The government Australian is about to introduce a “world pioneer” legislation to ban social networking sites for all children under the age of 16, with no exceptions if they have parental permission.
The tech giants behind platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X will have only one year from the time the law is passed to figure out how to enforce the strict age limit.
The legislation will be introduced in Parliament during its last two weeks of session this year, as of November 18and could have repercussions worldwide.
“Social media is damaging our children and I want to put a stop to it,” said the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albaneseadding that he had spoken to “thousands of parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles” on the subject.
“They, like me, are very concerned about the safety of our children online,” the Labor politician said. “I want Australian families to know that the government has their backs. I want parents to be able to say: ‘Sorry, mate, that’s against the law’.“.
There will be no exemptions if children already have accounts, nor if their parents or guardians give them permission to use the sites. However, there may be some “exclusions and exemptions” to “make sure there are no unintended consequences,” Albanese said, for example in cases where sites are needed to continue to have access to educational services.
Albanese said children and parents will not be penalized for breaking the rules, Rather, it will be the social networking companies that will face penalties.