Australia's government plans to fine global social media firms $32 million for systemic breaches against a bill that it introduced on Thursday that seeks to ban social media for children under 16 years of age. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says platforms like TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram fall under the umbrella of the law.
The "world-leading", as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calls it, bill forces social media firms to ensure age verifications are in place and does not place that onus on parents or children.
"Social media has a social responsibility ... that's why we are making big changes to hold platforms to account for user safety," Rowland said. "This bill seeks to set a new normative value in society that accessing social media is not the defining feature of growing up in Australia," she added.
Although the children can access online gaming, messaging, online classrooms, YouTube or just health and education related services in general.
"This is a landmark reform. We know some kids will find workarounds, but we're sending a message to social media companies to clean up their act," Albanese said in a statement.
Meta and X have thrown the ball in the court of application stores like Google and Apple to reinforce age verification rather than the social platforms.
It plans to bring about on a trial basis, an age-verification system such as biometrics or a government identification in order to access social media. This is being touted as some of the most stringent controls imposed by any country till date and does not even exempt parental consent or pre-existing accounts.
The current Australian government is of the view that social media causes more harm than good to the physical and mental health of children, burdening girls with body image issues and zeroing in on boys with misogynistic content.
However, Katie Maskiell from UNICEF Australia says that this ban will only push young people onto, "covert and unregulated online spaces".
Last year, France intended to do the same with children under 15, but children could avoid the ban citing parental consent.
Although Norway imposed a minimum age of 13 to access social media, the surveys found that 70 per cent of 11 year-olds were still using social media platforms.
"For too many young Australians, social media can be harmful. Almost two-thirds of 14 to 17-year-old Australians have viewed extremely harmful content online, including drug abuse, suicide or self-harm," Rowland said on Thursday.
Australia also plans to ban pornography for children under 18 years of age.
