Why Is Australia Banning Social Media For Under 16

With technology advancing at a rapid speed from the last decade, there is access to the internet all over the globe 24/7 and all year long and with this, at the same time there is access to social media as well at any time of the day. However, is this availability of internet and social media good for teenagers and young kids, who don’t understand the difference between right and wrong well and still in an immature age? Let’s find out this by briefly understanding the recent law passed by the Australian government banning social media for Australian citizens, who are under 16 years of age.

Social Media is Banned for Under 16: Why Australia Took This Step?

On Nov. 28, Thursday, the Australian government passed one of the toughest regulations. The Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the decision of the Australian government to ban social media for kids under the age of 16. This decision was a big controversial one but has set a very high benchmark for all the jurisdictions around the globe.

The law is basically stopping the minors (kids below the age of 16) and fine them with about $49.5 million if they illegally log in in the social media apps like instagram, tiktok, facebook, etc. The tech giants of these apps have to deny or stop the access to the kids below the said age.

The Australian government has given a timeline of starting the trial of methods to enforce this law by the start of January, 2025 and planning to make it full proof in the same year.

This bill is basically passed with clear goals of protecting and reducing the harmful impacts to the young kids and teenagers caused by the social media usage and unlimited access. By this bill, no kid under the age of 16 could access a social media account if their I’d is of below the age of 16 thus, without their parents then can’t access any social media app.

If the bill passes in its full range and becomes a permanent law in Australia, then all the social media apps need to verify their Australian user through biometrics and deny their access to any social media platform if their age is below 16.

With this, many country’s governments have given support to this step while somewhere not so happy with the same. Many social media app owners also showed mixed reaction and expressed various concerns like some apps including youtube are widely used by school and kids for the study purpose and the ban could lead to making the kids who genuinely used the app for study purpose to not be able to do so. Some showed concern regarding the proper legislation management and an appropriate implementation.

How the Civilians are Reacting Over This Sudden Step by the Government?

The reactions of the local citizens regarding this law is mixed and the civilians are basically divided in two reaction groups, with one in favour while the other is against it.

One group is stating how social media helps many vulnerable and minor groups like LGBTQIA and migrant teenagers to make and participate in various support groups with the help of social media apps. The Australian Human Rights Commission said that this ban could make these groups to be more away from social acceptance and feeling involved with the rest of the world, thus making them more isolated and vulnerable.

On the other hand, many patent groups supported the law and stated how social media affects the children’s mental health and makes them less productive.

An Australian anti-bullying advocate Ali Halkic states that- “Putting an age limit and giving the control back to the parents, I think it’s a starting point.” Halkic’s 17 year old son took his own life in 2009, because of cyber or social media bullying.

With this, many teenagers showed mixed reaction by giving statements like, “It will only create a generation of young people who will be more technologically literate in bypassing these walls,” and “We all know social media isn’t good for us but the social media ban generally sees a lot of young people who are strongly against it.” While some said, social media has contributed to increasing their body image issues and insecurities.