NSW Government welcomes social media ban for children under 16

The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 passed both houses of Parliament this week.

The laws place the onus on social media platforms – not young people or their parents – to take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under 16 years of age from having accounts, and ensures systemic breaches will see platforms face fines of up to $49.5 million.

The minimum age will apply to ‘age-restricted social media platforms’ as defined in the Bill, which includes Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, X and others.

The Minns Labor Government is pleased that we have a national approach to social media bans. It means we have consistent rules across the country.

This follows the joint social media summit held by the NSW Government and the Government of South Australia - the first of its kind.

The Summit in Sydney reached consensus that social media, if left unchecked, uncensored, un-supervised, poses a threat, particularly to young people in our community.

Evidence shows us the links between increases in social media use and greater instances of mental health issues, loss of sleep, less in person interaction, and less practice of social skills.

The social media ban is a welcome measure for many parents, and another of the many measures now in place to help minimise the negative impacts of social media and devices on young people including:

Banning mobile phones in all NSW Public schools, with a recent survey showing that 86 per cent of principals believing socialising has improved since this came into effect.Developing a statewide approach to address bullying in New South Wales schools.A $2.5 million research fund to investigate the impacts of excessive screen time, video games and mobile phone use on young people and their learning.Recruiting 250 additional school counsellors as part of the NSW Labor Government's election commitment to student wellbeing.

Premier of NSW Chris Minns said:

“I want to congratulate the Albanese Government on passing these laws. They are world leading.”

“I’ve said before, social media is this giant global unregulated experiment on children, and we have to change that.

“The parents I speak to and certainly the evidence acknowledges that social media is doing an enormous amount of harm to young people.

“By making this law, at the very least we empower parents to be able to say no to their kids when it comes to social media because it’s now against the law.

“It also means kids can focus on being kids, talking to each other face to face, spending time outdoors and not fixated on their screens.”