{"id":174656,"date":"2025-12-04T12:10:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T12:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/174656\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T12:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T12:10:09","slug":"ireland-signs-agreement-to-study-australias-social-media-ban-on-teenagers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/174656\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland signs agreement to study Australia\u2019s social media ban on teenagers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">The Irish and Australian social media regulators have signed a formal agreement around harmonisation of policies and strategies, a week before Australia is due to introduce a social media ban for under-16s\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/d8159935-22b4-46be-8ba0-d19d567ef46c.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Ireland may be inching closer to tougher social media bans for young teenagers after signing a new pact with Australian authorities, which are about to ban social media for under-16s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">A new \u2018memorandum of understanding\u2019 agreement between Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n and the Australian eSafety Commissioner is a move both regulators say will mean more common policies between the two regimes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">From next week, the Australia regulator, Julie Inman Grant, will be responsible for enforcing a new law that prohibits 13, 14 and 15 year olds from using Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, X, Reddit, Twitch and Threads, though not Roblox, WhatsApp or YouTube Kids.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Social media firms will face fines of Aus$49.5m (\u20ac28m) for breaches of the law, although children and parents will not be prosecuted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">According to the two regulators, the memorandum is to greater harmonise \u201croles in implementing regulatory frameworks for online safety in Ireland and Australia respectively\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">It will also increase \u201cincrease expertise in the area of digital regulation and online safety through exchange of information, data, good practices, methodologies, and of information about technical systems and tools\u201d as well as \u201cthe potential for co-operation in the development of policies as well as activities related to online safety education\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Ireland has been grappling with how to stop under-13s from accessing these social media services in line with current law, tightening enforcement rules in the summer on big tech firms. However, the regulator in charge, Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n, has not yet brought enforcement action against any social media giants on the issue, despite successive surveys showing social media usage among children as young as eight remains widespread, while usage among Irish 12 year olds is almost universal, kids\u2019 polls say.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cThrough this [memorandum], we are championing proactive regulation built on a foundation of international expertise and best practice,\u201d said the Australian eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201dIreland and Australia are particularly aligned around the protection of minors and the successful implementation of age assurance technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Irish regulators and government officials have not put forward any plans for a ban on under-16s using social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Irish and Australian social media regulators have signed a formal agreement around harmonisation of policies and strategies,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,898,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-174656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-latest-news-ticker","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}