“Social media is harming our children and I want to end that,” said Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. By law, from the end of 2025 citizens will not be able to access social networks until they are 16 years old.

Although some say that prohibition is not the road to digital education, all social networks recognize that some of their functions and dynamics are inadequate for minors. On the dependency they generate, on the influence they have on brains that are not yet fully mature… you will surely have already read it extensively, as movements to delay the age of being mobile have brought the issue to the fore.

There are many experts who put the limit in the 16 years so that they can start using these technologies. Moreover, many known social networks, at first, were at least 16 years old, but no one respected it, and over time they have reduced the user’s minimum age: today, these platforms have established that you need at least 13 years to use TikTok, X and Twitch, and Instagram is at least 14 years old.

Regardless of their age, platforms use a ridiculous verification system: To lie to the question “Are you so old?”, it is enough for the user to enter any content and create any account. Some have raised systems such as digital signatures, but others have pointed out that they clash with the right to privacy and privacy of communications. There are not a few who support the model that puts parents under control (the parental control system on mobiles, for example, the preliminary draft law drawn up by the Spanish Government). And more and more voices are saying that in the content offered, in the fraudulent pop-up windows, in the algorithms -- you have to force the platforms to set a limit.

In this sense, one of the most interesting things about the Australian measure is that it does not put users, children, or parents in the spotlight, but social media platforms. “I get things that I don’t want to see, let’s think of that 14-year-old girl who is doing the same thing. We have to put limits on the platforms, and the responsibility to prove that they are taking steps to prevent access to social media will lie with the platforms, not with parents and young people,” the Prime Minister said. That is, fines are going to be for platforms, not for users. In fact, many believe that the platforms themselves should be held accountable for the inappropriate content of their social networks and the algorithms they use. Ireland has just adopted the law banning companies such as Google, Meta and ByteDance from publishing on social media "harmful content" to users (content that promotes harassment, hatred, violence or eating disorder, sexual abuse, racism, xenophobia...).

We are talking about Australia, but there are more countries that are trying to limit the inappropriate content of the network. In the case of Euskal Herria, the French Government proposed last year to ban social media for children under 15 years of age, but children under 15 years of age will be allowed parental leave, while the Spanish Government is implementing a draft law to ban social media for children under 16 as in Australia.