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Australia’s government has proposed a social media ban for children under the age of 16 which experts have described as a “momentous step,” as parents globally call for greater regulation of tech companies.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week said the legislation will be introduced into parliament this year, with the law coming into effect 12 months after it is approved by lawmakers.
The ban is expected to trial age-verification systems to block children from accessing social media sites including Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, Bytedance’s TikTok, and Elon Musk’s X.
Dany Elachi is the co-founder of the Heads Up Alliance, an Australian organization connecting parents who are delaying smartphone and social media use for their children. He told CNBC Make It that it’s “very rewarding” to finally see their efforts being recognized.
“For years, we were derided by online safety educators as being insular and extreme but they had a vested interest in holding such a position. Many of them are in bed with Big Tech,” Elachi said.
“It is parents at the coal face who know the damage that social media is causing our children … We refused to give up on our children, and here we are, on the verge of reclaiming childhood after it had been stolen for 15 years,” he added.
CNBC has contacted TikTok for comment. Other platforms have sought to address the harm social media can do to young peoples’ mental health, with Meta’s Instagram launching “Teen Accounts” in September. For X, users between the ages of 13 to 17 operate under a protected setting which means they cannot be targeted for advertising and their location is turned off by default.
Zach Rausch, an NYU Stern School of Business research scientist and lead researcher on No.1 New York Times bestselling book “The Anxious Generation,” said Australia’s legislation was a “momentous step” and will make Australia a “global leader in protecting kids online.”
He said age restrictions are “common sense” and highlighted that we have them for driving cars and buying alcohol or cigarettes.
The Australian law would see social media platforms held entirely responsible for preventing access to children. Children who breach the law and their parents will not face any penalties.
Parents ‘cannot do it on their own’
Daisy Greenwell, co-founder of U.K.-based Smartphone Free Childhood, said it’s very difficult for parents to manage their children’s social media use on their own.
“Currently all the responsibility to protect kids lies on the shoulders of parents, many of whom are too busy worrying about how to get the next meal on the table to have the bandwidth to figure out the complicated world of parental controls,” Greenwell said.
Greenwell’s Smartphone Free Childhood is one of a number of organizations around the world connecting like-minded parents who are trying to keep their kids off smartphones and social media. Others include Austin-based Wait Until 8th, Unplugged in Canada, and No Es Momento in Mexico.
However, without any laws or regulations, parents say it’s an uphill battle, with their children still facing peer pressure in schools.
“The primary burden of responsibility needs to be on those who develop and sell addictive products, not on the parents and kids who live in a world where these devices are ubiquitous and the pull to use them is hard to resist,” Rausch added.
“Parents are trying, all over the world, and many are failing. They cannot do it on their own unless they lock their children in a room with no web browser.”
‘A 20th-century response to 21st-century challenges’
Not everyone is convinced that an outright social media ban is the best outcome for children, however.
The Digital Industry Group, an Australian not-for-profit organization advocating for the advancement of the digital industry, said in a press release last week that a ban puts young people’s digital literacy skills at risk.
“Keeping young people safe online is a top priority for parents and platforms alike,” Sunita Bose, managing director of DIGI, said in the release.
“But the proposed ban for teenagers to access digital platforms is a 20th-century response to 21st-century challenges. Rather than blocking access through bans, we need to take a balanced approach to create age-appropriate spaces, build digital literacy, and protect young people from online harm.”
Bose pointed out that young people will likely try to access social media anyway, through unregulated means which could result in privacy and security trade-offs.
“Swimming has risks — but we don’t ban young people from the beach, we teach them to swim between the flags. Banning teenagers from social media risks pushing them to dangerous, unregulated parts of the internet and fails to equip them with the valuable digital literacy skills they’ll need for the future,” Bose added.
However, NYU’s Rausch argued that children will still be able to access to the internet and connect with others via Zoom, FaceTime, texting, and calling which will teach them key digital literacy skills without exposing them to addictive “algorithm-driven” social media platforms.
Greenwell agreed, saying youngsters will catch up quickly as social media is designed to be easy to use.
“If you’ve seen the video of a monkey using Instagram, you’ll see that it is designed to be intuitive enough for anyone to learn in a matter of minutes. Young people will do the same once they hit 16 – when their brains are far better equipped to deal with it,” Greenwell said.
“We don’t get kids to practice having sex or drinking alcohol before they’re of age and there’s absolutely no need to for them to practice using social media which is absolutely not designed with their developmentally sensitive brains in mind,” she added.
Antigone Davis, global vice president of safety at Meta, told CNBC Make It in a statement that Meta “respects any age limitations the government wants to introduce” in regards to social media use.
“However, what’s missing is a deeper discussion on how we implement protections, otherwise we risk making ourselves feel better, like we have taken action, but teens and parents will not find themselves in a better place,” Davis said.
“We strongly believe parental approval and age verification at the operating system and app store level will provide a simple and effective solution, while also reducing the burden and privacy risk for parents and teens,” he added.
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