Australia Latest Country to Impose Ban on Social Media for Children

A photo illustration of the TikTok app on a phone in New York City on March 13, 2024. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The Australian government has promised to bring in new laws this year to ban social media for children as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called it a “scourge.”

Albanese said Australia would trial age verification technology with a view to banning children from opening social media accounts.

He said the minimum age would be somewhere between 14 and 16, although this has not been confirmed yet.

Several countries and U.S. states are planning to legislate against children using social media platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X, and Facebook, amid global concerns about bullying and viewing of inappropriate material.

Albanese, who became prime minister in 2022, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that harmful social media “is a scourge.”

“We know that there is mental health consequences for what many of the young people have had to deal with. The bullying that can occur online, the access to material which causes social harm, and parents are wanting a response,” said Albanese, who is 61 and has a 22-year-old son.

“We’ve committed to introducing legislation before the end of this year for age verification to make sure that we get young people away from this social harm.

“I want to see kids off their devices and onto the footy fields and the swimming pools and the tennis courts. We want them to have real experiences with real people because we know that social media is causing social harm.”

The Labor government in Canberra announced the ban after opposition Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton promised in June to introduce a ban on social media for children within 100 days of winning next May’s general election.

Several countries have been trialing ways of restricting social media use by children, but they have faced legal and technological challenges.

Virtual private networks, which disguise a user’s location, make age verification difficult.

‘This Is a Global Issue’

Albanese said Australia was not alone.

“This is a global issue that governments around the globe are trying to deal with ... we know that it’s not simple and it’s not easy, otherwise governments would have responded before,” he said.

Lisa Given, an information technology expert at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, said the Australian government’s move could be a double-edged sword.

She said: “This is actually a very problematic move. This is a very blunt instrument that’s going to potentially exclude children from some very, very helpful supports on social media.”

A federal ban by the Australian government would supersede bans which are being proposed by several states.

South Australia recently proposed a law that would fine social media companies that did not exclude children under 14 from their platforms, and New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has also proposed a ban, although he supports an age limit of 16.

In the United States, the Biden administration has not proposed a federal ban on children using social media, but in May, the lower house of the Alaska Legislature passed a bill requiring age verification to access pornography websites and banning social media accounts for children under 14.

Republican state Rep. Sarah Vance said in a statement, “This premature exposure not only accelerates the sexualization of young minds but also exacerbates issues such as school bullying and fosters unrealistic self-expectations, demanding immediate legislative action.”

In January, Florida’s House passed a bill that would prohibit anyone younger than 16 from using social media platforms regardless of parental consent.

DeSantis Vetoed Florida Bill

The bill was later vetoed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Last year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill that banned anyone under the age of 18 from joining social media platforms without their parents’ consent.

(Left) An undated image of Scarlett Jenkinson; (Right) An undated image of Eddie Ratcliffe. Jenkinson and Ratcliffe were convicted of the murder of Brianna Ghey in Culcheth Linear Park, near Warrington, England, on Feb. 11, 2023. Cheshire Police

In the UK, the mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey called for children’s smartphones to have social media deleted from them after it emerged that one of her daughter’s killers, 15-year-old Scarlett Jenkinson, had viewed live torture on the dark web on her phone.

In July, shortly after winning the general election, the UK’s new Labour prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, ruled out the idea of banning mobile phones for under-16s but said he would explore ways to control content accessibility for children.

“All parents and everybody across the country is concerned about what can actually be accessed on a phone,” Keir said.

In May, a report by the UK’s parliamentary education committee found there had been a 52 percent increase in children’s screen time between 2020 and 2022 and that nearly 25 percent of children and young people used their smartphones in a way that was consistent with a behavioral addiction.

France introduced legislation in July 2023 that requires social network service providers to refuse access to children under 15 without their parents’ approval.

Earlier this year, French President Emmanuel Macron said in a speech at Paris’s Sorbonne University that he would like to see Europe create a “digital majority” of 15.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.