In a positive move aimed at enhancing the welfare of its minors, Australia has decided to put a minimum age limit on the use of social media and other digital platforms.
The new law addresses online harms affecting adolescents and goes hand in hand with a proposed age assurance trial worth $6.5 million. Such a program will refine the future policy on age verification and other matters, according to the Australian authorities.
Prime Anthony Albanese believes the safety initiative is necessary, saying the young people’s safety and well being comes first. Hence he pointed out that “There is evidence that social media is clearly causing social damage and driving youngsters away from interacting with ‘real’ friends and having real life experiences. Australian youth are better than that, and that’s why I join all Australian parents in fighting to shield our youngsters.
Albanese maintained further “The safety and mental and physical health of our youth is nonnegotiable. For this reason, we are backing parents to protect children by undertaking this measure because enough is enough”.
Following a proposal from Australia’s eSafety regulator, internet companies will have a specific set of guidelines which will be a code to ensure the prevention of children from viewing inappropriate materials including pornography. Failure to measure up to these standards will raise the need for industry self-regulatory practice.
Elsewhere in the world, attempts to adults only social media have also had some challengers being lawsuits and technological limitations such as the use of virtual private networks which disguise a user’s location. These challenges have hindered the effectiveness of incurring the restrictions effectively.
Families were looking for a “true answer” to mitigate children’s online problems, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland underlined. The purpose of the new measures, according to her, is the safe and constructive use of the internet by the youth.
“As a mother of young daughters and Minister for Communications, I completely appreciate fears regarding the exposure of children to harmful online content and social media addiction,” cited Rowland.
She added “We are also holding big tech accountable because platforms and online services have a primary role and responsibility for taking care of all users. We will continue to involve experts and young people as well as advocates and parents through the age assurance trial which is an important stage of this journey.”
The new laws and legislation in Australia represent a definitive and final shift in the protection of Australian children in the age of the internet allowing the focus from the net to be on how to better control children’s use of the internet.
