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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40 booked for vandalising polling booths, EVMs during assembly poll voting in Maharashtra's Beed
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (PTI): Police have registered a case against around 40 persons after they allegedly vandalised three polling booths at Ghatnandur in Maharashtra's Beed district and damaged some EVMs when voting for the assembly polls was underway a day ago, officials said.
Some police personnel were injured in the attack by the accused, who carried wooden sticks and sharp-edged weapons with them, they said.
The case was registered at Ambajogai Rural police station, around 220 km from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, for the incidents that occurred at Ghatnandur in Parli assembly constituency, an official said.
Polling for the 288-member state legislative assembly was held on Wednesday.
"A video of Madhav Jadhav, a local leader of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), being beaten up at Kanherwadi village in the constituency had earlier gone viral. Following that, 50 to 60 persons came with wooden sticks and weapons, and vandalised the polling booths set up in Someshwar School, a Zilla Parishad (ZP) school and another ZP school for girls around 1.30 pm on Wednesday," the official said.
They also attacked some police personnel guarding the booths, in which they suffered injuries, he said.
Some EVMs at these polling stations were vandalised and the administration quickly got these machines replaced so that voting continues unhindered. Since the votes cast on the replaced machines were safe, they will be counted on the day of results, the collector said on Wednesday.
Based on a complaint, a case was registered against the accused on the charges of attempt to murder, voluntarily causing hurt, use of criminal force against a public servant under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and other sections of the Representation of the People Act, the official added.
