Australia passes world’s first ban on social media for children under 16 – National
A ban on social media for children under the age of 16 passed the Australian Senate on Thursday and will soon become the first law in the world.
The law will make platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, iX and Instagram liable for fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars (C$45.5 million) for system failures to prevent children under the age of -16 to have accounts.
The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 34 to 19. The House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed the law with 102 votes to 13.
The House has yet to approve the opposition amendments made in the Senate. But that is the law as the government has agreed that they will pass.
Platforms will have one year to figure out how to implement the ban before fines are applied.
Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said the law was “rushed.”
Digital Industry Group Inc., a forum lawyer in Australia, said questions remained about the law’s impact on children, its technical foundations and scope.
“The law banning social media has been released and passed within a week, as a result, no one can confidently explain how it will work – the public and forums are still in the dark about what exactly is required of them,” DIGI. said managing director Sunita Bose in a statement.
The amendments strengthen privacy protections. Platforms will not be allowed to force users to provide government-issued identification including passports or driver’s licenses, and will not require digital identification through a government system.
The House is expected to pass the amendments on Friday. Critics of the law fear that banning minors from social media will affect the privacy of users who must verify that they are over 16 years old.
While major groups support the ban, many social and mental health advocates are concerned about unintended consequences.
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Sen. David Shoebridge, from the Greens minority group, said mental health experts agreed the ban would alienate many children who use social media for support.
“This policy will seriously harm vulnerable young people, particularly in regional communities and particularly the LGBTQI community, by cutting them off,” Shoebridge told the Senate.
Opposition Senator Maria Kovacic said the bill was not strong but necessary. “The main purpose of this law is simple: It requires social media companies to take reasonable steps to identify and remove minority users from their platforms,” Kovacic told the Senate.
“This is a job that these companies should have done a long time ago, but for a long time they avoided these jobs in order to make a profit,” he added.
Internet safety campaigner Sonya Ryan, whose 15-year-old daughter Carly was killed by a 50-year-old cybercriminal posing as a teenager, described the Senate vote as a “historic moment to protect our children from serious online harm.” “
“It’s too late for my daughter, Carly, and the many other children who have suffered so much and lost their lives in Australia, but let’s come together on their behalf and accept this together,” he told the AP in an email. .
Wayne Holdsworth, whose teenage son Mac took his own life after falling victim to an online sex scam, stood up for age limits and was proud of his passing.
“I’ve always been a proud Australian, but for me after today’s Senate decision, I’m full of pride,” Holdsworth told the AP by email.
Christopher Stone, executive director of Suicide Prevention Australia, the suicide prevention industry’s governing body, said the law failed to take into account the positive aspects of social media in supporting young people’s mental health and sense of connection.
“The government is turning a blind eye to a brick wall by rushing this law. Young Australians deserve evidence-based policies, not rash decisions,” Stone said in a statement.
Platforms complained that the law would not work and urged the Senate to delay the vote until at least June 2025 when a government-mandated test of age verification technology will report how young children can be banned.
“In general, we respect the laws decided by the Australian Parliament,” Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms said in a statement. “However, we are concerned about the process that rushed through the legislation while failing to properly consider the evidence, what the industry is doing to ensure age-appropriate information, and the voices of young people.”
Critics say the government is trying to convince parents it is protecting their children ahead of the general election in May. The government is hoping that voters will reward it for responding to parents’ complaints about their children’s immersion in social media. Others argue that the law can cause more harm than it prevents.
Criticisms include that the law was rushed through Parliament without adequate scrutiny, is ineffective, poses a privacy risk to all users, and undermines the authority of parents to make decisions for their children.
Opponents also argued that the ban would alienate children, rob them of the positive aspects of social media, drive them to the dark web, discourage children too young for social media to report harm, and reduce incentives for platforms to improve online safety.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
