Children will be blocked from social media under sweeping national plans to shield young people from online harm by mandating strict age barriers in federal law and punishing tech giants that break the rules. Source: The Age.
Australia will move before the next election to a national regime to force tech platforms to enforce age verification. A final age is not yet settled but could be within the 13- to 16-year-old range.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will announce the plan today after canvassing the proposal with state premiers on Friday, based on a South Australian proposal to ban social media for all children under the age of 14.
“Parents are worried sick about this. We know they’re working without a map – no generation has faced this challenge before,” Mr Albanese said in a statement.
“The safety and mental and physical health of our young people is paramount. Parents want their kids off their phones and on the footy field. So do I.”
But the federal and state leaders have yet to negotiate a position on the best age limit. They will also need to meet at National Cabinet to decide how the regime will operate and whether it will require state and territory law to support the federal legislation.
The federal move follows a call from Coalition communications spokesman David Coleman earlier this year to block children under 16.
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas gave the issue a new push last week by raising the age limit in talks ahead of a National Cabinet meeting.
NSW Premier Chris Minns is preparing to co-host a social media summit in October and backed the federal and SA moves, while Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan backed Mr Malinauskas and said, without providing details, she intended to follow suit.
The governments of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and some American states are all considering forms of age verification. Some companies use face-scanning apps to guess ages while others ask a person to submit their ID.
FULL STORY
Drinking, smoking … now social media: New laws to ban children from apps (By David Crowe and Paul Sakkal, The Age)
RELATED COVERAGE
Government lays groundwork for online age limit preventing children from accessing social media (ABC News)
