Australia said Wednesday that it will add YouTube to sites covered by its world’s first ban on social media for teens, turning a previous decision to exempt the alphabet-owned video sharing website and potentially create a legal challenge.
The decision came after the Internet regulator called on the government last month to overthrow the YouTube-CARVE-OUT, citing a survey that found that 37% of minors reported harmful content on site, the worst showing a social media platform.
“I’m calling for time,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement that emphasized that Australian children were negatively affected by online platforms and reminded social media of their social responsibility.
“I want Australian parents to know that we have our backs.”
The decision is expanding the ban, which will take effect in December. YouTube says it is used by nearly three -quarters of Australians aged 13 to 15 and should not be classified as social media because its main activity hosts videos.
“Our position remains clear: YouTube is a video sharing platform with a library with free high quality content, increasingly looking at TV screens. It’s not social media,” a YouTube spokesman said via email.
When the government said last year, it would exempt YouTube because of its popularity with teachers, platforms covered by the ban, such as Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat Snap.n and Tiktok, have complained.
They say YouTube has key similarities to their products, including letting users interact and recommend content through an algorithm based on activity.
Ban Outlaw’s YouTube accounts for those younger than 16, allowing parents and teachers to show videos about it to minors.
“Teachers are always curators for any resource to appropriate (and) will make sense,” said Angela Falkenberg, president of the Australian primary principals supporting the ban.
Artificial intelligence has supercharged the spread of wrong information on social media platforms like YouTube, said Adam Marre, Chief Information Security Officer at Cybersecurity Firm Arctic Wolf.
“The Australian Government’s steps to regulate YouTube is an important step in pushing back to the uncontrolled power of Big Tech and protecting children,” he added in an E email.
The reversal creates a fresh conflict with the alphabet that threatened to withdraw some Google services from Australia in 2021 to prevent a law from forcing it to pay news sites for content displayed in searches.
Last week, YouTube told Reuters that it had written to the government that called for it to “maintain the integrity of the legislative process”. Australian media said YouTube threatened a court challenge, but YouTube didn’t confirm it.
“I won’t be intimidated by legal threats when this is a true struggle for Australian children’s well -being,” Minister of Communications Anika Wells told Parliament on Wednesday.
The law passed in November requires only “reasonable steps” of social media platforms to keep Australians out of Australians younger than 16 years old, or are facing a fine of up to $ 49.5 million.
The government, which will receive a report this month on testing of age control products, has said these results will have an impact on the enforcement of the ban.
