Australia social media ban nears vote despite lawmaker concerns

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s plan to ban social media for children under the age of 16 is expected to pass parliament within days after it was signed off in a truncated Senate inquiry, even as lawmakers from across the political divide expressed discomfort at the “rushed” nature of the bills.

The Senate’s Committee on Environment and Communications said in a report released late Tuesday that the legislation should be passed, with amendments to prohibit tech giants from requesting government-issued identification such as passports for age verification.

This was despite submissions from almost all of the world’s largest social media providers, including Meta, TikTok and X, expressing serious concerns about the bill. Elon Musk’s X Corp. foreshadowed the possibility of legal action when it labeled the policy as potentially unlawful.

Following the inquiry’s recommendation, the legislation is expected to come to a vote in Parliament by Thursday evening, when it will likely pass due to support from the center-left Labor government and the center-right Liberal-National opposition.

However there is growing concern among some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle about the speed at which the bills have moved. Opposition Senator Matt Canavan said in a dissenting opinion in the report that the legislation had been “forced through the Parliament with a haste not befitting its radical and unprecedented nature.”

Canavan said in total the bills to ban children from social media will have had less than one week of public scrutiny.

“The public first saw the legislation to ban children under 16 from social media last Thursday, submissions closed on Friday, a public hearing was held on Monday and the committee’s report is due on Tuesday. The bill is likely to be voted on by the end of this sitting week,” he said in his dissenting opinion.

Joining Canavan in opposing the bills is the left-wing Greens Party, which said the speed at which the laws were being put into place was “rushed, reckless and goes against expert evidence.”

Under the proposed law, social media platforms will be responsible for policing the ban on children under age 16 from having accounts on popular services such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. It is unclear at this stage how services will verify the age of users.

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