Austria plans social media ban for children under 14

VIENNA: Austria’s conservative-led, three-party government plans to introduce a ban on social media use for children under 14, it said on Friday.

Cabinet members from the three ruling parties announced a deal between them on the principle of a ban, aimed at protecting children from “algorithms that are addictive” and content including sexual abuse, but could not say when it would begin, and they have yet to agree on how it will be implemented.

“We will decisively protect children and young people in future from the negative effects of social media,” Vice Chancellor Andreas Babler of the Social Democrats said.

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“We will no longer stand by and watch while these platforms make our children addicted and often also sick … The risks associated with this use were ignored for long enough, and now it is time to act,” he added.

Australia introduced a social media ban for under-16s in December, the first country to do so. Various countries are considering or moving towards similar bans. France’s lower house of parliament approved a ban for under-15s in January.

Draft legislation for Austria’s ban would be drawn up by the end of June, Babler and conservative junior minister for digitization Alexander Proell said.

Babler also said the government would not list individual platforms the ban would apply to but rather would decide based on how addictive their algorithms are and whether they include content such as “sexualised violence”.