In order to safeguard children, Norway is now working to enforce a strict minimum age limit on social media to 15. Jonas Gahr Store, Norwegian Prime Minister stated that it would be an uphill tasks and requested politicians to protect children from this power of algorithm. He feels that the industry is misusing social media platforms and this could make consumers single minded.
As per a research by Norwegian Media Authority, the current minimum age limit is 13 but despite the law, 50% of nine-year-old, 58% of 10-year-old and 72% of 11-year-old are on social media as of now.
The government is now working to bring in more safeguards for preventing children from getting around age restrictions which includes amendment of Personal Data Act so that social media users must be 15 years old to agree that platform could handle their personal data and develop an age verification barrier for social media. This would send a strong signal across and children could be protected from harmful content on social media. It would be an uphill battle as it would be required to fight against big tech giants but this is what politics is for.
Kjersti Toppe who is the minister for children and families is working for stricter online regulation for kids and is meant to help parents, its’s about giving security to parents to say no.
Other countries are following suit also and one of them is Australia which has announced that it would ban social media for children and teenagers, though age limit has not been decided but it would be anywhere between 14 to 16. On the other hand, France is also conducting a trial on ban on mobile phones for children under the age of 15 and if the trial gets successful then it could be introduced across the nation.
Karianne Oldernes Tung spoke about the active role of Norway in the rising debate over too much use of social media by children and also stressed the need for a collective action. All European countries should come together and develop age verification systems so that it can be implemented across the entire European continent. As Norway itself is a small country, it won’t be easy for them to implement the same.
Norway is not part of the European Union but still is a part of European Economic Area which implies it can adopt most of the EU laws which are linked to a single market. Right now Norway is applying the General Data Protection Regulation and is now implementing the EU Digital Services Act which is a high profile content moderation law of the bloc.
Tung feels not enough is being done and stated that GDPR has set up a minimum age limit of thirteen but this rule has not been enforced strictly as children as young as nine can be found on social media. Norway government led by Labor Party has come up with a new law besides implementation of the DSA and existing GDPR with an absolute age limit for social media with a clear definition of what implies social media. The country also wants to raise the GDPR minimum age for processing of data of children from 13 to 15 years something which every EU member state can decide on their own.
The government of Norway is right now analyzing feedback from public consultation which drew more than 8000 submissions. Right now protection of children from online harm is at the top of political agenda across the globe with countries like Australia looking to ban social media for children under the age of sixteen whereas EU countries such as Denmark, Greece and France are also coming up with national laws.
