SEOUL, South Korea — Australia’s Parliament voted to ban social media use by children under 16 — a seismic development that may set global precedents.
Canberra’s Social Media Minimum Age Bill is being called the most sweeping legislation passed by a democracy to restrict access to social media, a domain that is under governmental scrutiny worldwide.
The bill passed 34-19 in the Australian Senate late on Thursday, amid heckling from opposition lawmakers who demanded lengthier discussions.
The House of Representatives approved the legislation on Friday.
The bill requires companies that operate social media platforms, such as Meta and TikTok, to take “reasonable steps” to prevent children under 16 from logging on, or the companies will face fines of $32.5 million.
Enforcement will begin in January. To give related companies time to comply, laws will not take full effect until the end of 2025.
“Social media is doing harm to our children,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said to cameras after the passage of the bill. “Platforms now have a social responsibility to ensure the safety of our kids is a priority for them.”
“’We’ve got your back,’ is our message to Australian parents,” he added.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and X will be subject to the new laws.
According to Australian media, sites that do not require an account log-in, such as YouTube, will not be affected, nor will messaging and gaming sites.
The bill puts the onus on the platforms to install age-verification protocols in Australia. Children who defy the ban — such as by accessing sites via VPNs, tools that bypass national firewalls — will not be punished.
“We don’t argue that its implementation will be perfect, just like the alcohol ban for [children] under 18 doesn’t mean that someone under 18 never has access,” Mr. Albanese said, per reports. “But we know that it’s the right thing to do.”
Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, said, it “respects the laws decided by the Australian Parliament” but added, “We are concerned about the process which rushed the legislation through.”
TikTok Australia told Australia’s ABC News, “We want to work together to keep teens safe and reduce the unintended consequences of this bill for all Australians.”
Potential and actual psychological harm to children exposed to online bullying, ostracism and abuse on social media has been widely commented upon globally. Damage ranges from children suffering from degraded self-images to committing suicide.
Canberra may offer a benchmark for other governments that guarantee free expression and free assembly to their citizens, but which are wrestling with a regulatory conundrum: To what extent should youth protection be prioritized against citizens’ rights, and what are platforms’ responsibilities?
Australia follows France, which last year banned children under the age of 15 from accessing social media without parental consent.
Governments in Norway and the U.K., as well as in some U.S. states, are believed to be taking a keen interest in how the Australian legislation works in practice.
Authoritarian governments, meanwhile, are untroubled by issues that plague their democratic counterparts.
Beijing, for example, bans multiple global websites, including most social media platforms popular in the West — including Chinese-owned TikTok — behind its “Great Firewall.”
Pyongyang walls off the entire World Wide Web, instead operating a homegrown Intranet for its citizens’ use.
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
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