The Australian government has passed landmark legislation banning children under the age of 16 from accessing social media platforms. The law, which targets major services such as TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat, places the onus of enforcement on tech giants rather than parents or young users. Companies that fail to take reasonable steps to prevent underage accounts face substantial financial penalties. The legislation includes a one-year implementation period to allow platforms to trial and deploy appropriate age-verification technologies.
- The Australian parliament approved a world-first law banning children under 16 from social media platforms.
- Social media companies face fines of up to AUD 50 million (approximately USD 32.5 million) for systemic failures to enforce the age limit.
- The ban targets platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and X, while exempting messaging services and educational tools.
- Tech companies have been granted a one-year transition period to trial and implement effective age-verification systems.
- The law places the responsibility of compliance entirely on the platforms, ensuring that parents and underage users will not face penalties.
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What is the best way to protect children on social media?
They should close down the social media sites
Politicians underestimate our children. They know full well how to work around the ban, the increase in penalties to big tech is always nice to put more money in the government coffers but it is not the solution to keeping kids safe.
Parents shouldn't allow kids to have phones in the first place, or computers in their rooms.
During World War I, the US did not participate in the war, but only sold weapons, which is why the US became wealthy. Now, if the US wants to be great, it should stay out of the war and only sell weapons.
It is possible to ban kids 16 below from using social media, you can only use or download the app if you pay a certain amount that a 16 year old can not pay, or prevent the app from being downloaded from google or app store, impose a fine of 5k Australian money for violators