Australia will go ahead with a social media ban for people under 16, despite calls from Meta Platforms Inc. To consider shifting responsibility for monitoring usage to app store operators such as Google and Apple.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Friday that all state and territory leaders had signed up to the age restrictions plan, with the government ruling out any exceptions for major services such as Facebook, TikTok or X.
The legislation will be brought before Parliament in the week of 18 November, with a 12-month gap between the date the bill is passed and it comes into force. No information was provided about the personal information required to prove proof of age on social media, or the penalties companies may face for violating the laws. The government also did not provide a comprehensive list of platforms considered social media.
Communications Minister Michele Rolland said that under the new legislation, these services will be classified as “age-restricted.” The minister said the government would review individual websites and online services to determine whether they were subject to the laws, but added that gaming services and messaging apps would likely be exempt.
Australia has a history of dealing with large technology companies that operate social sites, including… Class of 2021 To make dead Facebook And Alphabet Inc Google Pay for news content. More recently, the government clashed with Elon Musk’s X Corp over failure to do so Remove a video From a terrorist attack in Sydney.
Meta’s regional policy manager in Australia, Mia Garlick, said that while the company agreed that young people needed “age-appropriate experiences” on social media, it was important to consider how this could be operationalized in practice.
“The challenge is that the technology is not yet at the level of a perfect solution,” Garlick told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Friday. She added that it would be better if mobile app store providers put age restrictions on their products instead of social media companies.
“If each app is required to implement its own age-appropriate controls, the burden will fall on youth and parents for each of the different apps that youth want to use,” she said.
TikTok and X have not commented on the age restriction policy yet. Apple and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Albanese rejected Meta’s proposal, saying he believed the government had understood its proposal correctly and expected there would be opposition to the new laws.
He said that while the laws were unlikely to completely ban under-16s from online platforms, they would send an important signal.
“We prohibit the purchase of alcoholic beverages for people under the age of 18. Well, I’m sure this weekend there will be an example of someone under the age of 18 getting alcohol. “It doesn’t mean you say: ‘Well, it’s too difficult, let “to be torn apart.”