Late Thursday night, the world-first legislation passed to ban social media for children and teenagers under 16.
It’s a strong move from the Albanese Government, which passed the law on the final day of parliament for the year.
Although the bill was backed by 77 per cent of Australians, the Australian Human Rights Commission claimed that the government rushed the legislation through “without taking the time to get the details right. Or even knowing how the ban will work in practice”.
Regardless of the criticisms, the laws are officially in motion now that they’ve been passed 34 votes to 19 in the Senate. However, the legislation won’t take effect for at least 12 months.
This gives the government time to work out which platforms are included in the ban, and tech companies time to implement technologies that limit under 16-year-olds from accessing social media services.
But, what happens if kids under 16 DO access social media?
Aside from ‘how on earth will this ban work?’, the main question is what happens to kids, or parents, who access social media under age? After all, there’s nothing more teenager-esque than breaking the rules.
According to the new legislation, nothing happens to children — or parents of children — who access banned social media services. Instead, the repercussions fall to the tech giants, who could be fined up to $50 million if they don’t take “reasonable steps” to keep people under 16 off their platforms.
As it stands, there are still a lot of questions surrounding how the bill will work when it does spring into action next year. This includes how social media sites will verify age and whether a digital duty of care will be imposed on tech companies through further legislation.
Until then, we’ll have to sit tight and see how it all unfolds. I, for one, feel blessed that I am over 16 years of age so I can watch bonkers social media things like Talking Talk Tuah and the entire press run of Wicked.
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