Australia has passed a landmark social media ban for children under 16

Australian lawmakers approved the landmark measure on Thursday ban on the use of social media for children under 16 years of ageduring some of the strictest controls of this type in the world.

The ban, which aims to address the impact of excessive social media use on children’s physical and mental health, applies to social media platforms including X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Reddit, but not YouTube.

Platforms that have sole responsibility for enforcement have one year to figure out how to implement the upper age limit, which is the highest set in any country. If there are systemic failures that prevent children from having accounts, the platforms will face fines of up to A$50 million ($33 million).

Senators debated the bill late into the night on the last day of the parliamentary session, which was introduced by the Prime Minister Antoni Albańczykthe center-left Labor government has set a deadline for its expiry. The bill, which is also largely supported by the opposition Liberal Party, was passed by the Australian House of Representatives on Wednesday by a majority of 102 to 13.

Supporters of the ban cited the impact of harmful body image portrayals on girls and the impact of misogynistic content on boys. Its adoption comes after a group of Australian teenagers committed suicide due to – according to their families – online bullying.

“At the heart of this is the belief among most Australians that social media does more harm than good,” said Rob Nicholls, a senior research fellow in the Faculty of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney.

AND The YouGov survey was published on Tuesday found that 77% of Australians supported the ban, up from 61% in August.

Other countries have tried to impose restrictions on social media for children, including the United States, which requires tech companies to obtain parental consent to collect data from children under 13. However, the Australian proposal goes further and makes no exceptions for parental consent or pre-existing accounts.

Opponents criticized the Australian ban as too blunt an instrument and said it was passed too hastily.

The bill that was introduced in parliament last week, allowed only one day to present its views on the matter. Sen. Matt Canavan, who opposed the bill, said it received 15,000 requests in one day and that lawmakers were only able to process some of them.

“This is a highly emotive issue and there is an understandable demand for politicians to be seen as doing something about it. However, this is also a very complex area that must be examined carefully and not in the hasty manner that plagues the process,” he said on Tuesday in a dissent published as part of the debate Senate committee report.

On Tuesday, Google and Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, did so urged Australia to delay adoption of the legislationarguing that more time is needed to assess the potential impact of the ban. ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, also said further consultations were needed.

Elon Muskowner X, he overdid the ban last week as “a backdoor way to control all Australians’ access to the internet”.

Officials plan to enforce the age limit by trialing an age verification system that could include biometrics or government identification, something no other country has tried, raising privacy concerns.

An Australian Senate committee signed the bill into law late Tuesday, but said social media platforms should find “alternative methods of checking age” rather than forcing users to provide personal information such as passports or other digital identification documents.

Nicholls said social media platforms would also be fined for failing to destroy personal data as soon as possible after checking the age of users.

Outside the legislature, the ban has faced intense scrutiny from parents and academics, who say social media can be a key source of support for young people, especially those who feel marginalized.

“Social media provides many young Australians with vital connections, enabling them to access mental health resources, peer support networks and a sense of community,” Christopher Stone, executive director of Suicide Prevention Australia, said on Wednesday. “Cutting off this access risks deepening feelings of loneliness and isolation.”

The Australian government has said it will ensure young people have continued access to instant messaging services such as WhatsApp, online gaming platforms such as Roblox, and essential health and education services.

“Young people, and especially diverse groups in society, must be at the center of the discussion as age restrictions are introduced to ensure constructive avenues for networking,” Senator Karen Grogan, chair of the Senate Environmental and Communications Regulations Committee, said in her report .

So far, the government hasn’t done enough to consult with young people for whom social media is part of everyday life, said 17-year-old Leo Puglisi.

“This is a government that obviously isn’t made up of teenagers, but it’s legislating on social media when they didn’t grow up in the age of social media,” said Puglisi, founder and chief presenter of 6 News Australia, a streaming news channel based in Melbourne, run mainly by high school students.

He said that although he was over the upper age limit, the ban would impact his audience as well as the ability of some journalists on his team to do their jobs.

He further stated: “it is certainly possible that every Australian would need to have some form of ID to be able to use social media. So in reality it would affect me, it would affect absolutely everyone.

Daniel Angus, professor of digital communications at Queensland University of Technology, said the bill was “illogical and ignorant” and lacked key details on how it would be implemented.

The potential harms of social media cited by the government have not been sufficiently supported by high-quality research, Angus told NBC News in an email, noting that children who are disadvantaged, live in rural areas or from minority groups use the media social media for the sake of your community. , education and advocacy.

“By imposing a blanket ban, the government is ignoring these important and diverse experiences, thereby exacerbating existing inequalities,” he said.

He also noted that excluding anonymous or online platforms such as 4chan from the ban “paradoxically exposes young people to some of the most harmful digital environments.”

Heads Up Alliance, a grassroots collective of Australian parents demanding greater restrictions on children’s use of social media, said the bill was “deficient”, giving it a grade of D+.

The group said the ban would not address bullying on messaging apps, which also have “highly addictive” features.

“These features will likely result in the same vices that we try to avoid in our children: preoccupation with devices, less sleep, less nature, less sports, fewer real friendships, less concentration, exposure to sexual content,” he added. organization – wrote in the statement.

Exposure to sexual predators “will also remain a real risk” on online gaming platforms and messaging apps, where many children who are banned from other social media are likely to migrate, the group said, adding: “Our children will be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. ”