Last Updated on 10/09/2024 by Arun jain
Australia may ban children under 16 from using social media, in a bid to combat what the country’s prime minister has called a “curse” of mental health.
Anthony Albanese vowed to get kids off their phones and iPads and back to “footy fields and swimming pools and tennis courts” as he announced his government would introduce new legislation later this year.
“We want them to have real experiences with real people because we know social media causes social harm,” Mr Albanis told national broadcaster ABC.
“This is a curse. We know there are mental health consequences to what many young people have suffered.”
Parents are “worried sick”. Effects of prolonged and unsupervised social media useHe added that “no generation has faced this challenge before”.
The minimum age for children to log into sites such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok has not yet been determined but is expected to be between 14 and 16.
Most social platforms already disclose to users that they are over a certain minimum age – Instagram, Facebook and TikTok all say users must be over 13 – but they only need someone to set up a profile to tick a box.
South Australia’s government announced on Sunday that it wants to fine companies such as Elon Musk’s Meta, which runs Facebook and Instagram, for taking “systemic responsibility” for children’s safety.
In a 276-page report by former High Court judge Robert French, the SA government set out draft legislation including a proposal to establish a regulator that could fine social media companies every time they allow children under 14 to access their platforms.
“At the moment these companies are effectively operating unregulated … which leaves parents almost powerless,” state Premier Peter Malinauskas said.
“We want to build a big, big deterrent against these giant companies where they harm our children.”
Mr Albanese said on Tuesday that a national approach was needed and the federal government was supporting an age verification trial for testing. Different approaches To restrict access to pornography sites and social media.
“We’re looking at how you deliver it,” he said.
“We know it’s not easy and it’s not easy. Otherwise, governments would have responded first.
The Labor government’s “landmark” scheme was first announced by News Corp newspapers which called it a “win for children” and was the result of a nationwide campaign led by the company’s main tabloid newspapers which featured front page stories that described “skyrocketing rates of anxiety, Depression, Eating Disorders, and Other Harms in Children and Adolescents.”
Families of young people who have self-harmed or died by suicide as a result of online bullying welcomed the news of the age verification trial but said there should be more restrictions, including a curfew on young people accessing social media at bedtime.
The move to legislate for an age limit was also backed by the country’s conservative opposition, with Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton saying that every day it was delayed “made young children vulnerable to the harm of social media”.
But some experts were unconvinced that it would solve the children’s problems.
Queensland University of Technology Professor Daniel Angus said the government’s plan, which comes ahead of the final report of a joint parliamentary inquiry into the impact of social media on Australian society, was “reckless”.
“This knee-jerk move undermines the principles of inclusive inquiry and deliberative democracy and threatens to do serious harm to young people by excluding them from meaningful, healthy participation in the digital world,” he said, adding that the legislation could lead children to “low quality online.” places”
Toby Murray, associate professor of computing and information technology at the University of Melbourne, said it was also unclear whether the technology existed to reliably enforce the ban on children.
“The government is currently experimenting with edge assurance technology. But we already know that current age verification methods are unreliable, too easy to cheat or put the user’s privacy at risk,” he said.
Post Australia to ban minors from social media appeared first The Telegraph.