Children could soon be banned from social media under tough new rules that would punish tech companies for flouting the law. The federal government is holding an age-verification trial over the next couple of months for kids aged between 14 and 16.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government would introduce legislation before the end of the year. He called the social media impact on children a “scourge” with mental health consequences for many young people having to deal with bullying online and access to material which causes social harm.
Describing social media as “social harm,” Mr. Albanese said his government was responding to the concerns of parents and the community and working with the states and territories to create a unformed framework.
“[Facial recognition] is one of the things we will be trialing, but there is a range of technologies that we can use. We also want to put some responsibility back on to these social media companies. They’re not above everyone else. They can’t just say: We’re a big multinational company, we can do whatever we like regardless of the harm that’s being caused. Social media has a social responsibility in order to have that social licence that they require to operate in a decent society,” the PM asserted.
Mr. Albanese said he wanted kids back on the “footy fields” and “netball courts”, interacting with real people and having real-life experiences.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said social media had been an “unregulated” global experiment on young people. “I think the South Australian model, which is 14 with parental consent from 14 to 16, is a good model. Basically parents would have to agree online to let your child have access to social media,” he added.
The Commonwealth is spending $6.5 million on the trial, with the tender process for the technology starting this week. The Prime Minister conceded it was major challenge after the introduction of age verification tools caused a huge spike in the use of VPNs (virtual private networks) when trialed in other countries.
“This is why we are doing the trial to get it right. If it was easy, it would have been done around the world. Just because something is hard doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try, and we want to work with parents, to work with companies, to work with state and territory governments to make sure that we act in this area. We know that getting it perfect will be different. That is the truth because people will try and work their way around it. They are pretty clever on these devices. We are prepared to act. We want to work across the parliament to get this right. That is why we said we will introduce legislation before the end of the year,” the PM declared.
Director of the Screens and Gaming Disorder Clinic Brad Marshall told the Australian Associated Press (AAP) it did not matter what the age limit was, but the action was overdue. “Perhaps we have to enforce it, but it has to be a way in which we can ask to have parental controls that actually work. Any eight- or 10-year-old can find their way around (current ones).”
“It’s not a moral panic. The government is seeing the health research which indicates there are significant impacts – not only from mental health, but cyberbullying and body-image issues – and they’re trying to do something,” he said.
Age limits on social media are not an effective solution according to RMIT University Professor of Information Sciences Lisa Given. “Children need to gain the necessary skills to navigate online worlds – including social media – and banning them from these platforms is not the solution. Young people may also find ways to circumvent these bans and be less likely to disclose if they have encountered harmful content,” she said.
The eSafety Commissioner has warned that “restriction-based approaches may limit young people’s access to critical support” and push them to “less regulated non-mainstream services”.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram and has a self-imposed minimum age of 13, said it wanted to empower young people to benefit from its platforms and provide parents tools to support them “instead of just cutting off access.”
The law would make Australia one of the first countries in the world to impose such an age restriction on social media. 80% of the nation’s 26 million people are on social media, according to tech industry figures, making it one of the world’s most online populations.
