SYDNEY — The Australian government plans to set a minimum age limit for teens to use social media, citing mental health concerns, a move that has broad political support but that has some experts warning of harmful unintended consequences.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Tuesday that his government would introduce the legislation in Parliament this year — ahead of an expected May election — but that the precise age limit was yet to be decided.
Both the center-left Labor government and the conservative coalition in opposition have embraced the issue, and some states have already moved to implement social media age limits.
“This is about letting children have a childhood,” Albanese told a Sydney radio station on Tuesday, adding that he favored an age limit as high as 16. “There’s nothing social about some social media taking our young Australians away from real friends and real experiences.”
He said his rationale was “pretty simple.” “We want to get young Australians off their devices and onto the footy field or the netball court or the swimming pool or the tennis court and engaging with each other. And we know that social media is causing social harm.”
Some experts say the issue isn’t so simple, however, as an age limit could prevent struggling younger teens from finding the help they need or force them to use social media secretly, exacerbating the dangers.
“What Australia is looking for is a bit of a simple fix or a simple answer to what is really a very complex question,” said Lisa Given, a professor of information sciences at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. “The question is, is this more about politics and headlines versus an actual solution that is going to protect children?”
Australia is one of many nations wrestling with the negative effects of children being online, especially on social media, at an early age.
Some U.S. states have passed similar social media age limits — a few going so far as to ban anyone under 18 from using the platforms without parental permission — though the initiatives’ fate remains uncertain. Congress is also considering such legislation.
In a sign of escalating concern over social media’s impact, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy recently called for placing tobacco-style warning labels on social media to alert users that the platforms can harm children’s mental health.
The European Union passed legislation almost a decade ago banning children under 16 from accessing online services, including social media, without parental consent, although the law was amended to allow countries to opt out of the age ban, Given said. Spain recently raised its minimum age for setting up a social media account from 14 to 16.
Many nations with age limits already in place have found enforcing them difficult, as children use VPNs and other methods to circumvent the restrictions, Given said.
The idea nonetheless has gained momentum in Australia as the next election approaches.
South Australia’s premier recently outlined a bill that would bar children under 14 from using social media altogether and require 14- or 15-year-olds to obtain parental permission. New South Wales and Victoria, the country’s most populous states, also have backed the general idea, which came up last week during Albanese’s meeting with state leaders.
“It’s time to give parents the power to push back — not against kids, but against the tech giants,” Victoria’s premier, Jacinta Allan, said in a video posted on Monday to social media.
But some experts say the push for legislation is rushed.
Daniel Angus, director of Queensland University of Technology’s Digital Media Research Center, said the government should wait for the joint inquiry into social media in Australia to reach its conclusions.
“No doubt this populist policy will sell well with the older demographics, but it’s a misguided distraction from the necessary structural reforms that would provide long term benefit to youth in this country,” Angus wrote in a LinkedIn post.
Australia’s eSafety commissioner, who monitors cyberbullying, cyber abuse and illegal online content, has sounded a similar note of caution.
“If age-based restrictions are imposed, eSafety has concerns that some young people will access social media in secrecy,” the commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said earlier this year. “This may mean that they access social media without adequate protections in place and are more likely to use less regulated non-mainstream services that increase their likelihood of exposure to serious risks.”
Social media can also play an important role in connecting struggling teens with online support or health information.
“There are lots of reasons why children need to access information on their own,” said Given, the RMIT professor. “Particularly kids in regional or remote areas. They may not even have ready access to a library nearby. They may be home-schooled.”
Unlike in the United States, where free speech concerns have already sidelined some states’ attempts at social media age limits, such challenges are less likely in Australia, where there is greater support for government intervention and fewer free-speech protections.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, however, children should have the ability to get information from the internet, so long as it isn’t harmful, Given noted.
Earlier this year, South Australia commissioned a former High Court chief justice to review the idea of implementing a social media age limit. The report, released Sunday, warned of bullying, sexting and other problems for children using social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Discord, YouTube and X.
Many of those platforms already prohibit children under 13 from using them, however. And Australia’s proposed legislation could distract from efforts to hold those social media companies responsible for policing themselves, experts said, a concern also raised on Tuesday by the director of the Australian Association of Psychologists.