Australian government has proposed a bill on a minimum age limit for children to use social media over mental and physical health concerns.
Gatekeepers News reports that Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese said his government would hold an age verification trial before introducing the legislation.
He said, “I want to see kids off their devices and onto the footy fields and the swimming pools and the tennis courts.”
“We want them to have real experiences with real people because we know that social media is causing social harm.”
Australia’s internet regulator, eSafety Commissioner had earlier in June said that “restriction-based approaches may limit young people’s access to critical support” and push them to “less regulated non-mainstream services”.
The ban proposal comes after South Australia announced a plan to restrict social media access to people aged 14 and over.
South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas had said the proposal was necciated due to concerns that social media was harming young people and affecting their mental health, thereby making parents “almost powerless”.
He said, “The government is now going to step in, we’re going to ban kids from getting access to these accounts.”
“We’re going to ban the social media services from providing access in that first place and where they do it and do it knowingly, they are subject to severe punishment, heavy financial penalties that will act as a major deterrent to ensure this doesn’t occur in the future.”
Malinauskas noted that the proposed regulation put “a positive obligation and duty” on social media companies to ensure children under 14 cannot access such platforms.
He said, “That positive duty and obligation doesn’t just extend to prevent individual children from getting access to the platform but creates a systemic responsibility on the social media platforms to ensure they are undertaking all reasonable steps to prevent children from getting access.”
