The government of Australia just pledged to make an age limit to keep minors safe from the dark side of social media.
The country hopes to turn it into law that states anyone below the age of 16 years cannot access social media. There are also talks about what to do or how to combat the issue in cases where any social media app does not plan on complying.
The Labor Government hopes that all tech giants including Meta, TikTok, and others would be on board and help enforce this age limit. We’re also hearing more about how pressure from the Coalition opposition increases to get the law into the parliament very soon. However, federal trials talking about age assurance tech are yet to begin.
On the other hand, there are also talks about forcing users on social media to go through age verification measures such as biometric scanning. This would use a database under the government’s ownership. It would be up to tech giants how they plan on setting up these processes.
The age limit was confirmed during a press conference involving the Prime Minister yesterday. This is part of the government’s plan to enhance scrutiny on several leading tech apps. There will also be more plans to roll out laws this month. We’ve seen a lot of deliberations on this subject for a while now including what threshold would be appropriate here as some felt 14 to 16 is ideal.
Still, a lot of uncertainty remains and doubts over how to really bring it into action.
A lot of the success of this law would have to do with the social media apps complying and showing how keen they are to prevent youngsters from accessing. After all, without all the reasonable steps taken to bar access, it’s hard to follow the rules.
Also, talks hinted at how those accessing social media apps without meeting the age criteria wouldn’t be punished. Instead, the app that allowed this to happen would be penalized as it didn’t meet the law.
The reasoning for the new laws by Australia is simple. They want young minds to be free from the misogyny content and those having to do with body image. As many studies have proven, the impact on young minds can be dangerous.
Image: DIW-Aigen
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The country hopes to turn it into law that states anyone below the age of 16 years cannot access social media. There are also talks about what to do or how to combat the issue in cases where any social media app does not plan on complying.
The Labor Government hopes that all tech giants including Meta, TikTok, and others would be on board and help enforce this age limit. We’re also hearing more about how pressure from the Coalition opposition increases to get the law into the parliament very soon. However, federal trials talking about age assurance tech are yet to begin.
On the other hand, there are also talks about forcing users on social media to go through age verification measures such as biometric scanning. This would use a database under the government’s ownership. It would be up to tech giants how they plan on setting up these processes.
The age limit was confirmed during a press conference involving the Prime Minister yesterday. This is part of the government’s plan to enhance scrutiny on several leading tech apps. There will also be more plans to roll out laws this month. We’ve seen a lot of deliberations on this subject for a while now including what threshold would be appropriate here as some felt 14 to 16 is ideal.
Still, a lot of uncertainty remains and doubts over how to really bring it into action.
A lot of the success of this law would have to do with the social media apps complying and showing how keen they are to prevent youngsters from accessing. After all, without all the reasonable steps taken to bar access, it’s hard to follow the rules.
Also, talks hinted at how those accessing social media apps without meeting the age criteria wouldn’t be punished. Instead, the app that allowed this to happen would be penalized as it didn’t meet the law.
The reasoning for the new laws by Australia is simple. They want young minds to be free from the misogyny content and those having to do with body image. As many studies have proven, the impact on young minds can be dangerous.
Read next: OpenAI Expands Its Collection of High-Profile Domain Names After Acquiring Chat.com
