A social media ban for children younger than 16 is introduced in Australia’s Parliament

MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia’s communications minister introduced a globe-first law into Parliament on Thursday that would ban children younger than 16 from social media, saying online safety was one of parents’ toughest challenges.

Michelle Rowland said TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram were among the platforms that would face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to prevent youthful children from holding accounts.

“This statement seeks to set a recent normative worth in population that accessing social media is not the defining characteristic of growing up in Australia,” Rowland told Parliament.

“There is wide acknowledgement that something must be done in the immediate term to assist prevent youthful teens and children from being exposed to streams of content unfiltered and infinite,” she added.

The statement has wide political back. After it becomes law, the platforms would have one year to work out how to implement the age restriction.

“For too many youthful Australians, social media can be harmful. Almost two-thirds of 14- to 17-years-ancient Australians have viewed extremely harmful content online including drug abuse, suicide or self-damage as well as violent material. One quarter have been exposed to content promoting unsafe eating habits,” Rowland said.

Government research found that “95% of Australian worry-givers discover online safety to be one of their toughest parenting challenges,” she said.

Social media had a social responsibility and could do better in addressing harms on their platforms, she said.

“This is about protecting youthful people, not punishing or isolating them, and letting parents recognize that we’re in their corner when it comes to supporting their children’s health and wellbeing,” Rowland said.

kid welfare and internet experts have raised concerns about the ban, including isolating 14- and 15-year-olds from their already established online social networks.

Rowland said there would not be age restrictions placed on messaging services, online games or platforms that substantially back the health and education of users.

“We are not saying risks don’t exist on messaging apps or online gaming. While users can still be exposed to harmful content by other users, they do not face the same algorithmic curation of content and psychological manipulation to inspire near-endless engagement,” Rowland said.

The government announced last week that a consortium led by British business Age Check Certification Scheme has been contracted to examine various technologies to approximate and verify ages.

In addition to removing children under 16 from social media, Australia is also looking for ways to prevent children under 18 from accessing online pornography, a government statement said.

Age Check Certification Scheme’s chief executive Tony Allen said Monday the technologies being considered included age estimation and age inference. Inference involves establishing a series of facts about individuals that point to them being at least a sure age.

Rowland said the platforms would also face fines of up to AU$50 million ($33 million) if they misused personal information of users gained for age-assurance purposes.

Information used for age assurances must be destroyed after serving that purpose unless the user consents to it being kept, she said.

Digital Industry throng Inc., an advocate for the digital industry in Australia, described the age limit as a “20th century response to 21st century challenges.”