Children and teenagers under the age of 16 will be banned from social media after the government's world-first laws passed parliament late on the final sitting week of the year.
Dr Mugdha Rai, Director of Master of Strategic Communications Management, Senior Lecturer in Monash’s School of Media, Film and Journalism
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Comments attributable to Dr Rai:
“The premise of this legislation is well-intentioned and likely to be widely popular.
“The devil, of course, is in the detail. As many have noted, this legislation has been pushed through in a very limited time frame. Regulating digital and social media has been notoriously difficult and, at this stage, the legislation raises a number of questions that will need answering.
“The legislation requires social media companies to take ‘reasonable steps’ to block people under 16. What would these ‘reasonable steps’ look like?
“How exactly will age be verified? By the platforms themselves, by a third-party? Privacy concerns will clearly need to be addressed in either case.
“The government has given social media companies a 12-month timeline to work through these issues so it will be interesting to see how they respond. It’s likely also that the platforms may try to cooperate given there is limited public sentiment in favour of them. Their track records in this context largely demonstrate quite poor citizenship.’’
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