Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s pre-election pledge to ban teenagers from social media is being undermined by tech companies refusing to enforce adequate verification barriers and delays in government trials to shield children from digital harms. Source: The Australian.
Amid divisions in Labor ranks over the optimal age of children who would be banned from social media, the Government is not expected to finalise its decision until late this year at the earliest following technology trials and sign-off from state and territory leaders.
National Cabinet leaders have mixed views on what age should be captured under the proposed ban. South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas and Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan have announced they will restrict children under the age of 14 from accessing social media, with stricter parental controls enforced for teenagers aged 14 and 15.
The Prime Minister is personally supportive of new laws capturing children under 16, mirroring Peter Dutton’s June announcement that he would impose a social media ban on kids in the first 100 days of a Coalition government.
Without nominating an age, Mr Albanese last week announced Labor would legislate the ban in this term of Parliament on the same day the Government went out to tender for stage three of its age assurance tech trial.
The Department of Communications on Wednesday will hold an industry briefing with potential contractors to run its age assurance trials, which will inform the Government’s preferred age.
The third phase of age verification trials, which were announced on May 1, will evaluate the effectiveness and readiness for use of available age assurance technologies determining the age of a user in the 13-16 age bracket.
The final phase includes live testing of age verification technologies.
Offshore social media and tech platform operators have to date not applied stringent age verification processes, allowing kids to view pornography and access other extreme content.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the Government would “continue to engage with experts, young people and parents through the age assurance trial to inform ourselves, and take a proposal to National Cabinet on the appropriate age”.
Opposition communications spokesman David Coleman, who said the Coalition was firmly committed to its nominated age of 16, said the Government’s trials were taking too long.
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Anthony Albanese’s social media ban facing delays, as tech giants push back (By Geoff Chambers, The Australian)
