Youth protection
Australia will ban YouTube under 16
The Australian government wants to protect children from “predatory algorithms” from social networks. This measure is added to the ban already voted in 2024 for Tiktok, X and Facebook.
According to the Australian Minister of Communication, Anika Wells, about two in five children say they have watched inappropriate content on YouTube in Australia.
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Australia will ban the youtube streaming video platform for under 16 to protect them from “predatory algorithms”, Communication Minister Anika Wells said on Wednesday.
“There is a place for social networks, but there is no room for predatory algorithms targeting children,” said Wells in a statement.
Two in five Australian children say they have viewed inappropriate content on the American platform, said the minister.
Concretely, “young people under the age of 16 will not be able to have an account on YouTube,” said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to the press on Wednesday.
“We want Australian families and parents to know that we support them,” added the head of the Labor government.
YouTube initially spared
The Australian Parliament has already adopted in November 2024 a pioneering law in the regulation of the Internet, prohibiting access to social networks such as Tiktok, X or Facebook and Instagram For those under 16. The text, which benefited from bipartisan support, invoked similar reasons.
However, the government had indicated that Youtube, which is widely used underway at school, would not be concerned. Canberra finally operated on a turnaround.
The platform “is not a social network”, a spokesperson for this site among the most popular in the world reacted on Wednesday. “Our position remains clear: YouTube is a video sharing platform with a free, high quality content library, more and more looked at television screens,” defended the streaming giant.
The measure wanted by the government could only be symbolic, have warned of experts, few details that filtered as to the terms of its application to platforms, scheduled for December 10.
The targeted sites, which risk up to 49.5 million Australian fines (28 million euros) if they do not cooperate, have described as “wave”, “problematic” or “precipitated” the government’s project. Tiktok accused the government of ignoring mental health experts, online security and young people, who oppose this measure.
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