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The House of Representatives in Australia passed a bill Wednesday that would prevent children under the age of 16 years old from having social media accounts, per the Associated Press. The Australian Senate still needs to finalize the law, which would be the first of its kind anywhere.

Both parties backed the law, which would affect the major social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Reddit, X, Instagram and Snapchat. The bill would hold the companies behind those platforms liable for an inability to prevent children from having accounts. It passed with an overwhelming margin, 102 votes in favor to just 13 against. Social media companies would have to figure out how to incorporate age policies within a year before fines would start. 

Not everyone is in favor of the bill, however.  

Independent lawmaker Zoe Daniel said, per the AP, that the legislation would “make zero difference to the harms that are inherent to social media.”

“The true object of this legislation is not to make social media safe by design, but to make parents and voters feel like the government is doing something about it. There is a reason why the government parades this legislation as world-leading, that’s because no other country wants to do it,” she said in parliament.

And she might be right.

(Photo Illustration by Idrees Abbas/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Social Media Bill Likely Won’t Help Kids Much

This bill will almost certainly have little impact on children using social media platforms. And it’s almost entirely unnecessary. 

There are already ways for parents to limit their children’s usage of social media, and children are sure to find ways around whatever verification process the platforms attempt to implement. And while there are clear harms to social media usage, especially for kids, banning them from having accounts at all is a bridge too far.

At some point, governments have to accept that not every negative outcome is preventable by political bans. Of course, children shouldn’t spend their lives on social media, and the influence of apps like TikTok or Instagram has grown exponentially. Sometimes that leads to unfortunate things happening. 

But parents have a responsibility to be involved in their children’s lives. The government shouldn’t be in the business of policing access to social media, parents should.