Australia, which enacted a law banning children and adolescents under the age of 16, is expected to exclude YouTube from the ban, prompting competitors to protest, calling it “unfair preferential treatment.”
According to Reuters and the Guardian on the 5th, Facebook operator Meta, video platform TikTok, and Snapchat parent Snap submitted an opinion to the Australian Ministry of Communications that YouTube should not be excluded from the SNS list subject to youth access restrictions.
Earlier, the Australian parliament passed a bill in November last year that imposes fines on the platform if a person under the age of 16 creates and uses an SNS account. As a result, Australian authorities have been preparing related regulations that specify specific regulatory targets ahead of the law’s enforcement in December this year.
YouTube was excluded from the regulation in the draft regulations, causing problems. The Australian government excluded YouTube from the ban, citing that it has an educational function and parents may manage their children’s accounts.
In response, Meta pointed out that YouTube also provides harmful content exposure, algorithmic content recommendations, and social interaction functions to adolescents. These are SNS functions that the Australian government cited as reasons for blocking youth access. Meta said, “We urge the government to ensure that the law is applied equally to all social media.”
TikTok said removing YouTube from the ban is “the same as excluding Coca-Cola while banning the sale of soft drinks to minors” and criticized it as an “illogical, anti-competitive and short-sighted” measure. Snap argued in its opinion that “the ban should be applied fairly and fairly, and all services should follow the same standards.”
YouTube said in an online statement that it is more active in content filtering efforts, such as expanding the scope of harmful content in the automatic detection system.
Australia’s bill is considered the world’s strongest ban on youth social media. Although France and some states in the United States have legislated to require parental consent for children and adolescents to use social media, Australia is the first country to ban all minors under a certain age from using social media. The fines imposed on social media companies also amount to up to A$49.5 million.
Several other countries, including Norway and Turkey, are also restricting the use of youth social media by referring to Australian cases.
SALLY LEE
US ASIA JOURNAL
