Social media “scourge”: Australia to legally ban users under 16 years of age

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: Although analysts are doubting its technological feasibility, Australia is considering introducing legislation this year to ban access to social media outlets by users under 16 years of age.

Even the Opposition will support it, the media reported on Tuesday.

The minimum age for children to log into social media sites including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok has not been decided but might be between 14 and 16 years, center-left leader and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

Australia will ban children from using social media with a minimum age limit as high as 16, he said, vowing to get youngsters off their devices and “onto the footy fields” like sports

Federal legislation to keep children off social media will be introduced this year, PM Albanese said, describing the impact of the sites on young people as a “scourge.”

He said he would prefer to block under-16 users from social media.

Age verification trials are being held over the coming months, he said, though analysts doubted the technical feasibility of enforcing 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.
Australia’s conservative opposition leader Peter Dutton said he would support an age limit.

“Every day of delay leaves young kids vulnerable to the harms of social media and the time for relying on tech companies to enforce age limits,” he said.

However, it is not clear that the technology exists to reliably enforce such bans, Toby Murray, University of Melbourne’s Associate Professor in Computing and Information Technology, said.

“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 center at Queensland University of Technology.

“There is logic in establishing boundaries that limit young people’s access,” said Samantha Schulz, senior sociologist of education at the University of Adelaide.

“However, young people are not the problem, and regulating youth misses the more urgent task of regulating irresponsible social media platforms. Social media is an unavoidable part of young people’s lives.”

PM Albanese said parents expected a response to online bullying and harmful material present on social media.

“These social media companies think they’re above everyone,” he added.

“Well, they have a social responsibility and at the moment, they’re not exercising it. And we’re determined to make sure that they do,” he said.

Australia has been at the forefront of global efforts to regulate social media platforms, with its online safety watchdog bumping heads notably with Elon Musk’s X over the content it carries.