YouTube Says Australia Social Media Ban Makes Children ‘Less Safe’

YouTube on Wednesday attacked Australia’s looming social media ban for under-16s, denouncing the world-first laws as “rushed” and saying they will make children less safe online.

Australia will, from December 10, ban users under the age of 16 from a raft of the world’s most popular social media platforms and websites, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

“This law will not fulfil its promise to make kids safer online, and will, in fact, make Australian kids less safe on YouTube,” the company’s public policy manager, Rachel Lord, said in a statement.

“We’ve heard from parents and educators who share these concerns.”

Video streaming giant YouTube, one of the most-visited websites globally, was originally slated to escape the ban so children could watch educational videos.

But the Australian government changed tack in July, saying young users needed to be shielded from “predatory algorithms”.

YouTube said all Australian users under 16 would be automatically signed out on December 10, using the ages linked to their Google accounts.

Underage users could still visit the website without an account, but would lose access to many of YouTube’s features — including “wellbeing settings” and “safety filters”.

Lord said the “rushed regulation misunderstands our platform and the way young Australians use it”.

“At YouTube, we believe in protecting kids in the digital world, not from the digital world.”

YouTube said it would archive accounts so they could be reactivated when users turned 16.

“We will not delete or remove any of their existing content or data, and it will be waiting for them when they come back.”

Australian communications minister Anika Wells said YouTube’s criticism was “outright weird”.

“If YouTube is reminding us all that it is not safe and there’s content not appropriate for age-restricted users on their website, that’s a problem that YouTube needs to fix,” she said.

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There is keen interest in whether Australia’s sweeping restrictions can work as regulators around the globe wrestle with the potential dangers of social media.

The Australian government concedes the ban will be far from perfect at the outset, and some underage users will fall through the cracks as issues are ironed out.

But platforms face fines of Aus$49.5 million (US$32 million) if they fail to take “reasonable steps” to comply from next week.

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has already started deactivating accounts based on information such as the age given when they were created.

An internet rights group last week launched a legal challenge to halt the ban.

The Digital Freedom Project said it had challenged the laws in Australia’s High Court, arguing they were an “unfair” assault on freedom of speech.

AFP