Google told Australian lawmakers that the country’s world-leading ban on social media for children under the age of 16 will be difficult to enforce.
The new Australian regulation goes into effect on December 10th, aiming to crack down on “predatory algorithms.” The law will prevent children under 16 from creating or keeping accounts on major social media platforms–—such as Facebook, X, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Companies that fail to comply could face fines of up to 50 million AUD (€28 million).
Rachel Lord, Google and YouTube’s senior manager of public policy in Australia, said that the rules will also have “unintended consequences:”
The legislation will not only be extremely difficult to enforce, it also does not fulfill its promise of making kids safer online. The solution to keeping kids safer online is not stopping them from being online.
The risks of children accessing YouTube without being able to log in to their own accounts mean that safety controls and filters put in place for younger users will no longer be usable, Lord said, adding
parent-supervised accounts, where parents can make decisions about what their child sees online, might also not be available under the new legislation.
