Instagram wants parents to have power to block access to its own apps

Social media giant Meta wants Australia to force Google and Apple to build age verification tools into their app stores, giving parents the power to block children under 16 from downloading social media apps.

After months of local calls for Facebook and Instagram to be blocked for children, top US Meta executives will tell Australian politicians the best place to restrict access is as people download an app, rather than in the process of creating an account.

Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg.Credit: AP

“Parents should be able to approve their teen’s app downloads, and we support federal legislation that requires app stores to get parents’ approval whenever their teens under 16 download apps,” Antigone Davis, Meta’s vice president and global head of safety, will say at a hearing in Canberra.

Davis was asked to fly to Australia to attend the hearing in person after she controversially told a hearing in June “I don’t think that social media has done harm to our children”.

According to a copy of her opening statement provided to this masthead, Davis will spruik Meta’s safety features being rolled out as nations crack down on social media companies, adding that Snapchat, TikTok and child safety groups supported Apple and Google using age restrictions.

“We believe 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,” Davis will say, shifting the emphasis in the Australian debate on age verification, which has so far focused only on the role of the social platforms.

Opposition communications spokesman David Coleman with Coalition leader Peter Dutton.Credit: Paul Jeffers

Apple – which along with Google run the online stores through which billions of people download smartphone apps – is resisting Meta’s proposal, saying the Mark Zuckerberg-owned company is shirking its responsibility to tackle concerns about teen mental health, explicit content, misinformation and online crime.

A spokeswoman for Communications Minister Michelle Rowland confirmed its $6.5 million trial into age assurance technology would look at models that check a person’s age when a phone is being set up, as well as in-app tools.

The government said in May it would examine age verification after months of pressure from the opposition to toughen up on tech platforms. Labor will soon announce a tender for the program.

Opposition communications spokesman David Coleman said Meta’s position represented an admission that children were unsafe online.

Coleman added: “Meta has seen the writing on the wall. App stores can play a role, but there must be an obligation on social media platforms themselves to actually apply age limits. They can’t just outsource that obligation to others.”

An Apple spokesman said this week that websites and social media companies were best positioned to verify the age of their users and that privacy would be breached if it was required to share users’ age with apps.

Under Meta’s proposal, app stores would be required to notify the parents of children under 16 when the child tries to download an app. Parents would then decide if they approve. Under the Meta plan, parents can verify the age of their teen when they sign up for the phone, removing the need to verify age and ID for every single app.

In a sign of regulatory heat on social platforms, the Australian eSafety Commission has demanded Meta and other social platforms reveal within 30 days how many children hold accounts on their sites.

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