Australia regulator calls for the addition of YouTube to a 16 -year -old social media ban

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Australia reviews whether you want to expand the pioneering social media ban for less than 16 years to include YouTube, after the country’s Internet safety organizer said that the Google -owned video site is where children suffer from online damage.

Australia Legislation has been approved Late last year aims to prevent anyone under the age of 16 from registering to join social media platforms including Instagram, X, Facebook and Snapchat. The law puts the responsibility of technology companies to impose the maximum age or face large fines.

YouTube has been exempted from the ban, which will happen by December, on the basis of its broad role in official education As well as entertainment for childrenHosting videos of performance artists such as the famous Australian Musical Act The Wiggles.

Julie Inman Grant, Australian Safety Commissioner, who was charged with enforcing the ban, wrote to the government this month to invite YouTube, after she presented a new research on the harmful effects of Social media On children.

Speaking in Canberra on Tuesday, Inman Grant said this YouTube The most martyred platform was in the organizer’s research with nearly 40 percent of 2,600 children between the ages of 10 and 16 who face harmful content on the site.

I criticized “mysterious algorithms (those leading) for the platform to the neither of the indispensable and powerful rabbit holes”, and expressed their concerns about the reports that YouTube was reducing online safety teams.

In a statement on Tuesday, the owner of Google, the owner of YouTube, said that the commissioner “ignored” what he described as clear evidence of teachers and parents that the platform is suitable for younger users and must remain exempt from the ban.

“The position of the Islamic Safety Commissioner today represents an inconsistent and contradictory advice,” said Rachel Loufy, the first director of YouTube, Australia, on the pretext that the reflection of the exemption will contradict what the Australian government last year.

It is a possible roundabout to be one of the first big tests of the government of Prime Minister Anthony Albaniz, which re -re -re -ministers after a Restrucked sweeping In opinion polls in the country in May.

A spokesman for the Minister of Communications, Annika Wales, who was promoted as part of the amendment, said the government will review the advice of the Commissioner, but no decision was taken.

Other countries around the world are closely watching the first effort of Australia Global to restrict the access of the social media to children, as well as the methods it adopts to impose the embargo.

French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron has pledged this month to ban social media access to those under the age of 15 if similar measures are not taken at the European Union level.

Inman Grant said the ban mechanics is still running, but this research showed the reason for the need for the procedure.

She said that sexual blackmail on the Internet has reached “the dimensions of crises”, while three quarters of the respondents of her research faced hatred or violent content in addition to content that enhances dangerous challenges. “The caustic language”, like encouraging self -harm, said it has also become more common.

“I think this could be a sign of all parents that they can take concrete measures with their children, start chatting and delete applications, and promoting that the government supports them,” she said.