Protect children online

Australia’s move to remove under-16 users from Facebook, Instagram and TikTok is a major step towards online safety. Beginning 10 December, the country will enforce one of the world’s toughest social media age restrictions, compelling major platforms to block or delete accounts of users aged 13 to 15. Meta has already begun the clean-up, warning hundreds of thousands of teenagers that their access will soon end on December 4.

This decisive step should serve as an urgent wake-up call for our part of the world, where children and teens navigate the digital universe with little supervision, minimal safeguards and almost no accountability from tech giants. At 13 or 14, a child is still deeply impressionable. Yet this is precisely the age at which many are thrust into the algorithm-controlled Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, platforms engineered to maximise time spent, not safety.

The risks are no longer abstract. Multiple studies have linked early social media exposure to anxiety, body-image issues, addictive behaviour patterns, sleep disruption and cyberbullying. Algorithms amplify harmful content. In societies like ours, where parents often lack the digital literacy to monitor online activity and schools remain ill-equipped to teach responsible tech habits, the dangers multiply.

Australia’s decision recognises a basic truth: platforms cannot continue treating children as data points to be harvested. If under-16s are too young to vote, drive or sign a legal contract, surely they are too young to be targeted by algorithms.

Critics say bans will be ineffective, But that is not the point here. Such measures force platforms to rethink their approach, and accept responsibility for the vulnerabilities of young users rather than shifting the burden onto parents alone.

In our region, where smartphone access is now near-universal and online harms are rising exponentially, similar legislation is overdue. We need strict, enforceable age-verification systems with privacy safeguards. Schools and parents must complement regulation with digital literacy education, but it is the government that must set the guardrails.

A 14-year-old should not have to navigate a world of algorithms, and psychological manipulation. Childhood and adolescence are too precious and fragile, to be left to corporations whose first loyalty is to profit.