Australia bans Instagram and Twitter for under-16s...but YouTube allows them

Australia has enacted the world's first bill to ban the use of social networking sites for children under the age of 16. In Australia, children cannot use social networking sites even with parental consent.
On the 28th (local time), according to Bloomberg News and other sources, the Australian Senate approved a bill banning children from using social media by 34 votes in favor and 19 against.
The House approved the bill by a vote of 102-13, and then it was passed all the way to the Senate.
This law applies to TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, X, Instagram, etc.
Platform companies could be forced to pay fines of up to A$50 million if they fail to prevent adults and children from creating and using accounts. The bill has a one-year grace period.
This is to give social media platform companies time to implement appropriate anti-use policies. The reason for banning children under 16 from using SNS is for safety reasons.
"We must protect our children from this terrible evil," said Sonya La Eon, a social activist who lost her 15-year-old daughter to a sex offender in his 50s who pretended to be a teenager on the Internet.
Opposition Senator Maria Kovacic said: "We need to take reasonable steps to ensure that social media companies can identify minors and remove them from their platforms.
"Taking that position is the core of the bill," he said, "It's something that companies should have done a long time ago." However, YouTube is not included in the targets of the ban in this bill.
The company has also classified YouTube as a health and education platform, as well as online messaging service WhatsApp and gaming service Discord.
Although problems such as online bullying also occurred, they were not included in the scope of the regulations.