By India McCarty
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has announced plans to ban social-media access for those under 16 years of age.
“Our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone,” Sanchez said while speaking at the World Governments Summit. “We will protect them from the digital Wild West.”
He said that underage social media use has unacceptable consequences, such as exposure to pornographic, abusive and violent content, as well as building addictive habits.
Related: This Country Just Launched Nationwide Ban on Social Media for Young Users
“If we want to protect them, there’s only one thing we can do — take back control,” Sanchez said. “I know that it won’t be easy, social-media companies are wealthier and more powerful than many nations — including mine.”
He shared that Spain will hold the chief executives of these platforms legally accountable for any infringements that take place on their sites and will face criminal charges for failing to remove any hateful or illegal content.
Spain’s proposed social media ban is similar to one enacted in Australia this past month. The country required platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok to deactivate the accounts of under-16 users, leading to the removal of roughly 4.7 million underage users.
“We stared down everybody who said it couldn’t be done, some of the most powerful and rich companies in the world and their supporters,” Australian Communications Minister Anika Wells said. “Now Australian parents can be confident that their kids can have their childhoods back.”
The UK has also been in talks about enacting a social media ban. The House of Lords backed the ban, and it will soon be debated in Parliament.
In an op-ed written for The Guardian, Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservative party and MP for North West Essex, said, “We know that a child’s early years shape the trajectory of their entire life. Yet our political system has too often focused more on repairing damage in adulthood rather than preventing it early on. That is a dereliction of our duty as politicians.”
Some American lawmakers have expressed interest in introducing similar restrictions in the US.
“I think we ought to look at what Australia’s doing, for example, requiring access to these social media platforms to not be available to anybody under the age of 16,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said.
Meanwhile, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. said that “protecting children is an avenue that should be pursued,” as the situation is “getting out of hand.”
As the negative effects of early social media use become more known, countries around the world are working to regulate the industry and help children everywhere.
Read Next: Will This New AI Tool Keep Underage Users Off of TikTok?
Questions or comments? Please write to us here.
– Content: +3