Skip to main content

Explained: How Australia's Social Media Ban For Under 16s Will Be Imposed

Australia's government plans to fine global social media firms $32 million for systemic breaches against a bill that it introduced on Thursday that seeks to ban social media for children under 16 years of age. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says platforms like TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram fall under the umbrella of the law.

The "world-leading", as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calls it, bill forces social media firms to ensure age verifications are in place and does not place that onus on parents or children.

"Social media has a social responsibility ... that's why we are making big changes to hold platforms to account for user safety," Rowland said. "This bill seeks to set a new normative value in society that accessing social media is not the defining feature of growing up in Australia," she added.

Although the children can access online gaming, messaging, online classrooms, YouTube or just health and education related services in general.

"This is a landmark reform. We know some kids will find workarounds, but we're sending a message to social media companies to clean up their act," Albanese said in a statement.

Meta and X have thrown the ball in the court of application stores like Google and Apple to reinforce age verification rather than the social platforms.

It plans to bring about on a trial basis, an age-verification system such as biometrics or a government identification in order to access social media. This is being touted as some of the most stringent controls imposed by any country till date and does not even exempt parental consent or pre-existing accounts.

The current Australian government is of the view that social media causes more harm than good to the physical and mental health of children, burdening girls with body image issues and zeroing in on boys with misogynistic content.

However, Katie Maskiell from UNICEF Australia says that this ban will only push young people onto, "covert and unregulated online spaces".

Last year, France intended to do the same with children under 15, but children could avoid the ban citing parental consent. 

Although Norway imposed a minimum age of 13 to access social media, the surveys found that 70 per cent of 11 year-olds were still using social media platforms.

"For too many young Australians, social media can be harmful. Almost two-thirds of 14 to 17-year-old Australians have viewed extremely harmful content online, including drug abuse, suicide or self-harm," Rowland said on Thursday.

Australia also plans to ban pornography for children under 18 years of age.
 



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/R0OTCKB

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

US Issues $25-Million Bounty On Venezuela President On Day Of His Oath

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose nearly 12 years in office have been marked by deep economic and social crisis, was sworn in for a third term on Friday, despite a six-month-long election dispute, international calls for him to stand aside and an increase in the US reward offered for his capture. Maduro, president since 2013, was declared the winner of July's election by both Venezuela's electoral authority and top court, though detailed tallies confirming his victory have never been published. Venezuela's opposition says ballot box-level tallies show a landslide win for its former candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, who is recognized as president-elect by several countries including the United States. International election observers said the vote was not democratic. The months since the election have seen Gonzalez's flight to Spain in September, his ally Maria Corina Machado going into hiding in Venezuela, and the detentions of high-profile opposition figures and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's Official, Kamala Harris Is Democratic Candidate For US Election

US Vice President Kamala Harris effectively secured the Democratic party's presidential nomination Friday, confirming her remarkable rise to party standard bearer in November's showdown against Republican Donald Trump. Kamala Harris was the sole candidate on the ballot for a five-day electronic vote of nearly 4,000 party convention delegates. She will be officially crowned at a Chicago convention later this month. "I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States," Kamala Harris, 59, said on a phone-in to a party celebration after securing enough votes by the second day of the marathon vote. In the two weeks since President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, Kamala Harris has gained full control of the party. No other Democrats stepped forward to challenge her elevation to the top of the ticket, making her confirmation as the first Black and South Asian woman ever to secure a major party's nomination a formality. The a...
Post a Comment
Read more

All You Need To Know About Donald Trump's 1st Criminal Trial

Donald Trump goes on trial Monday for allegedly covering up hush money payments to hide affairs ahead of the 2016 presidential election which propelled him into the White House. He will become the first former US president to go on criminal trial when jury selection begins next week. Here are the key questions ahead of the landmark trial: What is Trump accused of? As Trump closed in on victory in the 2016 presidential election, adult film star Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged 2006 sexual tryst with Trump. The payments, made by Trump's lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, were revealed by The Wall Street Journal in January 2018. Prosecutors have seized on the concealment of the payments as "legal fees" in the Trump Organization's accounts when Cohen was reimbursed as the heart of their case. Prosecutors say Trump "concealed the reason for these payments... which clearly were paid in order to influence voters," former prosec...
Post a Comment
Read more