PM to intensify teen social media crackdown ‘leading the world’
Australia’s under-16s social media ban created global headlines – now the government wants to strengthen the laws to stare down legal challenges.
Australia’s world-first teen social media ban will be strengthened to deal with potential legal challenges and improve the powers of the online watchdog.
Nearly eight months since the federal government barred children under 16 from apps like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook, Labor is planning further changes to hold tech giants accountable.
Government sources have confirmed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese plans to announce a beefing-up of the ban within weeks.
“This is leading the world, we should be proud of this,” Albanese told Nine’s Today Show on Friday.
“What we’re looking at doing is any way that we can further strengthen the laws … if there are legal challenges,” he said.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has previously raised concerns about the “thin scaffolding” of the ban and described it as a “very blunt force approach”.
“What I would say is a regulator is only as good as the tools and the resources that they’re given,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age earlier in June.
The social media ban took effect in December, aiming to remove children aged below 16 from online platforms, along with restricting their access to high-impact content like pornography.
The policy has been highly controversial among tech companies, with two separate court challenges lodged by Reddit and a pair of teenagers backed by the Digital Freedom Project.
While the government says millions of social media accounts have been deleted, recent research has shown the ban can be circumvented with relative ease.
As many as 85 per cent of children under 16 reported using social media after the ban took effect, according to a study by researchers at the University of Newcastle published on Wednesday.
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There was little evidence young people were using social media less than they were before the ban, the report found.
Albanese conceded the ban would not block every child from social media but said that was no reason to shy away.
“Friday night, there may well be somewhere in Australia, someone who’s under 18 (getting) access to alcohol in a pub. That doesn’t mean we don’t have those rules and laws in place,” he said.
-with AAP
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