Australia Plans to Set Age Limits for Social Media

Australia|Australia Plans to Bar Young Children From Social Media

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia on Monday took to his social media accounts to announce that his government wants to set a minimum age to use social media platforms, like TikTok and Instagram, in a move he said was designed to reduce online risks for children.

“It’s about supporting parents and keeping kids safe,” Mr. Albanese said in a post on X.

For now, the government is considering setting the minimum age on children as old as 16, Mr. Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the national broadcaster, on Tuesday. Another option would be to set the age limit slightly lower, perhaps down to 14 years old.

The government, he added, will introduce legislation later this year and test age-verification technology.

If Australia enacts such a law, it would be one of the first governments to forbid young children from using social media. Earlier this year, Florida barred children under 14 from social media.

Instagram and Facebook, which are owned by Meta, TikTok and other social media platforms typically require individuals to be at least 13 to sign up for their services. But millions of underage children have been able to set up accounts for these services by providing a false date of birth.

There is broad political will in Australia to set age limits for social media — the main opposition party said earlier this year that it wanted to restrict social media to people 16 and over. But some experts said these restrictions proposed could backfire.

“Banning some social media platforms like Meta or TikTok would drive audiences to other platforms that are less regulated and less safe,” said Daniel Angus, the director of the Digital Media Research Centre at the Queensland University of Technology, in eastern Australia.

Toby Murray, an associate professor of computing and information systems at the University of Melbourne, said that social media platforms are often where young teens find a community of their peers. Depriving them of that outlet, he said, would risk cutting off young users in marginalized groups from accessing people like them.

Mr. Albanese emphasized that staying off online platforms could enrich children’s lives. “I want kids to have a childhood. I want them off their devices and onto the footy field and onto the netball courts,” he said in a video, referring to sports popular in Australia.

Meta declined to comment, and TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In 2021, Australia enforced groundbreaking regulations on internet companies that pushed the likes of Google and Facebook to sign licensing agreements with news publishers.