Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised to introduce legislation that would prevent children under a certain age from using social media. Reuters reported that Albanese issued his statement in a TV interview on the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC).
Albanese says the Australian government would start its social media initiative by testing age verification technology sometime this year. He also didn’t state a specific age limit but estimated he’d like the ban to be for children younger than 14-16 because “we know that social media is causing social harm.”
Meta issued a statement in response to the PM’s proposal noting that Facebook and Instagram already have a minimum age requirement of 13 years for users. The social media company also noted it wants to empower young people to benefit from social media with parental controls and monitoring “instead of just cutting off access.”
Lawmakers in the US and other countries have suggested and tried to impleme
