Social media companies will be made to boot children off their platforms with new government plan

October 10

Social media companies would be made to boot children off their platforms and make sure they stay off under the government’s plan to legislate a minimum age for access.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland will reveal on Friday the legislation promised before the end of the year will put the onus for the ban on platforms, not parents or young people.

She said the aim was to put a handbrake on the harms from social media.

“This is about protecting young people, not punishing or isolating them or their parents,” she said.

“It is letting parents know that we are in their corner when it comes to supporting their children’s health and wellbeing.”

The Government is consulting with State and territory leaders about the ban in a bid to land a nationally consistent approach.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has asked leaders for their views on what age the threshold should be set, whether young people who already have accounts should be allowed to keep them and what the impact of forcing them offline might be.

Ms Rowland will use a speech to a social media summit on Friday hosted by the SA and NSW governments to outline how the Commonwealth is likely to make the age limit a reality.

It expects to insert a social media age limit into the existing Online Safety Act, which would give the eSafety Commissioner powers for oversight and enforcement.

There would be a year-long phase-in and the Government is considering how to exempt platforms that can demonstrate they pose only a low risk of harming children.

“The aim is to create positive incentives for digital platforms to develop age-appropriate versions of their apps,” Ms Rowland will say.

“We are conscious of the harmful features in the design of platforms that drive addictive behaviours.

“In legislating a minimum age to access social media, we are laying the challenge at the front door of social media companies to do better.”

Instagram announced last month it would create “teen accounts” for anyone aged between 13 and 16 with strict privacy settings and automatic “sleep” limits on nighttime notifications.

But new research eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant released on Thursday found about 1.3 million Australian children aged between 8 and 12 — 84 per cent of them — had used social media or messaging services in the past year despite supposedly being too young to sign up for accounts.

In almost three-quarters of cases, parents had helped the child sign up for the social media account.

Both major parties agree on banning children from social media, but elsewhere the Government is limbering up for the fights it wants to pick with the Coalition in the federal election.

A new Labor-dominated committee examining the cost, legality and risks of nuclear power was set up on Thursday with the ability to hold public hearings and report “from time to time”.

Hunter MP Dan Repacholi — whose seat would be home to a nuclear power plant under the Coalition’s policy — will chair the committee which also includes Swan MP Zaneta Mascarenhas.

Coalition backbenchers in previous terms showed the power of using committee hearings to abolish an opposition policy, with the pattern set ahead of the 2019 election when Labor’s franking credits policy was painted as a tax on pensioners.

The Government has also put up a bill to ensure the NBN remains in public ownership — despite no one talking about selling it off.

Shadow communications minister David Coleman labelled the move “just a comical and kind of sad stunt”, saying Mr Albanese “bowled this up as some attempt to change the subject”.

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Pelican News

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