AUSTRALIA'S SOCIAL MEDIA BAN FOR KIDS IS THE STICK BIG TECH NEEDS TO PRIORITIZE CHILD SAFETY
 

“Australia is right to ban minors under age 16 from having social media which have been detrimental to youth. This ban should be an incentive for social media and other online platforms and services to be proactive in implementing safer-by design-technologies and default parental management tools before rushing to market with products that are potentially dangerous for children and teens,” said Donna Rice Hughes, President and CEO, Enough Is Enough^®.

“What is evident is that Australia is taking a proactive stick approach to protect children from social media harms. Big Tech has dug itself into a hole because they’ve failed to do the right thing by our children from the start. The carrot approach of voluntary industry efforts to prioritize child safety over profits hasn’t worked. An historic reality is that the first social media platforms to take off in the US and abroad, FaceBook and MySpace, were developed for college age students and older. 

“The reality is that social media companies have monetized and profited from minor children for decades. Now that millions of dollars of advertising revenue and data collection for youth users is at stake, hopefully now these tech companies will prioritize online child safety by developing safer by design platforms and implementing effective age verification, default parental safety, and privacy settings for starters.

“Australia should add gaming platforms like Discord and Roblox and other common offenders to the list of banned sites, as well as AI Companions and AI Toys embedded with AI Companions, which have been reported to engage in sexually explicit conversations and led teens to commit suicide. And yet toy manufacturers are marketing some of these toys as safe for kids as young as 2 years old. Internet safety groups in America have jointly advocated that AI Companions are currently unsafe for youth under 18.

“In the United States, we hope the courageous action by the Australian government will wake up Big Tech companies and incentivize Congress to pass the Kids Online Safety Act -- the Senate version, not K-Street KOSA that the House is pushing which clearly has Big Tech lobby written all over it, Enough Is Enough^®!” said Hughes.

Enough Is Enough^® has released new safety guides for online video games, smartphones, and social media platforms.