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The Australian eSafety Commissioner announced on Wednesday that social media companies will be required to disclose the number of underage accounts they terminate every month, following a law that sets age restrictions for the most popular social media sites.
The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 bars anyone under the age of 16 from making an account on many large social media sites and will remove the existing accounts of under-16 users. It aims to prevent risks of harm to young people who “do not yet have the skills, experience or understanding to navigate complex social media environments.”
According to the law, a failure to take appropriate steps to block underage accounts will result in a fine of up to 50 million Australian dollars. Although the ban will take effect on December 10, Communications Minister Anika Wells stated that leniency will be granted in the initial weeks for any disruptions in the age-verification process. Wells cited internal documents from these companies, which outline the disproportionate harm the algorithms have on children.
Enforcement of the law is set to begin next week, affecting platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, X, YouTube, and Snapchat. The law primarily targets platforms that enable online social interaction between two or more end-users as the sole purpose or a significant purpose of their service. Therefore, it excludes Discord and Roblox from age restrictions, as eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant reassured that the significant purpose of these platforms is online gameplay. This is despite worldwide concerns about child safety on these platforms.
Although initially resistant, all top social media companies have stated their intention to comply with the new restrictions. This comes as Instagram and Facebook began removing half a million accounts of users under 16 years old.
The Australian-based NGO Digital Freedom Project has been created to fight back against the new restrictions, calling them unconstitutional and an over-broad response to the issue. In Australia, any limit on a constitutional protection must be proportional and minimally impairing. The Digital Freedom Project seeks to challenge the legislation in the High Court on the grounds that it is an unreasonable limit to citizens’ freedom to communicate on political and government matters. They seek to receive an injunction, barring the restrictions pending the resolution of their case, although a hearing date has yet to be set.
Others say the Australian government has not gone far enough, with an online petition to lower the age restriction to 13 years-old gathering over 44,000 signatures.
Other countries have also followed suit in passing age restrictions for social media sites, with Malaysia recently announcing a similar law. Last month, the European Parliament also called for similar restrictions.
The post Australia to require monthly reports of removed underage social media accounts appeared first on JURIST - News.
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The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 bars anyone under the age of 16 from making an account on many large social media sites and will remove the existing accounts of under-16 users. It aims to prevent risks of harm to young people who “do not yet have the skills, experience or understanding to navigate complex social media environments.”
According to the law, a failure to take appropriate steps to block underage accounts will result in a fine of up to 50 million Australian dollars. Although the ban will take effect on December 10, Communications Minister Anika Wells stated that leniency will be granted in the initial weeks for any disruptions in the age-verification process. Wells cited internal documents from these companies, which outline the disproportionate harm the algorithms have on children.
Enforcement of the law is set to begin next week, affecting platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, X, YouTube, and Snapchat. The law primarily targets platforms that enable online social interaction between two or more end-users as the sole purpose or a significant purpose of their service. Therefore, it excludes Discord and Roblox from age restrictions, as eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant reassured that the significant purpose of these platforms is online gameplay. This is despite worldwide concerns about child safety on these platforms.
Although initially resistant, all top social media companies have stated their intention to comply with the new restrictions. This comes as Instagram and Facebook began removing half a million accounts of users under 16 years old.
The Australian-based NGO Digital Freedom Project has been created to fight back against the new restrictions, calling them unconstitutional and an over-broad response to the issue. In Australia, any limit on a constitutional protection must be proportional and minimally impairing. The Digital Freedom Project seeks to challenge the legislation in the High Court on the grounds that it is an unreasonable limit to citizens’ freedom to communicate on political and government matters. They seek to receive an injunction, barring the restrictions pending the resolution of their case, although a hearing date has yet to be set.
Others say the Australian government has not gone far enough, with an online petition to lower the age restriction to 13 years-old gathering over 44,000 signatures.
Other countries have also followed suit in passing age restrictions for social media sites, with Malaysia recently announcing a similar law. Last month, the European Parliament also called for similar restrictions.
The post Australia to require monthly reports of removed underage social media accounts appeared first on JURIST - News.
Continue reading...
Note: We don't have any responsibilities about this news. Its been posted here by Feed Reader and we had no controls and checking on it. And because News posted here will be deleted automatically after 21 days, threads are closed so that no one spend time to post and discuss here. You can always check the source and discuss in their site.