The government of Australia has announced it will ban children from using social media with a minimum age limit as high as 16.
This information was disclosed by the country’s prime minister on Tuesday, September 10, as he vowed to get kids off their devices and ‘onto the footy fields’.
“Federal legislation to keep children off social media will be introduced this year,” Anthony Albanese said, describing the impact of the sites on young people as a ‘scourge’.
“The minimum age for children to log into sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok has not been decided but is expected to be between 14 and 16 years,” Albanese said.
Furthermore, the prime minister said his own preference would be a block on users aged below 16.
“I want to see kids off their devices and onto the footy fields and the swimming pools and the tennis courts, Albanese said.
We want them to have real experiences with real people because we know that social media is causing social harm,’ he told national broadcaster ABC.
This is a scourge. We know that there is mental health consequences for what many of the young people have had to deal with.”
In addition, he said Australia’s conservative opposition leader Peter Dutton said he would support an age limit.
“Every day of delay leaves young kids vulnerable to the harms of social media and the time for relying on tech companies to enforce age limits,’ he said.
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“However, it is not clear that the technology exists to reliably enforce such bans,” said the University of Melbourne’s associate professor in computing and information technology, Toby Murray.
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