Australia’s social media ban for children under 16 has come a step closer to becoming law as it passes the House of Representatives.
ADVERTISEMENTAustralia’s House of Representatives passed legislation on Wednesday that would ban children under 16 from social media.
The bill passed 102 to 13 and now needs to be finalised by the Senate.
If passed, social media platforms would have one year to work out how to implement the age restrictions before the penalties are enforced.
It would make TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X, and Instagram liable for fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars (€30.4 million) for systemic failures to prevent young children from holding accounts.
Opposition lawmaker Dan Tehan told Parliament the government had agreed to accept amendments in the Senate that would bolster privacy protections.
Platforms would not be allowed to compel users to provide government-issued identity documents including passports or driver’s licenses. The platforms also could not demand digital identification through a government system.
“Will it be perfect? No. But is any law perfect? No, it’s not. But if it helps, even if it helps in just the smallest of ways, it will make a huge difference to people’s lives,” Tehan told Parliament.
Critics of social media ban for children say it’s rushed
Lawmakers who were not aligned with either the government or the opposition were most critical of the legislation during debate on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Criticisms include that the legislation had been rushed through Parliament without adequate scrutiny, would not work, would create privacy risks for users of all ages and would take away parents’ authority to decide what’s best for their children.
Critics also argue the ban would isolate children, deprive them of positive aspects of social media, drive children to the dark web, make children too young for social media reluctant to report harms, and take away incentives for platforms to make online spaces safer.
Independent lawmaker Zoe Daniel said the legislation would “make zero difference to the harms that are inherent to social media”.
“The true object of this legislation is not to make social media safe by design, but to make parents and voters feel like the government is doing something about it,” Daniel told Parliament.
“There is a reason why the government parades this legislation as world-leading, that’s because no other country wants to do it,” she added.
The platforms had asked for the vote on legislation to be delayed until at least June next year when a government-commissioned evaluation of age assurance technologies reports on how the ban could be enforced.
