Australia Tables Bill in Parliament to Ban Social Media for Kids Under 16

Australia's centre-left government on Thursday introduced a bill in parliament that aims to ban social media for children under 16 and proposed fines of up to A$49.5 million ($32 million) for social media platforms for systemic breaches. Australia plans to trial an age-verification system that may include biometrics or government identification to enforce a social media age cut-off, some of toughest controls imposed by any country to date.

proposals are highest age limit set by any country, and would have no exemption for parental consent and no exemption for pre-existing accounts. "This is a landmark reform. We know some kids will find workarounds, but we're sending a message to social media companies to clean up ir act," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement.

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opposition Liberal party plans to support bill though independents and Green party have demanded more details on proposed law, which would impact Meta Platforms' Instagram and Facebook, ByteDance's TikTok and Elon Musk's X and Snapchat.

But Albanese said children will have access to messaging, online gaming, and health and education related services, such as youth mental health support platform Hespace, and Alphabet's, opens new tab Google Classroom and YouTube.

Albanese-led Labor government has been arguing excessive use of social media poses risks to physical and mental health of children, in particular risks to girls from harmful depictions of body image, and misogynist content aimed at boys.

A number of countries have alrey vowed to curb social media use by children through legislation, but Australia's policy is one of most stringent.

France last year proposed a ban on social media for those under 15 but users were able to avoid ban with parental consent. United States has for deces required technology companies to seek parental consent to access data of children under 13.

"For too many young Australians, social media can be harmful. Almost two-thirds of 14 to 17-year-old Australians have viewed extremely harmful content online, including drug abuse, suicide or self-harm," Communications Minister Michelle Rowland told parliament on Thursday.

law would force social media platforms, and not parents or young people, to take reasonable steps to ensure age-verification protections are in place. proposed law will contain robust privacy provisions, including requiring platforms to destroy any information collected to safeguard personal data of users, Rowland said.

"Social media has a social responsibility ... that's why we are making big changes to hold platforms to account for user safety," Rowland said.