Australia’s implementation of a ban on social media for under-16s does not absolve parents of their responsibility to educate their children about the dangers of engaging in the online space.
Speaking to TechCentral on Wednesday, Sarah Hoffman, a South African social media lawyer and founder of Klikd, a platform centred on the responsible use of technology, said Australia’s new laws puts more of the onus on social media companies, but parents must remain vigilant, too.
“From 10 December, there is a requirement on Australian social media companies to take reasonable steps to make sure that accounts belonging to users under 16 are deleted and the kids who have access to those accounts are removed. If they don’t comply, there are fines of up to almost A$50-million (R560-million),” said Hoffman.
“This is a very good reminder for parents and schools, not just in Australia but all over the world, about the need for education in this space.”
Hoffman said there are other thresholds placed on developing brains. For example, the threshold for sex in Australia – 16 – is the same as the newly implemented social media age restriction. Over and above the legal boundary, schools teach sexual education to their students and parents have “the talk” – perhaps many talks – with their children to prepare them for adulthood.
“We should look at online safety the same way we look at water safety. You aren’t going to drop a kid in the water with no swimming lessons and no arm bands on day one,” she said.
‘Honeypot’
Not all sectors of society are supportive of Australia’s new Online Safety Amendment Act. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has criticised the age restriction on social media as a “honeypot” for identity theft, since it will require that many adults provide their IDs – which contain personal information – to verify their age. Others, like Digital Rights Watch, said the law changes the internet into a permission-only environment, thus limiting the freedom of citizens online.
Despite these criticisms, Hoffman said the move to make social media companies the ones responsible for ensuring their users fall within the age parameters defined by law is a positive step. Platforms that fall under the remit of Australia’s ban are Instagram, Facebook, Thread, TikTok, Snapchat, X, Reddit, Kit, Twitch and YouTube.
Read: Australia fires starting gun on global social media reform
“We have to look at it in the same way as alcohol – there is benefit in having a clear national standard. Yes, children will always find some way to have a drink, but it is better to have the law than not to. It also sends a message to the rest of the world that the Australian government is taking the harms of social media to children very seriously,” said Hoffman.
And the world is watching. Other countries contemplating a ban similar to Australia’s – and therefore interested in the developments there – include Denmark, China, France, Germany, Italy, Malaysia and the UK.
South Africa is yet to have clearly defined legislation aimed at limiting the harms social media inflict on children. Legislation such as the Cybercrimes Act and the Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia) address online safety in some ways, but not in a pointed way regarding children. In July, communications minister Solly Malatsi published a draft version of the Audio and Audio Visual Services and Online Content Safety Bill, the third draft since 2020.
According to William Bird, director at Media Monitoring Africa, the bill also fails to address issues pertaining to the safety of children online deeply enough.
Read: South Africa begins complex job of overhauling media laws
“There is not much in there currently,” said Bird. “What we are arguing for is to extrapolate out and build on quite significantly the kinds of issues that we need to think about and deal with in relation to children and social media. They do very much merit special attention to provide protection form extortion and child sexual abuse material as the obvious things, as well as a host of other things in-between.” — © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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