Prime Minister backs social media age limits to stop ‘devastating’ effect on kids’ mental health

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has backed imposing age limits for children on social media, acknowledging parents are ‘worried sick’ about what their kids are seeing online.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – at Gosford Hospital on Sunday with Robertson MP Dr Gordon Reid and Dobell MP Emma McBride – has backed imposing age limits for children on social media. Picture:NewsWire/Monique Harmer

Anthony Albanese has backed imposing age limits for children on social media, acknowledging parents are “worried sick” about what their kids are seeing online.

The Prime Minister said News Corp’s campaign calling for children under 16 to be restricted from having social media accounts – up from 13 – was “a really positive response” to an issue concerning parents.

Mr Albanese said many parents were concerned about the access that children had to inappropriate material online, and the mental health effects.

“(They are also concerned about) the mental health impact of some social media that we’ve seen be quite devastating and have terrible consequences for our youngest Australians,” he said at a press conference in NSW.

“Parents are worried sick about what their kids have access to online. It is a major social issue in this country. We want to respond positively to the requests from parents that we do something about this.”

Mr Albanese said children being able to access damaging content on social media under the age of 16 was a “national issue”.

“Every parent is concerned about the impact of social media. I think it’s time we take strong ­action, but we want to make sure that strong action is effective,” Mr Albanese said. “We want to make sure that any measures … put in place are effective because one of the concerns is that age protocols may be circumvented by users at the moment.”

In the federal budget this month, Jim Chalmers allocated $6.5m to trial age assurance technologies for social media.

The trial will assess the effectiveness of the technology and whether there will be a positive impact on the mental wellbeing of children. It would also focus on preventing children’s access to online pornographic and other harmful material.

National online safety agency eSafety, led by commissioner Julie Inman Grant, recommended a trial of age assurance technologies as part of its age verification roadmap submitted to government last year.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles said he and his wife had ­“really struggled at times” to manage their children’s social media usage.

“I think all parents could use some greater support to police the use of social media for their children,” he said. “It’s very hard for parents to be setting rules when their kids’ friends might have different rules … I would certainly welcome greater support for how to parent responsibly in an age of social media.”