Meta wants Australian parents and app stores to enforce social media age-limits
Meta has called for tightened parental controls and for the onus to be put on app stores regarding age restrictions for social media, denying claims this is simply “shirking responsibility for age verification or safety”.
Meta’s vice president and global head of safety Antigone Davis presented this solution at a social media inquiry in Canberra on Wednesday, urging parents to “oversee and approve their teens online activity”.
While the Federal Government faces increasing pressure to stronghold the social media giant into strengthening protections for children using its platforms. Davis feels the legislation should be aimed at the app stores that allow Facebook and Instagram to be downloaded by these children.
“Parents should be able to approve their teens’ app downloads, and we support legislation that requires app stores to get parents’ approval whenever a teen under 16 downloads an app,” Davis said.
Antigone Davis
She said Meta believes “the best way to help support parents and young people is a simple, industry-wide solution where all apps are held to the same standard,” adding that the average teenager uses around 40 different apps – and therefore Apple and Google, who control the app stores through which these apps are downloaded, should act as “gatekeeper”.
“Where apps like ours offer age appropriate features and settings and parental controls, we can better ensure that parents and teens use them if this information is shared with us,” Davis said.
“With this solution, when a teen wants to download an app, app stores would be required to notify their parents, much like when parents are notified if their teen attempts to make an in-app purchase.
Davis also denied claims from independent MP Zoe Daniel that this is simply Meta “shirking responsibility for age verification or safety”, a viewpoint seconded by shadow minister for communications David Coleman, who said Meta’s “proposal is completely inadequate” and that “age verification obligations must be put on them directly”.
“App stores or the OS operating system have access to this information already,” David responded to Daniel’s claims.
“We are not trying to shift the responsibility entirely to the App Store and the legislation that we are pushing for, we have also included provisions that would require apps like ours to then facilitate and provide an age appropriate experience.”
Davis was unable to tell the inquiry how many Australian children under 13 were currently using Instagram or Facebook.
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