Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced plans to ban social media for all Australians under the age of 16. Social media companies would be responsible for imposing restriction technologies to ban new early-teen users. But similar proposals, including those in the U.S., have shown that such prescriptive bans do little to protect young teens and often violate their privacy.
Opposition toward a potential ban was already mounting before Albanese announced the proposal. Last month, 140 Australian international academics signed an open letter opposing a social media age limit. Among the group's concerns was the potential to hurt children's "opportunity to benefit from engaging with the digital environment" and that "there are not yet effective techniques for age assurance nor to verify parental consent."
