In 2008 Australia was the first liberal democracy to consider making the use of content filters mandatory for internet access providers. The filters were intended to cover a broad spectrum of material deemed inappropriate for children. The plan was abandoned in 2012 although new powers and obligations were created in respect of child sexual abuse images.

In another world first among the liberal democracies, last week the Australian Parliament passed a measure to “ban” children under the age of 16 from using social media. Some very important details have yet to be determined in relation to how the ban will work and be enforced. In the next twelve months Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner is going to have her work cut out to get ready for the off. I wish her the best of luck.

Australian politicians are not afraid to be bold when it comes to online child protection.

Even so it was not clear why the Australian Parliament chose 16 as a cut off point and this reminded me of the farce which arose when the EU last engaged in a major way with the question of age and the internet. At that time the UK was still in the EU so by extension the UK was also implicated in it.

It started with a leaked document

In November 2011 a draft of the Commission’s proposed text for the GDPR leaked.  Sub-section 18 of Article 3 (definitions) made clear a child was any person below the age of 18. So far so uncontroversial.

However, Article 7 (6) also made clear

“Consent of a child shall only be valid when given or authorized by the child’s parent
or custodian.” 

A media storm erupted across Europe. Headlines appeared everywhere suggesting

“children to be banned from social media”  

When the proposed text for the GDPR was published officially in January 2012, 18  as the basis for giving consent to data processing had disappeared. It was replaced by 13 with a recommendation it should be 13 in every EU Member State. No exceptions or variations allowed.

It is understood that in the intervening two months no major new research or consultations were carried out to justify or support such a dramatic change. 😉 

By way of explanation Commission officials merely said their choice of 13  was inspired by

“….. the  current  US  Children  Online  Data Protection Act (sic) of 1998 and (will therefore not impose an) undue and unrealistic burden upon providers of online services “(bold added for emphasis).

Note that date, 1998, and ask yourself why in the USA and elsewhere, even today, 13 retains the status of  Holy Writ when the internet is so unutterably different from what it was in 1998?

Towards the end of the EU’s legislative process on the GDPR, when the question of age finally came to be discussed within the Trilogue, the French Government representative asked if the above was truly the Commission’s only reason for suggesting 13. The answer was

“Yes”.

Abandoned in minutes

In a matter of minutes 13 was bombed out. 16 was adopted as the default minimum age with each Member State being given the option of 15, 14 or 13. Last time I checked nine countries had stuck with 16 (Germany and  Poland being the two largest of these), France and Greece went for 15, Italy  Lithuania and Spain opted for 14 and the rest, including the UK, persisted with the de facto status quo ante of 13. 

The Australians certainly cannot be criticised for putting less thought into the question of age limits than the EU and a good many other countries.

That’s not really a great compliment.

And how has it come to this?

Why do the Australians and so many others feel they have to act by introducing new laws and regulations, including on but not limited to the matter of age?

I know Mark Zuckerberg has a fondness for anything and everything connected with Ancient Rome so let me paraphrase a quote from one of Cicero’s best known perorations

“Quo usque tandem abutere, Silicon Valley patientia nostra?”

Roughly translated the above reads

“How long, Silicon Valley, will you try our patience?

That might just fit on a t-shirt so I hestitate to add the next line in case it tempts Zuck to excess but here goes

“Quamdiu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet?”

Roughly translated the above reads

“How long still will this madness of yours mock us?”

I’m sure you get the point.

In perpetuity?

Of course the new digital technologies have created a huge range of benefits for society in general and children and young people in particular. If they hadn’t we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place. The question we are engaging with, the question the Australian Parliament and others are seeking to address, are the outward signs of the less good bits.

In effect, what politicians are saying is

“Our citizens, our voters, love the advantages the internet and its associated digital technologies have brought us. Children have gained a lot, our economies received a major boost, there have been all kinds of upsides. Thanks for them.

But our citizens, our voters, are not willing to accept or tolerate the bad bits in perpetuity as the unavoidable price we all have to pay to get the benefits of those good bits, particularly where the bad bits at least appear to harm kids.

Through the media, through advertising or whatever,  if tech companies can convince our voters they are wrong to worry in the ways they do, they have  simply misundestood what’s going on,  been misled by crazy zealots, convince them tech companies are urgently developing solutions which will work to make children’s online lives better then we, the politicians, will get off your back. But, not otherwise. In a democracy, within well understood limits, our job is to respond to and support what our voters want and more and more of them are making their views clear. The current state of play is unacceptable. We are on their payroll, not yours.”

Thus, thanks to the Australians, age has once again become a focus for debate globally.

How fortuitous then that we have

News from the LSE

In February 2025, the Journal of Children and Media, will publish a brilliant article by Professor Sonia Livingstone and Dr Kim Sylwander. I am fortunate enough to have had early sight of it. Gliding effortlessly from Latin to French I can say the piece is, without doubt a tour de force and a tour d’horizon, providing the most comprehensive commentary and literature review  I have seen on the thorny topic of age and the online world.

The title of the article?

“There is no right age! The search for age-appropriate ways to support children’s digital lives and rights”

Looking in turn at all the international laws, Treaties and Conventions which have a bearing on the subject of age, examining what is happening in a number of individual countries and also revisting the writings of major academic auathorities, early on the authors cite a statement made by danah boyd in 2014 when she said

“it’s complicated”.

Put rather more fully and in their own words 

“For many academics, (too often the solutions debated focus on the wrong questions being) too reductive of the pros and cons of digital access, insensitive to the heterogeneity among children, naïve about the practical efficacy of bright-line rules or bans, and deaf to the voices of children and young people. Moreover, it is near impossible to channel the complex and uneven body of available evidence about children’s encounters with risks of harm towards a straightforward consensus regarding any ‘right age’.

Therein lies the dilemma politicians and all public policy-makers face.

Having witnessed the near-total collapse in confidence in self-regulation, what are they supposed to do? 

Waiting for a consensus to emerge from the Academy is a non-starter.  If a consensus does emerge that would be different but right now….. well look again at  what Livingstone and Sylwander say 

“it is near impossible to channel the complex and uneven body of available evidence about children’s encounters with risks of harm towards a straightforward consensus regarding any ‘right age’”.

So many different Apps and spaces, so much variation within and between Apps, so many children with different levels of development, even within the same age range.

Evolving capacities – moving targets

If we had to pick a single guiding principle in all the work we do in the field of children’s rights it is that enshrined in Article 5 of the UNCRC concerning the importance of having regard to a child’s “evolving capacities”. 

It’s about individual children and what they can do or cope with at any given moment but that introduces a huge dynamic. Another complexity, another uneven, moving target. It is hard to see how currently available systems can cope with that.

Thus, for the foreseeable future age can only ever be a rough approximation for capacity. Given that, I repeat my question, what are policy makers, be they politicians or whoever, supposed to do?

Livingstone and Sylwander have the answer. They should constantly be engaging with children, researching and keeping abreast of what is happening to children online, always being ready to tweak, change or introduce a new policy if new evidence arises.

But what I say is, in the meantime, you can hardly blame politicians for plumping for one that seems reasonable. Certainty is not an option.