As various governments consider imposing restrictions on social media access, the Australian government is moving to the next stage with its new social media age limit legislation, which will see users under 16 banned from using any social media app in the nation.
Though the specifics here remain opaque, despite the government looking to lock in new regulations as soon as possible.
This week, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the next stage of Australia’s teen social media restrictions, explaining that:
“Social media is doing harm to our kids, and I’m calling time on it. I’ve spoken to thousands of parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles. They, like me, are worried sick about the safety of our kids online, and I want Australian parents and families to know that the government has your back.”
Albanese says that young people are being exposed to harmful depictions of body image and behavior online, which is having real world impacts. And as such, young people need to be limited in their access to such.
Albanese admits that the new laws, which will face a final vote this week, won’t stop all youngsters from accessing all social media apps. But he compares these new age limits to alcohol restrictions, which kids are sometimes still able to subvert.
“The laws set the parameters for our society, and they assist in ensuring the right outcomes.”
The laws look set to secure final approval from Parliament shortly, however some key gaps remain in Australia’s regulatory and enforcement approach.
The main challenge lies in restricting access, and the enforcement of such, given the many vectors to kids to access social media content online.
The proposed policy puts the onus on the platforms themselves to enforce age limits, and to put systems in place to stop youngsters from accessing their apps. However, social platforms already have age limits for access, and those are often subverted by underage users.
And while the platforms are working on new processes to improve this (Instagram announced just last week that it’s now using AI to detect underage users), given that there’s no foolproof system to limit such, it’ll be difficult for the Australian Government to implement penalties for the same.
Australia’s eSafety Office is reportedly exploring new age detection measures to assist in enforcement, though nothing has been officially tabled as yet. And without an agreed external measure for such, it does seem like the platforms themselves will have a strong argument to counter any punishments under this new law.
There’s also a question as to which platforms will qualify, and which will be excluded under this policy. The government has specifically tagged Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube at this stage, though questions will be raised over whether Pinterest, for example, should also be included, or Reddit, which is a social platform, but has far fewer active users.
There will also be rising apps which pose similar risks, and will likely see bigger take-up among teens as a result of this push, and if the legislation relies on a user count threshold, or for platforms to be specifically named in the documentation, that could also pose challenges to enforcement.
Essentially, without agreed, enforceable measures in place, this is unlikely to be an effective deterrent to teen social media engagement, and will more likely push teens to more private sharing platforms, where exposure could be just as risky.
Indeed, while Snapchat, for example, is a key connector for teens, if Snap’s forced to enact more measures to block younger users from its app, those users will just move to WhatsApp instead, or some other new player that’s outside the range of the legislation. WhatsApp’s age limit is 13, but again, there’s no perfect system to stop youngsters getting online. And if teens have to set up new networks to align with these rules, they will, likely in secure, encrypted chats that the government has no way of accessing.
So while I understand the intent of this push, and the need for measures to protect young users, I don’t see how this is going to be effective.
But then again, the alternative is to do nothing, and let youngsters keep facing potential harms in social apps. In that sense, it’s good that governments are exploring their options.
But given the important role that social platforms play for teens, and enabling their social connections, they’ll find a way to stay connected, one way or another.
