"All those countries are likely to look to the experience of Australia, which introduced a world-first social media ban for under-16s in December. This policy relied on policing by the social media firms. Sites including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X, YouTube and Reddit which has filed a lawsuit in opposition to the ban are now age-restricted but online gaming and messaging sites such as WhatsApp are not."
"The country's eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, reported last month that social media companies "removed access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children under 16 in the first half of December" but provided no more recent figures after a DW request."
""We don't have a breakdown of that number, nor do we know how many new accounts possibly from teens pretending to be older were created over the same period of time," he said."
"German Chancellor Friedrich Merz thinks it could help prevent "personality deficits and problems in the social behavior of young people.""
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz says a social-media ban could help prevent personality deficits and problems in the social behavior of young people. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez aims to protect Spanish children from the "digital wild west," and President Emmanuel Macron insists the emotions of children and teenagers must not be for sale or manipulated. Several European countries and the EU are moving toward supporting some form of child social-media restriction. Australia introduced a world-first under-16 ban enforced by social media firms and reported large account removals, but experts note missing data and anecdotal reports of teens circumventing the ban.
Read at www.dw.com
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