Australian government passes social media ban for children under 16

THE AUSTRALIAN SENATE has passed a social media ban for young children that will soon become a world-first law.

The law will make platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram liable for fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars (€31 million) for systemic failures to prevent children younger than 16 from holding accounts.

The Senate passed the bill 34 votes to 19 on Thursday. The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the legislation 102 votes to 13 on Wednesday.

The House has yet to endorse opposition amendments made in the Senate, but that is a formality since the government has already agreed they will pass.

The platforms will have one year to work out how they could implement the ban before penalties are enforced.

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Lawmakers in the Australian House of Representatives who were not aligned with either the government or the opposition were most critical of the legislation during debate on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Critics of the proposed ban say that the legislation had been rushed through Parliament without adequate scrutiny, would not work, would create privacy risks for users of all ages and would take away parents’ authority to decide what is best for their children.

Critics also argue the ban would isolate children, deprive them of positive aspects of social media, drive children to the dark web, make children too young for social media reluctant to report harms they encountered and take away incentives for platforms to make online spaces safer.

Independent lawmaker Zoe Daniel said the legislation would “make zero difference to the harms that are inherent to social media”.

“The true object of this legislation is not to make social media safe by design, but to make parents and voters feel like the government is doing something about it,” Ms Daniel told Parliament.

“There is a reason why the government parades this legislation as world-leading, that’s because no other country wants to do it,” she added.

The platforms had asked for the vote on legislation to be delayed until at least June next year when a government-commissioned evaluation of age assurance technologies made its report on how the ban could been enforced.