Australia is set to become the first country in the world to impose a blanket ban on social media (SNS) use by teenagers. As concern grows globally over the harms of social media, attention is on whether such age limits will spread to other countries.
On the 1st (local time), Bloomberg reported that Australia will enforce a law restricting the age for SNS use starting on the 10th. Under the law, teenagers under 16 will not be able to create or maintain an account without regard to parental consent, and platforms that fail to properly verify users' ages will face fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars (about 47.7 billion won).
The move began with a proposal from the wife of South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas. After reading social psychologist Jonathan Haidt's "Anxious Generation" last year, Malinauskas argued that excessive use of social media and smartphones by teenagers is causing an unprecedented mental health crisis and proposed in September last year introducing state-level age limits for SNS.
Since then, parents who lost children to "cyberbullying" joined the push, and the move to restrict SNS by age spread nationwide. After the Australian government formalized the introduction of an SNS age limit, Meta, which operates Instagram and Facebook, already said it would delete underage accounts starting on the 4th.
Bloomberg said, "Young users are a very important core user group for big tech corporations," adding, "From Jakarta to Copenhagen to Brasília, policymakers in multiple countries are closely watching how Australia implements the system and preparing measures to protect young users in their own countries."
Recently, the European Union (EU) Parliament also passed, by an overwhelming margin, a resolution to limit SNS use to those 16 and older. While the resolution is not legally binding, it urges sanctions against those responsible at platforms that repeatedly violate EU rules related to protecting minors online.
Other countries are also joining the move to restrict SNS by age. Brazil plans to require starting in March next year that children under 16 may maintain only SNS accounts linked to their legal guardians, and Malaysia Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil likewise said he will ban accounts for children under 16 starting next year.
Danish lawmakers also recently agreed to ban SNS access for those under 15. However, 13- to 14-year-olds will be allowed to use it as an exception with parental consent. Denmark's Digital Minister Caroline Stage Olsen said, "The goal is to establish broader SNS rules that apply across the EU."
How effective SNS age limits will be remains uncertain. According to research firm eMarketer (EMarketer), about 1 in 10 social media users in the United States is under 18, and in populous emerging countries like Brazil, under-18 users make up nearly 1 in 5. Bloomberg reported, "Technology experts warn that teenagers are likely to find ways to circumvent the rules."