely in line with restrictions already legislated in France and states such as Florida, which has left the door open for teenagers over 14 to continue using social media with parental permission.
The federal model proposed to Parliament in Canberra this month by the Albanese government does not include parental discretion, arguing that it frees parents from the burden of playing police roles.
Social media companies are not happy
The ban was slammed by social media companies, which complained it made them fully liable and threatened $49.5 million in fines without telling them how the ban would be implemented. Trials of age verification technology will begin next year.
A spokesman for TikTok, which is popular among teenage users, said on Friday that the process was rushed and risked pushing young people into “dark corners of the Internet.”
The left-leaning Green Party vetoed the law, arguing it was rushed and unfair to young people, while some far-right MPs broke away from the party’s support and voted against the law over concerns about government overreach and potential surveillance.
But with solid support from the government and most of the opposition, the law was passed just after 11pm on the last parliamentary day of the year. Effective after one year.
“I’m pleased to see Australia has done this,” said former High Court judge Robert French. Limit reporting.
Some of French’s recommendations, including making the ban nationwide and putting the onus on platforms to take reasonable steps to keep minors out, were included in the final legislation.
“The basic rationale is in place,” French said by phone.
A spokesperson for Meta said: “The task now turns to ensuring that there is a productive consultation on all rules related to the bill to ensure a technically feasible outcome that does not place onerous burdens on parents and young people, with a commitment that the rules will Consistently applied across all social apps used by teens.
See also:
EU MP: TikTok CEO ‘must explain role in Romanian polls’ – Politico
TikTok to fight potential U.S. ban in court
TikTok comes under U.S. legal crackdown for ‘harmful’ impact on children
U.S. polls show that nearly half of Generation Z wish TikTok had never been invented
Australia plans to ban social media to ‘keep kids off devices’
Facebook partners say mobile apps spy on users for ads
TikTok fined $370 million by EU for leaking children’s data
