Australia Bans Social Media for Under-16s
In late November the Australian Government passed a bill banning under 16s from having social media accounts on various platforms including Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and X. The Social Media Minimum Age Bill has the aim of protecting young Australians from the significant social and psychological harm that unregulated social media access poses to young people.
In order to guarantee the cooperation of tech companies, the Australian Government has threatened to impose fines of A$49.5 million ($32 million) if they are non compliant.
This bill is likely to be fruitful for the purpose of minimising the social and psychological dangers that social media poses mainly due to the fact that over 40% of Australian teens have had negative online experiences in any six-month period, including exposure to inappropriate content (20%) and cyberbullying (17%). These experiences can severely impact mental health. This positive correlation between extensive social media use and the widespread negative experiences of teenagers and children is the driving force behind the implementation of the Social Media Minimum Age bill.
A less-ventilated danger is that of spending wasteful hours online listening to and watching strangers who seek only to have a lasting influence over their audience. This is magnified by major social media platforms operating an algorithm by which the content that you repeatedly consume and express an appreciation for is that which you will see more and more of. Eventually this reaches the point where individuals are confined to very specialised corners of social media where they are only exposed to a terrifically biased slice of views. This is evidently contrary to real life experience, where one is able to encounter individuals of vastly different dispositions at any time, and therefore has a more informed and realistic view of the world. This juxtaposition between real life and virtual experience is especially significant to the minds of children, because given that they have grown up in the digital age, there is no reference point. Not only this but given the impressionable nature of teenagers and children, the Australian ban on social media will be conducive to creating an organic view of the world, unrestrained by the confines of social media platforms.
The Australian Social Media Minimum Age Bill directly improves upon the failures of other attempts to protect young people from the potential harms of extensive social media use. One such example includes the UK’s Age-Appropriate Design Code (also called the "Children's Code"). This legislation also had the aim of protecting children’s privacy and safety online, but also aimed to minimise the collection of the personal data of children. This meant that platforms could only collect the minimum amount of personal data needed in order to operate under the Code. However, it was in this stipulation that the largest challenge arose, as the social media platforms struggled to identify child users reliably without excessive data collection. This meant that many platforms were forced to rely on self-declared ages during sign-up processes, which were easily circumvented by children entering false birth dates to appear older. This approach provided minimal verification and was ineffective in enforcing protections for underage users. The most effective method to mitigate this issue would have been to upload government-issued IDs or other personal documents, but then this would also expose children to risks of data breaches or misuse.
In contrast, the Australian version of this legislation focuses the burden of age verification on the tech companies, rather than the users themselves, or the parents of the users, which was part of the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). This shift of responsibility represents a more cohesive and enforceable approach, as the legislation mandates that the social media platforms must take reasonable steps to verify the age of users. This could involve digital identity checks, or contracting with third party age verification services. However, as beneficial as this may sound, the increased pressure from the Government on children specifically may push them toward darker, more unregulated areas of the internet where the platforms are ignorant or defiant of the implemented laws.
Theoretically, for all purposes and aims of the Social Media Minimum Age Bill, it seems to be a largely well-crafted and promising piece of legislation. Yet its success remains undetermined for now as the legislation is not to come into effect for another 12 months, and its prospective benefits are confined to the long run.
No image changes made.
Comments