Last Thursday, Australia’s Parliament approved the Social Media Minimum Age bill, which effectively bans children under the age of 16 from accessing social media. The benchmark decision sets up Australia as a test case for a growing number of countries which have legislated, or have stated that they intend to place an age restriction on social media amid concern about its mental health impact on young people.
The ruling, which comes after an emotive national debate on the delicate issue, is one of the toughest regulations targeting tech giants, and forces entities such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, to stop minors from logging in or face fines of up to AUS $49.5 million (US$32 million). A trial of methods to enforce the restrictions will commence in January, with the ban taking full effect in a year. Other countries, including France and some states in the USA have passed laws to restrict access for minors without a parent’s permission, but the Australian decision is absolute. A full ban on children under the age of 14 in the State of Florida is being challenged in court on the grounds of free speech.
The new law, which was passed on a marathon last day of Australia’s parliamentary year, faced opposition from privacy advocates and some child rights groups, with the former warning that the law could lead to heightened collection of personal data, thus, clearing the path for digital identification-based state surveillance. A last-minute modification to the bill specified that platforms must offer an alternative to making users upload identification documents. However, according to the latest polls, 77 percent of the population approved of the vote, which came against the backdrop of a parliamentary inquiry this year which heard evidence from parents of children who had self-harmed due to social media bullying. The ban was supported by a campaign captioned “Let Them Be Kids” sponsored by the Australian media baron, Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp. and the country’s largest newspaper publisher.
The decision adds further tension to the already existing mood of antagonism between Australia the mostly US-domiciled tech giants. Australia was the first country to make social media platforms
pay media outlets royalties for sharing their content and now is planning to impose fines for failing to eliminate scams. Two months ago, the Australian government stated that it was considering a European Union-style artificial intelligence (AI) act to regulate minimum standards on high-risk AI across the whole economy. The Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic, released a discussion paper proposing ten “mandatory guardrails” for high-risk AI including human oversight and the ability to challenge the use of AI or outcomes of automated decision-making.
This ban, a response to the escalating concern of the mental health effects of social media on the younger generation, including issues surrounding body image, bullying and other harmful content, has sparked the inevitable debate of whether it serves a useful purpose, or it is actually a hindrance to the development of the children. Australia’s Communi-cations Minister, Michelle Rowland, observed that while social media could be “a source of entertainment, education and connection with the world and each other”, it was found that it could be harmful for too many young Australians , whilst at the same time research revealed that parents found online safety one of their major challenges.
On the flip side of this double-edged sword is the reality that social media has become firmly integrated into every-day life of most societies. Today’s generation have been weaned in the Digital Age, having been thoroughly exposed from an early age, initially for fun, followed by education, and support for their development and well being. But as Professor Amanda Third of Western Sydney University stated, “But the fact is, our children will grow into a world where digital technologies of various kinds and social media … are dominant. We need to introduce them incrementally, with support and guidance into the world that they will inhabit.”
While giant tech companies threaten legal challenges to the new Australian legislation, there are ongoing lawsuits in Canada and the USA accusing social media companies of causing harm to young people, along with proposed updates to online safety legislation in Europe, Canada, and the USA. Will Australia’s ‘sledgehammer’ approach be effective? Over the next year, the world will be anxiously following how it implements such a ban whilst simultaneously dealing with the significant challenges of age-authentication, data collection and privacy concerns.
Very few envisioned the dawn of social media as being the scourge of misinformation and its accompanying ills. The genie is out of the bottle now, and it’s too late to put it back. Australia’s stance might be viewed as too harsh in some quarters, but it is a start none the less. It’s better to do something rather sit around and do nothing about this complex and nuanced problem.
