MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia's Senate began considering a ban on social media for youngsters under 16 on Thursday after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly supported the age restriction.
The world's first bill to ban platforms resembling TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, that is the last session of Parliament for the yr and possibly the last before the elections due in a number of months.
Major party support for the ban is sort of a guarantee that the law will go into effect. However, many child welfare and mental health advocates are concerned about unintended consequences.
Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie complained in regards to the limited time the federal government gave the Senate to debate the age restriction, which she described as “insufficient”.
“I believed that might be idea. Numerous people on the market thought it was idea until we checked out the main points and, let's face it, there have been no details,” Lambie told the Senate.
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the bill on Wednesday by a vote of 102-13.
Once the law comes into effect, platforms would have a yr to think about how you can implement the ban before penalties are imposed.
The platforms complained that the law was unworkable and called on the Senate to delay the vote until a minimum of June next yr, when a government-commissioned evaluation of retirement security technologies would deliver its report on how young children could possibly be excluded .
Criticisms include that the laws was pushed through Parliament without adequate scrutiny, is ineffective, poses a risk to the privacy of all users and undermines parental authority to make decisions for his or her children.
Opponents of the bill also argue that the ban would isolate children, deprive them of the positive features of social media, drive them to the dark web, deter children too young for social media to report harm, and reduce incentives for platforms to enhance online security.
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