The Australian Government has tabled a bill in parliament that aims to ban social media for children under 16 and proposed fines of up to $73.3 million for social media platforms for systemic breaches.
Australia plans to trial an age-verification system that may include biometrics or government identification to enforce a social media age cut-off, some of the toughest controls imposed by any country to date.
The proposals are the highest age limit set by any country and would have no exemption for parental consent and no exemption for pre-existing accounts.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says this is a landmark reform and they know some kids will find workarounds, but they are sending a message to social media companies to clean up their act.
The opposition Liberal party plans to support the bill though independents and the Green party have demanded more details on the proposed law, which would impact Meta Platforms, Instagram and Facebook, TikTok, X and Snapchat.
However, Albanese said children will have access to messaging, online gaming, and health and education-related services, such as youth mental health support platform Headspace, Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), Google Classroom and YouTube.
The Albanese-led Labor government has been arguing excessive use of social media poses risks to the physical and mental health of children, in particular, the risks to girls from harmful depictions of body image and misogynist content aimed at boys.
A number of countries have already vowed to curb social media use by children through legislation, but Australia's policy is one of the most stringent.
Last year, France proposed a ban on social media for those under 15, but users were able to avoid the ban with parental consent.
The United States has for decades required technology companies to seek parental consent to access the data of children under 13.
Source : Aljazeera
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