Banning social media for children under 16 will be the focus of a national cabinet meeting this morning.
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00:00Essentially, Anthony Albanese wants to get the state and territory leaders on board with
00:07this proposal to set a minimum age of 16 for social media use.
00:12He then, once he has them on board, wants to take this legislation to the parliament
00:17here in Canberra later this month.
00:19It looks like it will have support from the opposition.
00:21They have previously indicated that they wanted a minimum age of 16 for social media and yesterday
00:27was saying that they wanted to see this pass by the end of the year.
00:32Once this becomes law, it will then take effect 12 months after that, just to give social
00:37media companies some time to be able to set up the way that they need to monitor the age
00:44of users.
00:45Now, we did get some details from the Prime Minister yesterday about how it could work.
00:51That includes that even if you've got permission from your parents to be on social media and
00:56you're under 16, that doesn't matter.
00:58It also doesn't matter if you've already got an account.
01:01You will still be banned under this new legislation.
01:05As I said, that will be introduced a little later this month.
01:08Now, the other question that does remain is exactly how it's going to work.
01:13The tech industry has said, assumedly, it will require people presenting a form of ID
01:19or some sort of facial recognition.
01:22The government, while it has put out this tender to do an age assurance trial, we still
01:27don't have the details about who they've chosen and how exactly that will work.
01:31We have heard from Meta this morning, they were on ABC Radio National, they were saying
01:37that they will respect the government's move to have some sort of age restriction.
01:42They do acknowledge that social media needs to be a safe space for young people, needs
01:47to be age appropriate, is the term that they were using.
01:51But they say that they don't think social media companies should be the one that has
01:55the onus for this and rather it should lie with the app stores.
02:00Take a listen to Meta's regional policy director.
02:05When you get a new phone or a new device, you do spend a bit of time sitting down as
02:09a family, setting it all up and age information is collected at that time.
02:14And so there is a really simple solution there that at that one point in time, then the verification
02:20can occur.
02:22We have also heard from one of the industry bodies saying that this is a 20th century
02:27response, this blanket ban, to a 21st century problem.
02:31So saying that their concern is this could potentially push kids to darker corners of
02:37the internet.
02:39As for young people, there's been mixed responses.
02:41Some do recognise the harms that can come with being on social media, but others of
02:45course enjoy it as a place to connect with family and friends.
02:49And I think that's a really good point.
02:51I think that's a really good point.
02:53I think that's a really good point.
02:55I think that's a really good point.
02:57I think that's a really good point.
02:59I think that's a really good point.
03:01I think that's a really good point.
03:03I think that's a really good point.
03:05I think that's a really good point.
03:07I think that's a really good point.
03:09I think that's a really good point.
03:11I think that's a really good point.
03:13I think that's a really good point.
03:15I think that's a really good point.