紐時賞析／澳洲立法 禁止孩童用社群媒體

Australian Law Would Bar Children From Using Social Media

澳洲立法 禁止孩童用社群媒體

Australia has long been one of the most proactive countries in the world in trying to police the internet. It has clashed with Elon Musk over violent videos and child exploitation on social platform X, forced Google and Facebook to pay for news, and tried to filter out large swaths of online content.

澳洲長期以來一直是世界上最積極嘗試監管網路的國家之一。它曾與馬斯克針對社群平台X上的暴力影片和兒童剝削內容發生衝突，強迫谷歌和臉書為新聞內容付費，並試圖過濾掉大量的線上內容。

Its latest aim may be the most herculean yet. By December, the country wants to remove more than 1 million young teens from social media, under a groundbreaking law that sets a minimum age of 16 to use the platforms.

它最新的目標可能是迄今為止最具挑戰性的。根據一項開創性的法律，該國希望在年底前將超過100萬名青少年從社群媒體中移除，該法律規定使用這些平台的最低年齡為16歲。

But with fewer than six months before the new regulation goes into effect, much about its implementation remains unclear or undecided.

然而，距離新法規生效不到6個月，實施的許多細節仍不清楚或尚未決定。

YouTube, which young teens in Australia report using more than any other service, may or may not be covered by the law. Authorities have yet to lay out the parameters of what social media companies need to do to comply, and what would constitute a violation, which could lead to fines of $30 million or more. The government has studied how to verify users’ ages but has not released the full results of an extensive trial.

澳洲青少年報告使用最多的YouTube，可能會也可能不會受到該法律的規範。當局尚未制定社群媒體公司需要遵守的具體參數，以及什麼行為構成違規，違規可能導致3000萬美元或更高的罰款。政府已研究如何驗證用戶年齡，但尚未公布一項廣泛試驗的完整結果。

“We may be building the plane a little bit as we’re flying it,” Julie Inman Grant, the commissioner of online safety who is tasked with enforcing the law, said last month.

負責執行該法律的線上安全委員茱莉．英曼．葛蘭特上月表示：「我們可能一邊實施一邊改進。」

The law could have far-reaching influence if Australia can succeed in getting substantial numbers of teens off social media. Several governments around the world and in various U.S. states are in the process of or planning to impose their own rules on social media for young people, as alarm over the platforms’ mental health effects and addictive nature has reached a fever pitch.

若澳洲能成功使大量青少年離開社群媒體，那這項法律可能造成深遠的影響。隨著人們對社群媒體平台帶來的心理健康影響及成癮性的擔憂到了極點，世界多國政府和美國多個州分正在制定相關規範，或計畫針對年輕人實施社交媒體相關法規。

Inman Grant said her office began consultations last week with tech companies to set expectations on what “reasonable steps” they need to take to comply with the law.

茱莉．英曼．葛蘭特表示，她的辦公室上周開始和科技公司進行磋商，以設定他們預期要採取哪些「合理舉措」來遵守法律。

The companies will have to demonstrate that they are doing enough to identify underage users and remove their accounts. They will also have to provide ways that parents or teachers can flag accounts belonging to people under 16; show that they are countering attempts at circumvention, such as through a VPN; and prove that they are tracking the efficacy of their methods, she said.

這些公司將必須展現，他們採取足夠措施識別未成年用戶和移除他們的帳戶。她表示，公司也將必須提供家長和教師標示16歲以下用戶帳戶的方法，展現他們試圖反擊使用虛擬私人網路等規避手段，並證明他們正在追蹤其方法的效力。

文／Victoria Kim　譯／羅方妤