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Tag: Julie Inman Grant

  • Australia demands social media giants report progress on account bans for children under 16

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    MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australian authorities on Thursday demanded some of the world’s biggest social media platforms report how many accounts they have deactivated since a ban on accounts for children younger than 16 became law.

    Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube and Twitch all said they would abide by Australia’s world-first law that took effect on Wednesday, Communications Minister Anika Wells said.

    But the tech companies’ responses to eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant’s first demand for data will likely indicate their commitment to ridding their platforms of young children.

    “Today the eSafety Commissioner will write to all 10 platforms who are considered age-restricted social media platforms and she will ask them … what were your numbers of under 16 accounts on Dec. 9; what are your numbers today on Dec. 11?” Wells said.

    The commissioner would reveal the platforms’ responses within two weeks. The platforms would be required to provide monthly updates for six months.

    The companies face fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($32.9 million) from Wednesday if they fail to take reasonable steps to remove the accounts of Australian children younger than 16.

    Wells said the European Commission, France, Denmark, Greece, Romania, Indonesia, Malaysia and New Zealand were considering following Australia’s lead in restricting children’s access to social media.

    “There’s been a huge amount of global interest and we welcome it, and we welcome all of the allies who are joining Australia to take action in this space to draw a line to say enough’s enough,” Wells said.

    Sydney-based rights group Digital Freedom Project plans to challenge the law on constitutional grounds in the Australian High Court early next year.

    Inman Grant said some platforms had consulted lawyers and might be waiting to receive their first so-called compulsory information notice Thursday or their first fine for noncompliance before mounting a legal challenge.

    Inman Grant said her staff were ready for the possibility that platforms would deliberately fail to exclude young children through age verification and age estimation technologies.

    “That could be a strategy that they have in and of themselves: we’ll say we’re complying but then we’ll do a crappy job using these technologies and we’ll let people get through and have people claim it’s a failure,” Inman Grant told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

    Inman Grant said her research had found that 84% of children in Australia aged 8-12 had accessed a social media account. Of those with social media access, 90% did so with the help of parents.

    Inman Grant said the main reason parents helped was because “they didn’t want their children to be excluded.”

    “What this legislation does … is it takes away that fear of exclusion,” Inman Grant said.

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  • Australia is adding Twitch to its social media ban for children

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    The breadth and reach of Australia’s grows as livestream platform Twitch has now been added to the list of banned platforms for users under 16 years of age. The nationwide ban is the first of its kind and encompasses Facebook, X, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and recently .

    According to the , Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said Twitch had been included because it was “a platform most commonly used for livestreaming or posting content that enables users, including Australian children, to interact with others in relation to the content posted.”

    No other platforms are expected to be added before the law goes into effect next month. Grant also said on Friday that Pinterest would not be included in the ban because the core purpose of the platform was not online social interaction.

    Under the ban, platforms are expected to take “reasonable steps” to prevent underage users from accessing their platforms, and face steep fees for failure to comply. While may provide a workaround in some instances, the law still creates an enormous barrier to entry for users under 16.

    Earlier this month, its lawmakers had reached a bipartisan agreement to enact a similar ban for users under 15, though details were scarce. In the US, several states have attempted to enact such a ban including and , though these measures either failed to pass or are held up in court. Even laws that don’t go as far, such as requiring parents to grant permission for teens to open social media accounts, are facing stiff opposition on First Amendment grounds.

    Concern around minors’ social media in the zeitgeist as surrounding the these platforms have on their youngest users.

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    Andre Revilla

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  • Australia adds Reddit and Kick to social media platforms banning children under 16

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    MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia has added message board Reddit and livestreaming service Kick to its list of social media platforms that must ban children younger than 16 from holding accounts.

    The platforms join Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X and YouTube in facing a world-first legal obligation to shut the accounts of younger Australian children from Dec. 10, Communications Minister Anika Wells said on Wednesday.

    Platforms that fail to take reasonable steps to exclude children younger than 16 could be punished with a fine of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million).

    “We have met with several of the social media platforms in the past month so that they understand there is no excuse for failure to implement this law,” Wells told reporters in Canberra.

    “Online platforms use technology to target children with chilling control. We are merely asking that they use that same technology to keep children safe online,” Wells added.

    Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, who will enforce the social media ban, said the list of age-restricted platforms would evolve with new technologies.

    The nine platforms currently age-restricted meet the key requirement that their “sole or significant purpose is to enable online social interaction,” a government statement said.

    Inman Grant said she would work with academics to evaluate the impacts of the ban, including whether children sleep or interact more or become more physically active.

    “We’ll also look for unintended consequences and we’ll be gathering evidence” so that others could learn from Australia’s achievements, Inman Grant said.

    Australia’s move is being closely watched by countries that share concerns about social media impacts on young children.

    European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told a United Nations forum in New York in September that she was “inspired” by Australia’s “common sense” move to legislate the age restriction.

    Critics of the legislation fear that banning young children from social media will impact the privacy of all users, who must establish they are older than 16.

    Wells recently said the government seeks to keep platform users’ data as private as possible.

    More than 140 Australian and international academics with expertise in fields related to technology and child welfare signed an open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last year opposing a social media age limit as “too blunt an instrument to address risks effectively.”

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