Australia prepares to introduce a 16-year age limit for social media

The Australian government plans to introduce legislation that would prohibit children under 16 from using social media. The bill, set to be presented in parliament next week, aims to reduce the harm social media is believed to cause to children and adolescents. However, it remains unclear how the law will be enforced in practice.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that the government planned to introduce a bill setting an age limit for children’s use of social media, citing concerns about their mental and physical health.

Now the government has decided that the limit should be set at 16, reports the UK’s The Guardian. This means that children under 16 will not be allowed to access social media, but the law will not apply to those who already have an account on any platform.

However, it is still unclear how the law will be implemented and enforced in practice. Albanese emphasizes that the onus will be on social media platforms to “demonstrate they are taking reasonable steps to prevent access” by young users. There are unlikely to be any penalties for individual users who break the rules, but platforms could be held liable.

Albanese justifies the bill with concerns about the impact of social media on today’s children and young people.

– They, like me, are worried sick about the safety of our kids online, he said. I want Australian parents and families to know that government has your back. I want parents to be able to say, “Sorry, mate, that’s against the law”.

Expected to be tabled next week

The legislation is due to be tabled in Parliament next week and is expected to come into force 12 months after it is passed.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, says it will comply with the new legislation but questions whether the technology is ready for it. Furthermore, Meta emphasizes that the responsibility should instead lie with the app stores to ensure the age limit, as young people often use a large number of apps, which would require age checks for each individual app. This could also pose a privacy risk, according to Meta’s global head of security Antigone Davis.

– The current state of age-assurance technology… requires a level of personally identified information to be shared, she says.

Norway has proposed a 15-year age limit for social media, although again it remains unclear how this could be enforced in practice.