By Byron Kaye
Sydney (Reuters) – The government of Australia has carved an exemption for YouTube when it takes the laws that prohibit social media access to children under the age of 16, but some experts in the field of mental health and extremism say that the website for sharing of videos exposes them to addictive and harmful content.
Australia is blocking platforms for sharing videos Tiktok and Snapchat, meta-ownership Instagram and Facebook and Elon Musk's X for minors by the end of 2025, forcing them to impose strict age restrictions on access or large fines. At the same time, the Government YouTube owns alphabet for all ages because it is a valuable educational tool and not “a core application for social media”.
The first prohibition was intended to record YouTube, but after hearing managers and makers of children who use the site, the government gave an exemption.
“Although YouTube undoubtedly functions as a source of entertainment and leisure, it is an important source of education and informative content, depending on children, parents and carers and educational institutions,” said the communication spokesperson Michelle Rowland, and added to it To ensure that the exemption “Patched broad sentiment in the Australian community that YouTube is not a core application”. The historical legislation adopted in November sets some of the world's strictest limits for social media. However, six extremism and researchers of mental health care interviewed by Reuters say that the exemption undermines the main goal of Australia to protect young users against harmful content.
Surveys show that YouTube is the most popular social media website in the country among teenagers, used by 9 out of 10 Australians of 12-17 years.
Extreme right material
The academics interviewed by Reuters said the same kind of dangerous content as the forbidden sites.
“YouTube is deeply problematic, not only because of its role in terms of extremism and the distribution of extremist content and violent content and pornographic content, but also because the very addictive video content delivers to young people,” said Lise Waldek, a teacher at the the Department of Security Studies of Macquarie University and Criminology that have carried out two government assignment studies into extremist content on YouTube.
Helen Young, a member of the addressing violent extremism and radicalization of the Terrorischetwerk, repeated those worries and said that YouTube's “algorithm feeds feeds really extreme right-wing material, whether it is primarily racist or mainly a kind of misogynistic, anti-feminist Things, for users, identify like young men and boys. “
