Australia's prime minister announced Thursday that he intends to ban children under 16 from using social media, a move that tightens the noose on big tech companies that have been criticized for not providing adequate protection for young users.
"This is a measure for mothers and fathers. Social media is doing a lot of harm to children, and I have decided to put an end to it," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters.
Albanese had announced a plan in September to do so, but did not specify a minimum age at the time.
The Labor leader said the measure would be presented to state and territory leaders this week before being submitted to parliament in late November.
He stressed that the responsibility for ensuring that users are of the permitted age would fall on technology companies and social media platforms, under penalty of fines, rather than on parents who are "very concerned about the safety of their children online."
He explained that "the responsibility will not fall on parents or young people, and there will be no penalties imposed on users."
A previous proposal to introduce a minimum age for social media use has received widespread support from politicians in Australia.
The platforms will be given a year to prepare for implementation.
Meta (Instagram and Facebook) has said it will implement "any age restrictions" the Australian government wants to impose.
But Meta's head of safety, Antigone Davis, said Australia needs to think carefully about how to implement such restrictions.
Albanese said social media algorithms have shown inappropriate content to children and teenagers.
"I have things on my phone that I wouldn't want to see. Imagine a 14-year-old seeing them," he said.
"Young women are seeing images of certain body types, and that affects them," he added.
A number of experts have questioned the technical feasibility of such a measure.
"We know that current age verification methods are unreliable, very easy to circumvent and pose risks to users' privacy," said Toby Murray, a researcher at the University of Melbourne.
The text specifically refers to imposing fines on major technology companies of up to 5% of their annual revenue if they do not comply with their obligations in the field of combating misinformation.
The social networking platform "X" owned by Elon Musk is engaged in a legal battle with the Australian Internet Regulatory Authority over its supervision of violent publications.
For her part, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland considered setting a minimum age for using social networks to be one of the most advanced measures in the world, saying that the platforms "did not behave at the expected level."
She said during a press conference on Wednesday that "social media companies have been informed" of the measure and that they will be fined if they do not meet their obligations.
A large number of countries and territories have decided to impose a minimum age on social networks.
In the US state of Florida, a law is scheduled to come into effect next January that prevents anyone under the age of 14 from opening an account on social networking sites. Spain passed a law in June banning children under 16 from using social media.
But in both cases, no age verification method has yet been established on the platforms.
In France, a law passed in 2023 allowing access to “most digital platforms” to those under 15 has yet to come into force, pending a response from the European Commission on its compatibility with European law. President Emmanuel Macron has spoken of banning phones for children under 11.
China, which has imposed restrictions on the use of social media by minors since 2021, requires the presentation of an official document identifying the user, such as an identity card. Those under 14 can spend no more than 40 minutes a day on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and online play time for children and teenagers is limited.
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