By Meta has responded to the proposed South Australian bill that seeks to ban social media for children under 14. The digital platform raised concerns about the feasibility of the proposal, stating it would lead to confusion and be difficult to implement, both for the tech industry and the proposed regulators.
Meta’s Concerns About Practical Implementation
Meta’s main argument against the South Australian government’s proposal focuses on how the new law would operate. The company pointed out that the bill’s “app by app approach” to age verification would complicate things.
- Each social media platform would need to individually determine how to verify the age of its users.
- Parents and teens would face the burden of proving their age and parental relationship for every app.
- This would lead to a more time-consuming process and increase privacy risks by sharing personal information across multiple platforms.
Meta believes that a “whole-of-ecosystem” approach would be more practical. This would allow app stores, like those run by Apple and Google, to handle age verification, simplifying the process for parents and teens.
Age Verification: Meta’s Proposed Alternative
Meta proposed that app stores should be responsible for age verification rather than individual apps. The company argued that this would:
- Provide a unified solution where parents can oversee their child’s app usage in one place.
- Use existing systems, like those already in place by Apple and Google, to get parental approval before an app is downloaded by a child.
The idea, according to Meta, is to create a streamlined, privacy-preserving system. Meta even highlighted its own User Age Group APIs in the Meta Quest Store as an example of how such a solution could work. This technology helps app developers understand how old their users are and tailor age-appropriate experiences.
Meta’s Commitment to Safety
Meta emphasized that the suggestion for an app store-based solution does not absolve platforms like Facebook or Instagram from their responsibility. Rather, it complements their own age-assurance tools and acknowledges the limits of current technology.
Recently, Meta rolled out Teen Accounts for Instagram, which included built-in protections to safeguard younger users by limiting who can contact them and the content they can access.