Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said he will introduce federal laws to ban children from using social media this year, describing the impact of these platforms on young people as “disastrous”.

Accordingly, the minimum age to access sites like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok is expected to be from 14 to 16. The Prime Minister personally wants to ban people under 16 years old.

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Australia will limit the age of people allowed to use social networks. Photo: Unsplash

Age verification trials will be held in the coming months, Mr Albanese said, although analysts are sceptical about whether it is technically feasible to enforce age restrictions online.

“I want to see kids off their devices and out on the fields, in the pool and on the tennis courts,” the Australian Prime Minister said.

“We want them to have real experiences with real people because we know that social media is causing harm to our communities,” he told national broadcaster ABC, citing the mental health consequences many young people are experiencing.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton said he would support the age limit, saying just one day of delay would expose children to the harmful effects of social media.

However, Associate Professor of Computing and Information Technology at the University of Melbourne Toby Murray points out that current age verification technologies are unreliable, easily bypassed or pose risks to user privacy.

Daniel Angus, head of the digital media research centre at Queensland University of Technology, said that age restrictions could have serious consequences by preventing young people from participating meaningfully and healthily in the digital world .

Samantha Schulz, a sociologist at the University of Adelaide, said social media is an integral part of young people’s lives. They are not the problem, but the problem is regulating irresponsible social media platforms.

“Social media companies think they are above the law,” Mr Albanese said. “They have a responsibility to society and they are not doing it. And we are determined to make sure they are.”

(According to Japan Times)