Recently, Australian government proposed a ban on social media for children of under 16 years of age, On Thursday 7th Nov the government announced that they will put the new legislation in the upcoming session of parliament which will happen in the last two weeks of this month tentatively starting from 18th Nov and age limit will be implemented once the law becomes official in the next 12 months , Australian prime minister Albanese told the reporters and added “Social media is harmful for kids”(Source:https://www.npr.org/2024/11/07/nx-s1-5182775/australia-social-media-ban-children).
Simply banning websites or platforms is a very difficult task as one can bypass them with the help of any strong VPNs, generally today’s children are mostly tech savvy and can easily search a way to access restricted sites and can easily skip the verification process. So, the government has to plan a way to make the restrictions effective and below are the possible ways the government is thinking to execute their plan: -
Putting the restrictions on social media will be handled by Australia eSafety Commissioner, a regulatory body responsible for safety of online platforms.
Additionally, Prime Minister Albanese confirmed that if the social media companies don’t comply to the laws then they will be liable to pay heavy fines and the children and their parents will not be held responsible and there will be no exemptions to those children with parent consent as well.
Keeping the things in mind where bypassing the age verification process can be done, Australia will introduce a new age verification process which is claimed to be the strictest on social media implemented by any country so far. Government is already doing a trial phase where they are experimenting different age verification technology.
However, government will not put the ban on social media accounts which are already created before the law becomes active.
Social Media is the most innovative and a recent form of technological platform which consists of major players like Meta (Facebook, Instagram), Bytedance’s Tiktok, Elon Musk’s X and other social media platforms like Reddit, Quora etc. There are billions of people involved in these platforms and are indirectly impacting the society and contributes to the relationship not only for the people but the government too.
As so many different people are on social media it naturally makes it vulnerable to a certain age group, mostly teenagers under the age of 18 which are not quiet mature enough to understand the social media world where online scams, human trafficking, pedophilia and phishing scams are prevalent and one can easily become its victim, there are many reports where young girls get kidnapped thru online scams and are sold to human traffickers, teenager’s curiosity of knowing about sex and accessing the pornography sites which are easily accessible without any strict verification of age limit makes social media a dangerous thing.
For these reasons’ Australian government for the safeguard of children under the age of 16 decided to take this action to ban social media for them by incorporating strict verification process.
Although government is doing for the sake of safeguarding the children from online platforms and some parents and other child safety regulatory bodies are in favor of the decision; however, experts are opposing to the government’s decision and put their opinion regarding this ban.
Last month a collective group of 140 Australian and experts wrote a letter about how the ban would be a “blunt” move and how its going to harm the children who genuinely wants to use the platform for “good purpose”, the letter said “Online world is a place where children can learn many things from gaining knowledge about specific subject to learning technical skills “.(Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/australia-social-media-ban-children-meta-tiktok-youtube-x/ ).
Some experts are not in the favor of banning social media and are saying that the ban will only delay exposure of online world and not solve the root cause of problem.
Australia’s another challenge is making an effective age verification technology as its easy to bypass the process without much efforts. Previously European countries have tried doing similar things and banned the use of social media for the teenagers but the execution failed as it was a very daunting task to restrict sites and platforms, moreover children used to bypass the verification process with the help of parent’s consent.
Director of youth mental health organization stated that 73% of youngsters have used social media to improve their mental health (Source: https://www.npr.org/2024/11/07/nx-s1-5182775/australia-social-media-ban-children ).
Australian National university lawyer said that these bans would separate children from online platforms which probably will create problems within their families.
A digital industry in Australia called this ban as a “20th century response to the 21st century challenge” and said instead of banning social media we should take a balanced approach and a create a age appropriate space where they can access to anything as long as it is safe for the children.
Australia’s attempt to ban social media for children less than 16 years of age is a sensible move by the government, the purpose is to minimize the overall use of smartphone and early exposure to social media, this is an age where children should go outside, play, learn something new and develop their minds.
According to reports, children especially belonging to age group of 12-15 in US use social media for more than 3 hours a day and linked it with high risk of poor mental health(Source: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/tween-and-teen-health/in-depth/teens-and-social-media-use/art-20474437 ), although there are many cases over the world where the children are suffering from depression due to spending unhealthy amount of time on social media and get easily influenced by things which might not be even real.
So, it becomes a necessity to set some boundaries about the use of these online platforms. Not to mention it has many advantages as well like access to countless information about the world and recent happenings, many businesses use social media as their advertising tool, youngsters can access to vast knowledge and learn some technical skills as most of them are available on the internet and social media platform (LinkedIn) for free.so it totally depends on the individual about how to use these platforms for their own benefits.
Currently, the key question is whether the government and its regulatory agencies will succeed in their plan or if it will turn out to be just another failed attempt like in other countries. The consequences of the proposal once it becomes an official law after the new legislation remain to be seen.
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