We want children to tear themselves away from their devices: Australia wants to ban zoomers from using social networks (5 photos)

Officials believe that teenagers need to play sports, not hang out on the Internet.





Not long ago, the authorities of the state of South Australia wanted to pass a law prohibiting children under 14 from accessing social networks. Now they plan to introduce the initiative throughout the country - before the end of this year.

Then zoomers will not be able to create a profile on various platforms, including YouTube - this is also a social network. As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated:



Anthony Albanese

The law will protect children from online threats and help reduce the harm that the Internet does to young people. <...> We know that social networks are harmful to society and take away real friends from children, preventing them from gaining real life experience.

Albanese is inclined to believe that it is possible to allow hanging out on various social networks starting from the age of 16. And before that, let the kids play sports, and not shoot videos for TikToks.





He later added:

The Australian Government is committed to eliminating the situation where children are exposed to harmful content on social media. We want children to get off their devices and onto football pitches, volleyball courts, swimming pools. So that they can have real experiences with real people.



The Prime Minister also went after the owners of Internet resources.

Social networks should not pretend that they have nothing to do with this, and we are certainly ready to take a stand against them and make them accountable to society.

The initiative has already been supported by the leader of the conservative opposition of Australia Peter Dutton. He believes that the law should be passed as quickly as possible, before the kids go completely crazy from gigabytes of different content.



In Australia, opinions are divided on the restrictions. Some say that we live in a digital society and that restricting access to it for young people is useless, if not harmful. And others think the initiative is right: let teenagers first get used to the real world, and then explore social networks.