NSW Premier Chris Minns met his South Australian counterpart, Peter Malinauskas, this week for their social media summit. The event was a two-day talkfest with one question at its centre: should we impose a minimum age to access social media?
Malinauskas originally floated the idea of age restrictions for users of TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat before the federal opposition, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese picked up on it last month. Albanese is promising action by the end of the year.
Albanese and Minns have both said that 16 seems like the right age. They share the belief that younger children need to be protected from harm and cannot take responsibility for their own safety.
But this age limit has not sat well with juvenile justice advocates, who note that in most Australian states – including NSW – children as young as 10 can be held criminally responsible for their actions and, indeed, can be jailed.
If children do not have the cognitive or emotional wherewithal to stop themselves from making mistakes or being taken advantage of on social media, advocates – including the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services – have queried why it is appropriate for them to have criminal liability.
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