Social media ban for children younger than 16 introduced in Australia's Parliament
Melbourne (AP): Australia's communications minister introduced a world-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 (USD 33 million) for systemic failures to prevent young children from holding accounts.
“This bill seeks to set a new normative value in society that accessing social media is not the defining feature of growing up in Australia,” Rowland told Parliament.
“There is wide acknowledgement that something must be done in the immediate term to help prevent young teens and children from being exposed to streams of content unfiltered and infinite,” she added.
The bill has wide political support. After it becomes law, the platforms would have one year to work out how to implement the age restriction.
“For too many young Australians, social media can be harmful. Almost two-thirds of 14- to 17-years-old Australians have viewed extremely harmful content online including drug abuse, suicide or self-harm as well as violent material. One quarter have been exposed to content promoting unsafe eating habits,” Rowland said.
Government research found that “95 per cent of Australian care-givers find 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 young people, not punishing or isolating them, and letting parents know that we're in their corner when it comes to supporting their children's health and wellbeing,” Rowland said.
Child 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 support 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 encourage near-endless engagement,” Rowland said.
The government announced last week that a consortium led by British company Age Check Certification Scheme has been contracted to examine various technologies to estimate 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 certain age.
Rowland said the platforms would also face fines of up to AUD 50 million (USD 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 Group Inc., an advocate for the digital industry in Australia, described the age limit as a “20th century response to 21st century challenges.”
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Vinod Tawde seeks apology from Kharge, Rahul through legal notice, warns of defamation lawsuit
Cash-for-vote row
New Delhi, Nov 22: BJP leader Vinod Tawde has demanded an apology from Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi for making "false and baseless" allegations against him in the cash-for-votes incident in Maharashtra, saying if they don't he would sue them for defamation.
Tawde was accused by Bahujan Vikas Aghadi, a regional party, of distributing Rs 5 crore to woo voters, with its members barging into a hotel room on November 19 in a Mumbai suburb, where the BJP leader was present.
The former Maharashtra minister and BJP national general secretary claimed innocence, saying the alleged amount was not recovered in the probe by the Election Commission and police.
"The Congress only believes in spreading lies, and this incident is a proof of the party's low level politics to dent me and my party's image," Tawde said.
The two Congress leaders and the party spokesperson Supriya Shrinate seized on the row to accuse the BJP of using money power to influence the November 20 assembly polls in the state.
The legal notice sent to the three claimed that they were aware that they were pushing a "totally false story fabricated" by them.
"You all have deliberately, mischievously with the sole intention of damaging the reputation of our client intentionally fabricated the story distribution of money. You all have published false, baseless allegations against our client on various media for tarnishing his image in the eyes of right thinking people in the society," the notice read.
The Congress leaders were in a "great hurry" to damage Tawde's reputation, they did not bother to check the fact and or despite knowing the entire fact they made the false, baseless allegations, it said.
"The entire imputation made by you all are totally false, baseless, malicious and mala fide and as our client is in no way involved in any such illegal activity and as a responsible office bearer of the national political party he is aware of his duties," it added.
The notice demanded an "unconditional apology" to Tawde within 24 hours from the time the receipt of the notice, which was sent on November 21, and published in newspapers and X.
If they do not offer apology, then Tawde will initiate criminal proceedings under Section 356, which covers defamation, of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and also civil proceedings for the damages of Rs 100 crore against the three Congress leaders, the notice said.
