Prime Minister says 16 should be the minimum age for children to use social media

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Australian government has confirmed it wants to ban children under the age of 16 from using social media. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he'll meet with state and territory leaders tomorrow to discuss the change.

Transcript

00:00The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has made it clear that the onus would be on social

00:07media companies, not young users or their parents, and that's where the penalties would

00:12apply as well to social media companies rather than parents and users.

00:17Now, the driver behind this for the Prime Minister is that he says social media can

00:22cause harm to young people and he wants to look to eliminate that.

00:26Now, some of the details of the plan is that it won't be grandfathered, which does imply

00:32that if you're a young person on social media, say 13 or 14 at the moment, once this law

00:38becomes law in 12 months' time, which is the plan, then you will be banned from social

00:43media and the Prime Minister says there won't be exemptions.

00:47So even if your parents consent to you using social media, this law won't allow it.

00:53The onus will be on social media platforms to demonstrate they are taking reasonable

00:58steps to prevent access.

01:00The onus won't be on parents or young people.

01:03There will be no penalties for users.

01:06The East Safety Commissioner will provide oversight and enforcement.

01:10Now, the government has also been looking to trial some age assurance technology.

01:16So it's put $6.5 million towards that, it's put out a tender and we are expecting to find

01:23out in coming days which company will run that trial and exactly how it will work and

01:29the federal government says that will be used to sort of inform how this age restriction

01:35can be implemented to stop young people using social media.

01:40Now, another driver behind this is there's certainly been a big media campaign across

01:44newspapers and radio, as I said, because people have warned about the harms of social media.

01:52But it'll be interesting to see how kids react to this news today because we have also

01:57heard from some experts in this space that have previously said they didn't think the

02:02ban was the way to go and instead it was better to inform young people on sort of how to best

02:08navigate with the world online.

02:11So what will happen now is the Prime Minister will take this plan to National Cabinet tomorrow.

02:17He'll meet online with state and territory leaders and look to get some sort of uniformity

02:22across the country.

02:24Then later this month, the Prime Minister and the Communications Minister will look

02:28to introduce this legislation to Parliament.

02:30The plan is to make it law for 12 months' time, that's when it would be enforced, the

02:36PM says.

02:38And we have heard previously from the Coalition here in Canberra that it does want to see

02:42that age limit in place as well.

02:44It had been saying if a Dutton government is elected at the next election, it would

02:49enforce an age limit as a priority as well.

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