Australia on Thursday approved a social media ban that was struggling in an exciting debate, setting the benchmark for an exciting debate nationwide and one of the toughest regulations for large-scale technologies.
Laws force tech giants to go from Instagram and Facebook owner Meta to Tiktok to prevent minors from logging in or facing fines up to $49.5 million ($32 million or about Rs 27 billion). Trials to implement the method will begin in January and the ban will take effect within one year.
The Social Media Minimum Age Act takes Australia as a test case for a growing number of governments that have legislated or said they plan to legislate age restrictions on social media because of concerns about its mental health impact on young people.
Countries, including France and some states in the United States, have passed laws that restrict access to minors without their parents’ permission, but the Australian ban is absolute. Florida’s under-14 ban is being challenged in court on the grounds of freedom of speech.
After the final day of a year’s marathon in the Australian Parliament, the acquisition of the law marks a political victory for centre-left Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who entered the election in 2025 under a poll. According to the latest poll, the ban faces opposition from privacy advocates and some child rights groups, but 77% of the population wants it.
Domestic media backed Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp’s ban, the country’s largest newspaper publisher and a campaign called “Let them be kids” in the context of a parliamentary investigation in 2024.
However, the ban could damage Australia’s relationship with its U.S. allies, which Elon Musk, the X-boss who runs by President-elect Donald Trump, said in an article this month that it appears to be “a backdoor way to control all Australians’ access to the internet.”
It also builds on the existing confrontational mood between Australia and most of the leading tech giants in the United States. Australia is the first country to make social media platforms pay for media royalties for their shared content, and now plans to threaten them with fines that fail to eliminate the scam.
A Meta spokesman said Facebook owners respect Australian law but were “concerned” about the process, “this was “hurriedly legislated” while not taking into account the evidence correctly, the industry has already ensured age-appropriate experiences and the voices of young people.”
“This task now ensures productive consultation on all rules related to the bill to ensure that technically feasible results do not put a heavy burden on parents and teenagers, and promises that rules will be consistently applied across all social applications used by teenagers,” the spokesperson said.
Snapchat parents Snap will comply with Australian laws and regulations but raise serious concerns about the legislation, a spokesperson for Snap said in an email.
“While there are many unresolved questions about how this law is implemented in practice, we will be in close contact with the government and ESAFETY specialists over the 12-month implementation period to help develop a way to balance privacy, security and practicality,” the spokesperson said.
The government said it would be affected by the ban, and representatives of Tiktok and X did not immediately comment.
These companies — including Alphabet’s Google, whose subsidiary YouTube is exempted because of its widespread use in schools — believe that the legislation should be postponed until after an age verification trial.
“This is the shopping cart right away,” said Sunita Bose, managing director of Digital Industry Group.
Bose added: “We have bills, but we don’t have the guidance from the Australian government, the right way to deal with the entire service that the law requires hiring.”
National division
Some youth advocacy groups and scholars have warned that the ban could shut down the most vulnerable young people from support networks, including LGBTQIA and immigrant teenagers. The Australian Human Rights Commission said the law could interfere with their ability to participate in society, thereby violating the human rights of young people.
Meanwhile, privacy advocates warn that the law could lead to higher personal data collection, clearing the path to state surveillance based on digital identification. Last minute changes to the bill’s specified platform must provide alternatives to users uploading identification documents.
“It’s someone trying to tell young people how to make the internet better,” said left-leaning Green Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who was late in the Senate before the bill passed 34 votes to get 19.
But the parent group pushed the intervention to capture the comments of American surgeon Vivek Murthy, who said in 2023 that social media is worsening the youth mental health crisis that health warnings should be issued.
“I think it’s a starting point to limit age and return control to parents,” said Ali Halkic, an advocate for anti-bullying in Australia.
Enie Lam, a student at Sydney School, recently 16, said social media has fueled body image problems and cyberbullying, but a full ban could drive young people into lower, more dangerous parts of the internet.
“This will only create a generation of young people who will be technically literate when it comes to circumventing these walls,” she told Reuters. “It won’t achieve the desired effect.”
“We all know that social media is bad for us, but the social media ban often sees many young people who strongly oppose it.”
©Thomson Reuters 2024
(This story has not been edited by Tech Word News’s staff and is automatically generated from the joint feed.)
