Young Australians will get to have their say on a proposed age limit for using social media.
The federal government wants to introduce laws by the end of the year for a ban on young people using social media to address mental health and safety concerns.
The exact age for the ban has not been decided.
The opinions of young people who often use social media will be factored into decisions about the laws, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says.
“We are considering the perspectives of young people in our decision to limit access to social media,” she told parliament on Wednesday.
“Young people expect governments and the platforms to protect them from the harms they experience.”
Government trials are underway on age verification as part of ways to enforce potential age bans.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese admitted some young people would get around a ban but said the reforms should still go ahead.
“We are entering a new frontier but that does not mean we should not try. We must. This is a complex problem,” he said.
“Young people could find ways to get around rules. Because the occasional person may get access to alcohol does not mean we say we won’t worry about restricting alcohol to over 18.
“As a society, we make decisions about protecting people, that is what this is about.”
Opposition communications spokesman David Coleman said the government proposal was “half-baked”.
“There are basically no details at all,” he told ABC TV.
“This is farcical. How can you have an age verification policy when you don’t know what the age will be?”
Experts are also divided on the use of age limits.
The bans are not an effective solution, RMIT University Professor of Information Sciences Lisa Given says.
She said the government calls were premature and there were significant challenges with age-verification technology.
“Children need to gain the necessary skills to navigate online worlds – including social media – and banning them from these platforms is not the solution,” Professor Given said.
But director of the Screens and Gaming Disorder Clinic in Sydney Brad Marshall said it did not matter what the age limit was, but the action was overdue.
“The major focus has to be that we do draw a line in the sand,” he told AAP.
“Perhaps we have to enforce it, but it has to be a way in which we can ask to have parental controls that actually work.”
