Canberra, June 30 (UNI) Australia’s Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has accused social media companies of ignoring legitimate concerns about the impact of their platforms on children.
Albanese said on Saturday that executives from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, showed how “arrogant” they are by telling a parliamentary hearing on Friday that social media provides tremendous benefits for children.
“Meta is showing how out of touch they are and how arrogant they are,” Albanese told reporters.
“Every parent knows that social media can have a damaging impact on the mental health of young people, on social exclusion, on the bullying that can occur online, and on grooming that can occur in a dangerous way online as well.”
Antigone Davis, global head of safety at Meta, told the parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society on Friday that there was no clear evidence linking social media to rising rates of mental illness.
Albanese told Seven Network television on Saturday that Davis’s comments showed how contemptuous social media companies are of parents’ legitimate concerns.
The government has committed 6.5 million Australian dollars (4.3 million U.S. dollars) in funding to trial age verification technology to restrict children’s exposure to inappropriate content online.
In May, Albanese endorsed a campaign to raise the minimum age for registering social media accounts from 13 to 16.
UNI/XINHUA
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