Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday said that the government would call for a social media ban for children of age 16 or less. While addressing a news conference, Albanese said, "Social media is doing harm to our kids and I'm calling time on it." He then added saying that the legislation would be in effect a year after it is passed by lawmakers.
PM Albanese also announced that the proposed law won't allow for any exemptions for users due to parental consent.
"The onus will be on social media platforms to demonstrate they are taking reasonable steps to prevent access," he continued. "The onus won't be on parents or young people."
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Some social media platforms do have the rules barring anyone under the age of 14 from joining, however the policy is difficult to enforce.
"I want parents to be able to say, 'Sorry mate, it's against the law for me to let you do this."
The Australian government had previously discussed about introducing the law that would ban children from using social media by the end of this year. However, the government had mentioned earlier that they won't commit to a specified cut-off age until a verification technology trial was complete.
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How The Law Would Impact Social Media Platforms
Under the suggested changes, the social media giants will have to enforce the specified age limit, rather than parents.
"We don't argue that the changes that we will be legislating will fix everything immediately," the Australian PM said.
"We have laws, such as people can't buy alcohol if they are under 18, and from time to time that can be broken-but those laws set the parameters of our society," he added.