00:00After Australia became the first country in the world to ban social media for the under-16s
00:05France could be the second
00:07Today MPs are voting on draft legislation
00:10to put in place a similar ban
00:12it's designed to come into force for the start of the school year
00:15in September
00:16Well with me now to talk about this is France 24's Angela Diffen
00:20So why is the government then keen to impose this ban?
00:25It's hugely popular, 80% it seems on
00:30of the French when you ask them would like some sort of limit on screen time
00:35for youngsters
00:36and of the youngsters themselves
00:3867% of the youngsters
00:40in the age group concerned
00:41that's the 11 to 17 year olds
00:43with more
00:45less concerned
00:46want a ban as well
00:47so it's hugely popular
00:48you know it shouldn't be forgotten as well
00:50I am sure that both Emmanuel Macron and Atal
00:55and the government want the wellbeing of French youngsters above all
00:59but equally
01:00it is true
01:01that there are not many pieces of legislation
01:03that they can get through at the moment
01:04because of the
01:05the situation in parliament
01:06this is something that has broad support
01:08Emmanuel Macron is looking at his
01:10legacy
01:11which is slowly
01:13diminishing
01:14and I'm sure that's
01:15a reason as well
01:16that he's very keen to have this thing pushed forward
01:19you know the reason
01:20you know
01:21everybody knows
01:22it's
01:23it's considered harmful
01:24for young
01:25people
01:26it's addictive
01:27social media are you know
01:28addictive
01:29time wasting
01:30they're harmful to their mental health
01:32and that is when they are not
01:33actually accessing contact
01:35treatment
01:36which in some cases
01:37can push them towards suicide
01:39or
01:40pornography
01:41or
01:42self-harm
01:43and
01:44eating disorders
01:45there's so much harmful content
01:46that they have access to
01:48once they're on social media
01:50that said
01:51there are people who oppose the ban
01:53the social media companies
01:55themselves
01:56have been saying that
01:57look if you do this
01:58you'll push them to darker parts of the
02:00internet
02:01you know they would say that
02:02wouldn't they
02:03but equally
02:04there are many people who
02:05say you know you shouldn't be depriving children of
02:08or young people under 15s
02:10of this
02:11for many of them it helps them make friends
02:13you should be getting tougher on
02:15the social media companies
02:16and making sure they eliminate any possible access to harm
02:20people
02:21so that is
02:22another argument
02:23the other argument is that you know
02:24kids will get around
02:25this
02:26and when it comes to those kind of
02:27litany of issues that you mentioned
02:29mental health
02:30being one
02:31do we know whether a social media ban
02:33is likely to work
02:34well
02:35everybody is looking at Australia
02:36but you know
02:37it hasn't really been enforced long enough in Australia
02:40they imposed a social media ban
02:42in their case for under 16s
02:45in December
02:46it's a bit too early to assess the impact of
02:50their social media ban
02:52and of course everything depends on you know
02:54will the kids
02:55circumnavigate it
02:56and a lot of Australian children
02:58if we have a look at
02:59I think we have
03:00a graphic there
03:01there are ways of verifying the age of
03:05under 15s
03:06under 16s in the case of Australia
03:08getting them to use identity cards
03:10before they sign up
03:12a lot of youngsters say
03:14I do not want
03:15my personal information
03:16being in the possession
03:17of social media companies
03:19it
03:20completely removes the anonymity
03:22which I cherish
03:23so that is very complicated
03:25the other way it can be done
03:27and youngsters will have a choice
03:29is with facial
03:30recognition
03:31evidence from Australia says
03:33you know a lot of them
03:34put a bit of makeup on
03:35and said you know
03:36I got away with it
03:37it was easy
03:38the other one there
03:39that we have is age
03:40inference whereby they assess
03:42from your use of social media
03:45what age you might be
03:46which is actually pretty accurate
03:48it seems
03:49that's another way
03:50of doing it
03:51but a lot of Australians
03:52took up virtual private networks
03:55VPNs
03:56in a bid to avoid all of this
03:58VPNs of course
03:59by
04:00bypass all of this
04:01because if you have a VPN
04:03then the social media companies
04:05don't know which country
04:06you're in
04:07there was a surge
04:08the surge has abated
04:09so
04:10whether that means everyone
04:11who intended to
04:12to bypass it
04:13has done so
04:14or whether
04:15because the idea of a social media ban
04:18has taken hold
04:19people
04:20feel less need to avoid it
04:22we don't know yet
04:23but there's some of the
04:25the ways that it could be enforced
04:27the other thing that needs to be checked
04:29is that
04:30before when France tried to introduce an age of majority
04:34if you like
04:35use of internet 15 years
04:37it came up against European Union laws
04:39they did
04:40the Digital Service Act
04:41in the European Union
04:42now recently
04:43the Digital Service Act
04:44all of that's
04:45being looked at
04:46and what is likely to happen now
04:47is that
04:48individual countries
04:49can make their own rules
04:50on this sort of thing
04:51so
04:52that should be okay
04:53it should go through parliament
04:54fairly quickly
04:55the senate
04:56in the middle of next month
04:57and
04:58then it will have passed
04:59most of the hurdles
05:00all right
05:01thanks very much
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