CHILDREN could be left with no social media as a major crackdown hopes to ban underage users in Australia.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese plans to set a minimum age limit for children to use social media as he goes to war with X boss Elon Musk and Meta mogul Mark Zuckerberg.
Platforms such as YouTube and TikTok could also be blacklisted.
Citing concerns about mental and physical health and cyber-bullying, the PM said his centre-left government would run a pin verification trial before introducing any official laws this year.
Albanese, who has previously criticised Musk and Zuckerberg for not doing enough to safeguard their platforms, didn’t specify the age limit but said it would likely be between 14 and 16.
He told the Australian Broadcasting Corp: “I want to see kids off their devices and onto the footy fields and the swimming pools and the tennis courts.
“We want them to have real experiences with real people because we know that social media is causing social harm.”
The law would put Australia among the first countries in the world to impose an age restriction on social media.
But it has already sparked a backlash from digital rights advocates who warn the measure could drive dangerous online activity underground.
Previous attempts, including by the European Union, have failed following complaints about reducing the online rights of minors.
Musk’s X, then known as Twitter, beat the Australian government in court in June after it attempted to remove footage of a Sydney church stabbing, US outlet Benzinga reports.
The Tesla boss at the time stressed the value of “freedom of speech” after the lawsuit was dropped.
With the intention of holding large social media companies accountable for their decisions, the Australian government announced in May a legislative investigation into the workings of many prominent platforms, such as Facebook, X, and TikTok.
Daniel Angus, director of the Queensland University of Technology Digital Media Research Centre, said of the latest plans: “This knee-jerk move … threatens to create serious harm by excluding young people from meaningful, healthy participation in the digital world, potentially driving them to lower quality online spaces.”
Australia‘s own internet regulator, the eSafety Commissioner, warned in a June submission to the inquiry that “restriction-based approaches may limit young people’s access to critical support” and push them to “less regulated non-mainstream services”.
The commissioner said in a statement on Tuesday it would “continue working with stakeholders across government and the community to further refine Australia’s approach to online harms,” which can “threaten safety across a range of platforms at any age, both before and after the mid-teen years”.
I want to see kids off their devices and onto the footy fields and the swimming pools and the tennis courts
Anthony Albanese
DIGI, an industry body representing social media platforms, said the government should listen to “expert voices” in the matter such as the eSafety Commissioner and mental health experts.
It also mentioned “LGBTQIA+ and other marginalised groups who have expressed concerns about bans so that we’re not unintentionally pushing our kids into unsafe, less visible parts of the Internet”.
Zuckerberg’s Meta, meanwhile, has a self-imposed minimum age of 13.
The company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, says it wants to empower young people to benefit from its platforms and equip parents with the tools to support them “instead of just cutting off access”.
X, formerly Twitter, requires users to be at least 13 years old to create an account.
This is a common minimum age requirement for social media platforms, largely due to regulations like the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the United States.
In the European Union, however, due to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), some services might require users to be at least 16 years old unless parental consent is provided.
X also has stricter policies for users who want to access certain types of content, such as sensitive media or adult content, which may require users to be 18 or older.
In Australia, X maintains the same general policy as in most other regions, with 13 being the minimum age.
