Australian lawmakers have passed landmark rules to ban under 16s from social media, approving one of the world's toughest crackdowns on popular sites like Facebook, Instagram and X. The legislation ordering social media firms to take "reasonable steps" to prevent young teens from having accounts was passed in the Senate with 34 votes in favour and 19 against. "It'll be a weird feeling to not have it," says 12-year-old Angus Lydom. However, with no details on how the rules will be enforced, the pre-teen seems unphased, "I’ll find a way, and so will all my other friends," he tells AFP. of social media use in Australia
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00:00I'll be annoyed, like, I'd like to keep using it, and I don't know, I don't know
00:30It'd be a weird feeling to not have it and be able to talk to all my friends at home
00:36I'll find a way, and so will all my other friends
00:42I honestly think that they shouldn't ban it, I think that they should just put restrictions on
00:46it instead of banning it altogether because, like, teens, they're just gonna go behind their
00:51parents' backs, all the parents are just gonna be chill about it, they're, like, they're gonna
00:55get onto it somehow. Online is a top priority for the Albanese government and we are focused on
01:02Senators, the committee has considered the online safety amendment social media minimum age
01:07bill 2024 and agreed. It's impossible, and we accept this, for governments to
01:15completely stop young people from accessing harmful products or content, but we can help,
01:21we can help by asking the social media companies to play their role.
01:34I'm pretty sure kids know how to make themselves appear older than 16 when they're not,
01:38so it will come down to parents having to, you know, monitor and remove it if the kids are
01:45on it, but then I think kids are pretty savvy too and they'll probably be able to work out
01:50how to work around that.