Australia's House of Representatives passes bill to ban young children from social media

Australias House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill that would ban children younger than 16 years old from social media leaving it to the Senate to finalise the worldfirst law The major parties backed the bill that would make platforms including TikTok Facebook Snapchat Reddit X and Instagram liable for fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars USD 33 million for systemic failures to prevent young children from holding accountsThe legislation was passed with 102 votes in favour to 13 against If the bill becomes law this week the platforms would have one year to work out how to implement the age restrictions before the penalties are enforcedOpposition lawmaker Dan Tehan told Parliament the government had agreed to accept amendments in the Senate that would bolster privacy protections Platforms would not be allowed to compel users to provide governmentissued identity documents including passports or drivers licenses The platforms also could not demand digital identification through a government systemWill it be perfect No But is any law perfect No its not But if it helps even if it helps in just the smallest of ways it will make a huge difference to peoples lives Tehan told Parliament Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the Senate would debate the bill later WednesdayThe major parties support all but guarantees the legislation will be passed by the Senate where no party holds a majority of seats Lawmakers who were not aligned with either the government or the opposition were most critical of the legislation during debate on Tuesday and Wednesday Criticisms include that the legislation had been rushed through Parliament without adequate scrutiny would not work would create privacy risks for users of all ages and would take away parents authority to decide whats best for their childrenCritics also argue the ban would isolate children deprive them of positive aspects of social media drive children to the dark web make children too young for social media reluctant to report harms they encountered and take away incentives for platforms to make online spaces safer Independent lawmaker Zoe Daniel said the legislation would make zero difference to the harms that are inherent to social mediaThe true object of this legislation is not to make social media safe by design but to make parents and voters feel like the government is doing something about it Daniel told Parliament There is a reason why the government parades this legislation as worldleading thats because no other country wants to do it she addedThe platforms had asked for the vote on legislation to be delayed until at least June next year when a governmentcommissioned evaluation of age assurance technologies made its report on how the ban could been enforced Melbourne resident Wayne Holdsworth whose 17yearold son Mac took his own life last year after falling victim to an online sextortion scam described the bill as absolutely essential for the safety of our childrenIts not the only thing that we need to do to protect them because education is the key but to provide some immediate support for our children and parents to be able to manage this its a great step the 65yearold online safety campaigner told The Associated Press on Tuesday And in my opinion its the greatest time in our countrys history he added referring to the pending legal reformThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever