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Australia plans to ban social media for under 16s — and experts have called it a ‘momentous step’

CNBC
Summary
Nutrition label

78% Informative

Australia 's government has proposed a social media ban for children under the age of 16.

The legislation will be introduced into parliament this year , with the law coming into effect 12 months after it is approved by lawmakers.

The ban is expected to trial age-verification systems to block children from accessing social media sites including Meta's Instagram and Facebook .

"If you've seen the video of a monkey using Instagram , you'll see that it is designed to be intuitive enough for anyone to learn in a matter of minutes . Young people will do the same once they hit 16 when their brains are far better equipped to deal with it," Greenwell said. "We don't get kids to practice having sex or drinking alcohol before they're of age and there's absolutely no need to for them to practice using social media which is absolutely not designed with their developmentally sensitive brains in mind," she added..

VR Score

78

Informative language

75

Neutral language

67

Article tone

informal

Language

English

Language complexity

55

Offensive language

possibly offensive

Hate speech

not hateful

Attention-grabbing headline

not detected

Known propaganda techniques

not detected

Time-value

short-lived

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