{"id":23176,"date":"2025-10-13T06:04:01","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T06:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=23176"},"modified":"2025-10-13T06:04:01","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T06:04:01","slug":"google-calls-australias-teen-social-media-ban-extremely-difficult-to-enforce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=23176","title":{"rendered":"Google calls Australia\u2019s teen social media ban \u2018extremely difficult\u2019 to enforce"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0Alphabet-owned\u00a0Google (GOOGL.O) on Monday said it would be “extremely difficult” for Australia to\u00a0enforce\u00a0a\u00a0law\u00a0prohibiting people younger than 16 from using social media,\u00a0warning that the government’s initiative would not make children safer online.<\/p>\n

Governments and tech firms around the world are closely watching Australia, which in December will become the first country to block the\u00a0use\u00a0of\u00a0social\u00a0media\u00a0by people younger than 16.<\/p>\n

Social\u00a0media\u00a0platforms will not be required to conduct age verification procedures; instead, they will be asked to\u00a0use\u00a0artificial intelligence and behavioural data to reliably infer age.<\/p>\n

In a parliamentary hearing on online safety rules\u00a0on Monday, YouTube’s senior manager of government affairs in Australia, Rachel Lord, said the government’s programme was well-intentioned, but it could have “unintended consequences.”<\/p>\n

“The legislation will not only be extremely difficult to\u00a0enforce, it also does not fulfil its promise of making kids safer online,” Lord said.<\/p>\n

When asked if\u00a0Google\u00a0was lobbying officials in Washington to raise the issue when\u00a0Australian\u00a0Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets US\u00a0President Donald Trump in Washington next week,\u00a0Google\u00a0Australia’s government affairs director Stef Lovett said her US\u00a0colleagues were aware of the issues that the company faces in Australia.<\/p>\n

In July, Australia added\u00a0YouTube to a list of sites covered by the legislation – reversing an earlier decision to exempt it due to its popularity with teachers – following complaints from other tech firms.\u00a0Google\u00a0contends that YouTube is a video-sharing site, not a\u00a0social\u00a0media\u00a0platform.<\/p>\n

“Well-crafted legislation can be an effective tool to build on industry efforts to keep children safer online,” Lord said. “But the solution to keeping kids safer online is not stopping them from being online.”<\/p>\n

Instead, she said, online safety tools must be\u00a0used to protect children and parents should be given the controls to guide their online experiences.<\/p>\n

Australia, concerned about the impact of\u00a0social\u00a0media\u00a0on the mental health of young people, passed its Online Safety Amendment in November 2024. It gave companies a year to comply and they face a Dec. 10 deadline to deactivate the accounts of underage\u00a0users.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Alphabet-owned\u00a0Google (GOOGL.O) on Monday said it would be “extremely difficult” for Australia to\u00a0enforce\u00a0a\u00a0law\u00a0prohibiting people younger than 16 from using social media,\u00a0warning that the government’s initiative would not make children safer online. Governments and tech firms around the world are closely watching Australia, which in December will become the first country to block the\u00a0use\u00a0of\u00a0social\u00a0media\u00a0by people younger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}