Watchdog sets deadline for social media giants to better protect Aussie kids from porn

Social media companies have been given a deadline to protect young kids from porn after research revealed the hidden dangers of apps.

Social media companies have been given six months to come up with enforceable codes to protect young kids from porn, after research found children as young as eight are unintentionally seeing graphic sexual content while scrolling on the apps.

Australia’s online safety watchdog has issued notices to key members of the sector – including Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram – as well as TikTok, Snapchat, X and YouTube, and search engines like Google.

The codes will also cover app stores and apps; porn websites; hosting services; internet service providers; instant messaging, multi-player gaming, online dating services; SMS, chat, and equipment providers.

Platforms could potentially face fines running into hundreds of thousands of dollars if there are breaches of the agreed codes.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, who has set a hard deadline, said the watchdog’s own research found Australian children are being exposed to pornography by accident and at increasingly younger ages.

Australian eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant pictured in their office in Sydney. Picture: Jonathan Ng

She said while the average age when Australian children first encounter pornography is around 13, a third of these children are actually seeing this content younger and often by accident.

“We know kids will always be curious and will likely seek out porn as they enter adolescence and explore their sexuality, so, many of these measures are really focused on preventing unintentional exposure to young children,” Ms Inman Grant said.

“And it’s not just porn sites we are talking about here, with 60 per cent of young people telling us they were exposed to pornography on social media. This exposure was often unintentional and happened on popular services including TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat.”

Social media giants have been set a deadline to better protect Aussie kids. Picture: AFP

Ms Inman Grant said the last thing anyone wants is children seeing violent or extreme pornography without guidance, context or the appropriate maturity levels because they may think that a video showing a man aggressively choking a woman during sex on a porn site is what consent, sex and healthy relationships should look like.

She said a previous set of codes to protect children from sex exploitation took three years, far too long, so this time the watchdog has given companies three months to produce draft codes and if they are not acceptable, the commissioner will create its own set of standards.

If the draft codes are acceptable, they will be released for public consultation with the aim of registering them in December.

“We are at a critical stage where we need some meaningful change,” Ms Inman Grant said about the deadline.

“We are not going to kick the can down the street any longer.”

The watchdog has outlined what it wants from the companies, including reasonable efforts to check users’ age, and complementary measures including “opt out” default safety measures and parental controls, as well as user empowerment tools to filter or blur unwanted sexual content.

These measures could be applied at a range of levels from the connected devices children are using to access the internet to app stores, messaging and social media services and search engines to create multi-layered protection across the technology ecosystem.

In May, this masthead launched the Let Them Be Kids campaign calling for a ban on kids using social media until 16.

Ms Inman Grant said these codes will lay the groundwork for any future ban, as without them it would be impossible for the online regulator to enforce it.

“This is an important precursor if the Government decides to take it there,” Ms Inman Grant said.

Sign the petition to support the Let Them Be Kids campaign at change.org.

Originally published as Watchdog sets deadline for social media giants to better protect Aussie kids from porn