Australia has made history by becoming the first country to implement a nationwide ban on social media platforms for children under the age of 16. The legislation, approved by the Australian Parliament on Friday, aims to safeguard the mental and physical health of young people.
The ban is set to take effect 12 months after its ratification. Although no platform has been specified, tech giants such as Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X were among those mentioned to be subject to these new regulations.
To enforce the ban, the Australian government said it plans to use some form of age-verification system, potentially using biometric or government identification methods, with the responsibility falling on social media platforms to implement these procedures.
Australia’s approach to regulating social media use among young people is significantly stricter than that of other countries. France has a similar ban that blocks social media access to children under 15 with parental consent exemptions. Meanwhile, the United States has primarily focused on data privacy protections for children.
It remains to be seen if the ban can effectively limit the use of social media among young people. The France ban mentioned above saw users resorting to using VPNs to get around the restriction.
