Final rules for social media ban of 16s revealed

Platforms won't need to test the age of every social media user but must show they've taken 'reasonable steps' to remove under 16's accounts.

Transcript

00:00Not as surprising on many levels. I think we've certainly heard critiques over the last several

00:06months about some of the workarounds or potential errors in age assurance technology, for example.

00:12So the idea that children, you know, 100 percent would be taken off of the platforms is something

00:17we did not anticipate. So I think what we're seeing here is, you know, quite detailed advice

00:23to the technology companies. They're going to have to have measures in place to demonstrate

00:28to the government's satisfaction, that they're doing their best to keep kids off of these

00:32platforms, while at the same time noting that there will be some that slip through the cracks.

00:37I think a critical piece here is also around the notion that we don't all have to improve

00:41our age. They will be using existing data, existing information they know about many of

00:46their users as a first step in terms of assessing whether people are over or under the age of

00:5116. I think it is a bit of a retreat. Certainly, if we think about, you know, eight or 10 months

00:56ago, we were seeing headlines around, you know, children being banned from social media,

01:00that this was going to keep kids safe. Over the last number of months, of course, we've

01:05really tried to unpick that and understand that it's almost impossible to keep all children

01:10off of these platforms. They will still be able to access content through web browsers,

01:14for example. And so I think what we're seeing here is likely a best compromise in terms of holding

01:20the tech companies to try to enact the legislation while acknowledging that the system is certainly

01:25not perfect. So I think really for Australians, it's a question of, is this really going to

01:30achieve what they were hoping the legislation would do when it was first announced?