Australia Godok Rules For The Age Of Playing Social Media 16 Years Old, Children's Age Is Prohibited

JAKARTA - How do you keep children away from the dangers that arise due to social media? Politically, the answer seems simple in Australia. However, practically the solution can be much more difficult.

The Australian Government's plan to ban children from using social media platforms including X, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram until the 16th anniversary raises the pros and cons.

The opposition party in Australia admits that it agrees with the ban. If the government does not move first, they insist that it will implement the discourse as a rule if it wins the Australian Election in May 2025

Leaders from Australia's eight mainland states and territories have also unanimously supported the plan. While Tasmania, the smallest state, supports but with a threshold record set until the age of 14.

Unlike politicians, more than 140 experts in technology and child welfare responded to the discourse with rejection.

They signed an open letter addressed to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese regarding the discourse's condemnation.

According to hundreds of experts, the limit on the prohibition of playing social media for children until the age of 16 is a blunt idea and is not at all effective in overcoming problems.

Details related to this discourse are still minimal. Long details will be known when the planned law regarding this is introduced to the Australian Parliament next week.

The Voice Of Young People

Leo Puglisi, a 17-year-old Melbourne student who founded the '6 Australian News' online streaming service at the age of 11, strongly disagrees with lawmakers or Australian House of Representatives' efforts to address issues, in this case social media.

According to him, the Australian House of Representatives should have a perspective on social media used by the younger generation at large in the digital era.

"With regard to the government and prime ministers, they don't grow up in the era of social media, they don't grow up in the era of social media, and many people fail to understand here. That, like it or not, social media is part of people's daily lives," Leo said, quoted from AP.

"It's part of the community, it's part of the job, it's part of entertainment, it's where they watch young people's content not listening to radio or reading newspapers or watching free TV so it can't be ignored. In fact, this prohibition, if implemented, only delays problems when a young person uses social media," he continued.

Leo is known to have received many remarks for his digital work. He is listed as a finalist representing Victoria where he lives for the 'Young Australians this Year' award which will be announced in January 2025.

The awards jury praised its platform for "constructing a new generation of informed critical thinkers."

Mother Of Children Affected By Social Media

One of the supporters of the discourse is cybersecurity activist Sonya Ryan. She became the mother of a child affected by social media.

His 15-year-old daughter mind Ryan was murdered in 2007 in the state of South Australia by a 50-year-old pedophile who pretends to be a teenager in cyberspace.

In the digital era,ipelago became the first person in Australia to be killed by online predators.

'Children exposed to dangerous pornography, they are given misinformation, there are body image problems, sexual extortion, online predators, bullying. There are so many dangers they have to overcome and children don't have skills or life experiences to be able to manage them all well," said Sonya Ryan.

Sonya Ryan said she wholeheartedly supports the Australian Government setting the age limit for citizens to be social media at the age of 16.

As a result, we are losing our children. Not only what happens toLAs, predatory behavior, but also we see a worrying increase in youth suicide," he added.

Highlighted Data Protection

Professor of Internet studies at Sajan University, Tama Leaver, highlighted the Australian Government's statement that it is the responsibility of this discourse if implemented it will be in the hands of the platform, not children or parents.

The platform will ensure that everyone using social media in Australia meets the age limit.

Tama is also worried that the Australian Government will create a new platform that stores personal data to identify social media users if the discourse becomes a valid rule.

Tama's concern, considering that the Australian government still has not the ability to maintain the cybersecurity of its citizens after the bear had a personal data leak.

"They will be the holders of identity documents, which will be very bad because so far they have a pretty bad track record in keeping personal data well," said Tama.