Social media giants on Friday hit out at a landmark Australian law banning them from signing up under-16s, describing it as a rush job littered with “many unanswered questions”.

The UN children’s charity UNICEF Australia joined the fray, warning the law was no “silver bullet” against online harm and could push kids into “covert and unregulated” spaces online.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the legislation may not be implemented perfectly — much like existing age restrictions on alcohol — but it was “the right thing to do”.

The crackdown on sites like Facebook, Instagram and X, approved by parliament late Thursday, will lead to “better outcomes and less harm for young Australians”, he told reporters.

Platforms have a “social responsibility” to make children’s safety a priority, the prime minister said. 

“We’ve got your back, is our message to Australian parents.”

Social media firms that fail to comply with the law face fines of up to Aus$50 million (US$32.5 million).

TikTok said Friday it was “disappointed” in the law, accusing the government of ignoring mental health, online safety and youth experts who had opposed the ban.

“It’s entirely likely the ban could see young people pushed to darker corners of the internet where no community guidelines, safety tools, or protections exist,” a TikTok spokesperson said.

‘Unanswered questions’

Tech companies said that despite the law’s perceived shortcomings, they would engage with the government on shaping how it could be implemented in the next 12 months.

The legislation offers almost no details on how the rules will be enforced — prompting concern among experts that it will simply be a symbolic, unenforceable piece of legislation.

Meta — owner of Facebook and Instagram —  called for consultation on the rules to ensure a “technically feasible outcome that does not place an onerous burden on parents and teens”.

But the company added it was concerned “about the process, which rushed the legislation through while failing to properly consider the evidence, what industry already does to ensure age-appropriate experiences, and the voices of young people”. 

A Snapchat spokesperson said the company had raised “serious concerns” about the law and that “many unanswered questions” remained about how it would work.

But the company said it would engage closely with government to develop an approach balancing “privacy, safety and practicality”. 

“As always, Snap will comply with any applicable laws and regulations in Australia,” it said.

UNICEF Australia policy chief Katie Maskiell said young people need to be protected online but also need to be included in the digital world.

“This ban risks pushing children into increasingly covert and unregulated online spaces as well as preventing them from accessing aspects of the online world essential to their wellbeing,” she said.

Global attention

One of the biggest issues will be privacy — what age-verification information is used, how it is collected and by whom.

Social media companies remain adamant that age-verification should be the job of app stores, but the government believes tech platforms should be responsible.

Exemptions will likely be granted to some companies, such as WhatsApp and YouTube, which teenagers may need to use for recreation, school work or other reasons.

The legislation will be closely monitored by other countries, with many weighing whether to implement similar bans. 

Lawmakers from Spain to Florida have proposed social media bans for young teens, although none of the measures have been implemented yet.

China has restricted access for minors since 2021, with under-14s not allowed to spend more than 40 minutes a day on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

Online gaming time for children is also limited in China.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Melbourne:

Australian lawmakers passed landmark rules to ban under 16s from social media on Thursday, approving one of the world’s toughest crackdowns on popular sites like Facebook, Instagram and X.

The bill has now passed both parliamentary chambers with bipartisan support, and social media firms will soon be expected to take “reasonable steps” to prevent young teens from having accounts.

The firms — who face fines of up to Aus$50 million (US$32.5 million) for failing to comply — have described the laws as “vague”, “problematic” and “rushed”.

The legislation passed parliament’s lower chamber on Wednesday and passed the Senate late on Thursday evening. It is now all but certain to become law.

Centre-left Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, eyeing an election early next year, has enthusiastically championed the new rules and rallied Aussie parents to get behind it.

In the run up to the vote, he painted social media as “a platform for peer pressure, a driver of anxiety, a vehicle for scammers and, worst of all, a tool for online predators”.

He wanted, he said, young Australians “off their phones and onto the footy and cricket field, the tennis and netball courts, in the swimming pool”.

– ‘I’ll find a way’ –

But young Australians like 12-year-old Angus Lydom, are not impressed.

“I’d like to keep using it. And it’ll be a weird feeling to not have it, and be able to talk to all my friends at home,” he told AFP.

Many are likely to try to find ways around it.

“I’ll find a way. And so will all my other friends” Lydom said.

Similarly, 11-year-old Elsie Arkinstall said there was still a place for social media, particularly for children wanting to watch tutorials about baking or art, many of which appear on social media.

“Kids and teens should be able to explore those techniques because you can’t learn all those things from books,” she added.

On paper, the ban is one of the strictest in the world.

But the current legislation offers almost no details on how the rules will be enforced — prompting concern among experts that it will simply be a symbolic piece of legislation that is unenforceable.

It will be at least 12 months before the details are worked out by regulators and the ban comes into effect.

Some companies will likely be granted exemptions, such as WhatsApp and YouTube, which teenagers may need to use for recreation, school work or other reasons.

Late amendments were introduced to ensure government-issued digital ID cannot be used as a means of age verification.

– Australia leads the way –

Social media expert Susan Grantham told AFP that digital literacy programmes that teach children to think “critically” about what they see online should be adopted — similar to a model used in Finland.

The legislation will be closely monitored by other countries, with many weighing whether to implement similar bans.

Lawmakers from Spain to Florida have proposed social media bans for young teens, although none of the measures have been implemented yet.

China has restricted access for minors since 2021, with under-14s not allowed to spend more than 40 minutes a day on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

Online gaming time for children is also limited in China.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Michelle Rowland said TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram were among the platforms that could face fines [File]
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Australia’s communications minister introduced a world-first law into Parliament on Thursday that would ban children younger than 16 from social media, saying online safety was one of parents’ toughest challenges.

Michelle Rowland said TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram were among the platforms that would face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to prevent young children from holding accounts.

“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,” Rowland told Parliament.

“There is wide acknowledgement that something must be done in the immediate term to help prevent young teens and children from being exposed to streams of content unfiltered and infinite,” she added.

The bill has wide political support. After it becomes law, the platforms would have one year to work out how to implement the age restriction.

“For too many young Australians, social media can be harmful. Almost two-thirds of 14- to 17-years-old Australians have viewed extremely harmful content online including drug abuse, suicide or self-harm as well as violent material. One quarter have been exposed to content promoting unsafe eating habits,” Rowland said.

Government research found that “95% of Australian care-givers find online safety to be one of their toughest parenting challenges,” she said.

Social media had a social responsibility and could do better in addressing harms on their platforms, she said.

“This is about protecting young people, not punishing or isolating them, and letting parents know that we’re in their corner when it comes to supporting their children’s health and wellbeing,” Rowland said.

Child welfare and internet experts have raised concerns about the ban, including isolating 14- and 15-year-olds from their already established online social networks.

Rowland said there would not be age restrictions placed on messaging services, online games or platforms that substantially support the health and education of users.

“We are not saying risks don’t exist on messaging apps or online gaming. While users can still be exposed to harmful content by other users, they do not face the same algorithmic curation of content and psychological manipulation to encourage near-endless engagement,” Rowland said.

The government announced last week that a consortium led by British company Age Check Certification Scheme has been contracted to examine various technologies to estimate and verify ages.

In addition to removing children under 16 from social media, Australia is also looking for ways to prevent children under 18 from accessing online pornography, a government statement said.

Age Check Certification Scheme’s chief executive Tony Allen said Monday the technologies being considered included age estimation and age inference. Inference involves establishing a series of facts about individuals that point to them being at least a certain age.

Rowland said the platforms would also face fines of up to AU$50 million ($33 million) if they misused personal information of users gained for age-assurance purposes.

Information used for age assurances must be destroyed after serving that purpose unless the user consents to it being kept, she said.

Digital Industry Group Inc., an advocate for the digital industry in Australia, described the age limit as a “20th century response to 21st century challenges.”