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"This bill seeks to set a new normative value in society that accessing social media is not the defining feature of growing up in Australia. There is wide acknowledgement that something must be done in the immediate term to help prevent young teens and children from being exposed to streams of content unfiltered and infinite.
(Michelle Rowland, Minister for Communications, Australian Parliament, Nov 21)
Australia's House of Representatives has passed a bill that would ban access to social media platforms TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram for youngsters under 16. The bill passed by 102 against 13.
Once the bill gets through the Senate -- expected this week -- the platforms would have a year to work out how to implement the age restriction, without using government-issued identity documents (passport, driving licenses), and without digital identification through a government system.
The leaders of all eight Australian states and mainland territories have unanimously backed the plan, although Tasmania, the smallest state, would have preferred the threshold was set at 14.
There are some counter-noises though (no, not you, Elon). More than 140 academics signed an open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemning the 16-year age limit as "too blunt an instrument to address risks effectively."
The writers of that open letter fear that the responsibility of giving access to social media will fall on the parents, and "not all parents will be able to manage the responsibility of protection in the digital world".
Further, " Some social media 'type' services appear too integral to childhood to be banned, for example short form video streamers. But these too have safety risks like risks of dangerous algorithms promoting risky content. A ban does not function to improve the products children will be allowed to use."
The open letter pleads instead for systemic regulation, which "has the capacity to drive up safety and privacy standards on platforms for all children and eschews the issues described above. Digital platforms are just like other products, and can have safety standards imposed."
Australia's ban on social media will be a world-first, with fines of up to 50 million Australian Dollars for each failure to prevent them youngsters of having a social media account.
Under the laws, which won't come into force for another 12 months, social media companies could be fined up to $50 million for failing to take "reasonable steps" to keep under 16s off their platforms. There are no penalties for young people or parents who flout the rules. Social media companies also won't be able to force users to provide government identification, including the Digital ID, to assess their age.
From ban children under the age of 16 from accessing social media we also get the following:
Under the laws, which won't come into force for another 12 months, social media companies could be fined up to $50 million for failing to take "reasonable steps" to keep under 16s off their platforms. There are no penalties for young people or parents who flout the rules. Social media companies also won't be able to force users to provide government identification, including the Digital ID, to assess their age.
Social Media, or an "age-restricted social media platform" has been defined in the legislation as including services where:
- the "sole purpose, or a significant purpose" is to enable "online social interaction" between people
- people can "link to, or interact with" others on the service
- people can "post material", or
- it falls under other conditions as set out in the legislation.
(Score: 2) by DrkShadow on Friday November 29, @08:33PM (3 children)
All of the Australian-based social media companies will probably have a hard time complying with this law.
Can someone tell us what a few of the Australia-based social media companies are, again?
It's probably similar to the list of social-media companies that have found it viable to operate without FCC section 230 protections. Europe will have some of those.
...... could someone tell us a few of the social-media co's that are based in a place without section 230 protections?...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by gnuman on Friday November 29, @10:18PM (2 children)
That is a US law. US laws apply in US and in US only.
In Germany, it's illegal to post positive contents about Nazis or Holocaust denial and related. If companies don't deal with this quickly, there are fined.
In Russia, you can't talk about war in Ukraine, but since no companies operate in Russia, they can ignore Russia.
It basically depends where you operate. If you don't want to comply with local laws, then you hope that you are not the CEO to be arrested in that country when you visit. See Telegram and France, for example (CEO is also French national, which makes arrest less dramatic). Or Brazil and Twitter. They came to an agreement and back in compliance.
So, it's not about Australia-based media companies, but simply whether you are operating in Australia or have any large-ish exposure to Australia. If less than 0.1% of population uses your service, well, then you may as well not exist (unless you are doing something criminal, of course). If you have more, than you should be compliant with the laws there. Add a check box during sign-up, done.
Let me put it this way. GDPR in EU was suppose to be this scary law with big teeth for anyone abusing personal data processing. Yet, there are not many big fines under GDPR. Most websites and companies want to be compliant but I can tell you, most companies are NOT compliant to the letter of the law. Yet regulators are not there to kill companies -- they are just there to prevent major abuses from happening.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDPR_fines_and_notices [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DrkShadow on Saturday November 30, @06:11AM (1 child)
Lets put it this way.
Can you give any example of a non-american company with a large social-media aspect?
Can you show any forum with more than a hundred-thousand users that is not owned and hosted by a company subject to section 230 protections?
(Score: 2) by Lester on Saturday November 30, @02:35PM
What he is telling is that in spite of being American, it must abide the laws in the country that it operates, otherwise it will face fines. And most of them decide to abide the local laws. For instance Google in China. Business is business.
Yes, I can mention several companies. For example Chiness weechat surpasses Facebook and WhatsApp, Tick Tock. Out the western bobble, there are many things that we usually don't hear about. Russia, China, Japan, Korea and India have their own social networks, and Facebook tweeter etc are residual there.
Another reason why you don't hear of them is that USA sees those foreign social networks as a menace. USA thinks foreign governments could use the networkrs as USA does, as a tool to gather information of citizens around de world. (see tick tock judicial journey)