Category World News

As Canberra prepares to enact a massive new social media law that has sparked concerns from young people and advocates, Meta will restrict access to Australians under the age of 16 starting on December 4.

Before the new Australian social media ban on users under 16 goes into effect on December 10, the US tech giant announced it would start removing teenagers and children from its platforms.

Even though critics claim the changes have been rushed through without considering issues relating to privacy, access to information, and the effects on young people’s mental health, the Australian government is preparing to enforce the law with fines of up to 49.5 million Australian Dollars (US $ 32 million) for social media companies.

According to a statement from Meta, “from today, it will be notifying Australian users who are between the ages of 13 and 15 that they will lose access to Facebook, Threads, and Instagram.”

Beginning on December 4, Meta plans to start erasing new under-16 accounts and revoking existing access, with the goal of eliminating all known under-16s by December 10.

According to government statistics, there are roughly 350 000 Instagram users between the ages of 13 and 15 in Australia and about 150 000 Facebook accounts.

Immediately, Meta has begun to warn impacted users that they will soon be locked out.

A message sent to users that Meta considers to be under 16 reads, “Soon, you’ll no longer be able to use Facebook and your profile won’t be visible to you or others.”

“We’ll let you know that you can start using Facebook once more when you turn 16.”

The Australian government has stated that the ban will also apply to other social media platforms, including Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, and YouTube.

Ban the phrase “does not add up”

Leo Puglisi, 18, the founder of youth news service 6 News Australia, told an Australian senate inquiry that young people “deeply care” about the ban and its potential consequences.

According to Puglisi, many people who watch 6 News are young people who find their content on social media.

He addressed the inquiry, “I believe young people have the right to be informed.”

A 15-year-old cannot access any news or political sources on social media, according to “we’re saying.” Simply put, I don’t believe that makes sense.

Senator David Shoebridge of Australia expressed concern that “approximate 2.4 million young people will be banned from social media accounts just as the school holidays begin.”

In a recent post on X, Shoebridge wrote, “I’m deeply concerned about the effects on the ban, including on young people’s mental health and privacy.”

Electronic Frontiers Australia’s John Pane also testified before a senator in court that the new legislation adds new risks while addressing other issues.

Pane says the ban poses a new “far greater, systemic risk” from “potential mass collection of children’s and adults’ identity data,” despite the fact that it attempts to address the possibility of young people viewing “unsuitable content” online.

According to Pane, this will increase “the data stores and financial positions of big tech and big data, and significantly escalating cyber risk.”

Social media companies are planning to require some users to verify their age by recording videos of themselves because the majority of Australians under the age of 16 lack official government ID.

Similar bans are being considered in other nations.

As global regulators grapple with the conflicting risks and advantages of social media, there is a lot of interest in whether Australia’s broad restrictions can work.

A similar bill to restrict children’s use of social media by New Zealand’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, is on the table.

Indonesia has also stated that it is drafting legislation to protect young people from “physical, mental, or moral perils.”

The Dutch government has advised parents to admonish children under the age of 15 from using social media platforms like TikTok and Snapchat in Europe.

The city of Antalya will host the COP31 summit in 2014, bringing an end to a longstanding conflict between Turkiye and Australia regarding the location of the biggest UN climate meeting.

As Turkiye takes over the presidency of the official meeting, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Thursday morning that Australia and Turkiye had reached an agreement to hold negotiations in the lead-up to the UN climate meeting in 2026.

According to Albanese, “What we’ve come up with is a big win for both Australia and [Turkiye],” Albanese told ABC Radio Perth, an Australian public broadcaster.

The COP30 climate summit in Belem, Brazil, is set to conclude on Friday, according to the announcement.

Low-lying South Pacific nations, which are increasingly threatened by rising sea levels and climate-driven disasters, had been pushing for COP31 to be held as a “Pacific COP” next year.

Turkiye’s bid to host the summit was rejected despite Australia’s efforts.

At its summit, which would have a more global focus than a regional focus, Turkiye had stated that as an emerging economy, it would encourage solidarity between rich and poor nations.

Due to the unusually lengthy process of obtaining hosting duties and the absence of appropriate controls for a situation where two nations wanted to host at the same time, Turkiye will now only have one year to organize the meeting at the Antalya Expo Center.

The Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has a tradition of alternating between five geographic areas: Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe, and Western Europe, among others.

Western Europe and others also include Australia and Turkiye, so Australia will now have to wait another five years before submitting an application to host the meeting once more.

Fitsum Assefa Adela, the Ethiopian minister for planning and development, announced last week that the country had already secured African negotiators’ support for COP32 in 2027.

Disappointed that this situation has come to an end.

Australia’s rejection of its bid to cohost the COP with its Pacific island neighbors quickly sparked a furor in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Justin Tkatchenko, the foreign minister of PNG, told the AFP news agency, “We are all not happy and disappointed it’s ended this.”

What has COP accomplished over time? Nothing, according to Tkatchenko. It’s just a talk show and doesn’t hold the major polluters accountable, it says.

Australian senator Steph Hodgins-May of the Australian Greens party claimed Australia’s decision to host the meeting was in line with the Labor government’s “continued coal and gas approvals” as Australia continues to increase its fossil fuel exports.

This is incredibly disappointing, but it demonstrates how much the world acknowledges Australia’s significant contribution to the dangerous deterioration of climate change, according to May.

Both Australia and Turkiye rely heavily on coal, oil, and gas for energy, but both nations have made progress in renewable energy, according to the International Energy Agency.

The conference was being held in Adelaide, the state’s capital, to promote renewable energy progress in the state of South Australia.

The city’s struggle to deal with a significant toxic algal bloom that has been occurring offshore for eight months made the proposal more difficult.

One of the many issues brought on by warming oceans, an issue that climate scientists and other experts believe can be addressed, is the problem of algae blooms, which they claim can only be resolved quickly by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

The release of files relating to Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous late sex offender, according to Donald Trump, the president of the United States.

Following months of pressure on his administration to reveal the full scope of Epstein’s crimes and connections to world leaders in politics, business, and entertainment, Trump made the announcement on social media late on Wednesday.

Prior to a press conference, US Attorney General Pam Bondi had stated that the administration would “follow the law” and “encourage maximum transparency” in the case.

The US Department of Justice is required to release all unclassified financial information in “searchable and downloadable format” within the 30-day deadline by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The legislation includes provisions that allow authorities to withhold information that could identify victims, as well as child sex exploitation material and information that is related to active investigations or deemed sensitive to “national defense or foreign policy,” according to provisions that were unanimous in the US Congress.

The text also states that no record should be kept in the event of “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

Despite the release of thousands of Epstein files, a judge who presided over a case involving the financier earlier this year indicated that about 100 000 pages had not yet been made public.

Trump, who had previously opposed calls for greater transparency in the case, said he wanted Democrats to be more liable for the controversy by announcing the files’ release.

Trump referred to Epstein as a “lifelong” Democrat and his connections to prominent Democrats, including former US president Bill Clinton and former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who took a leave of absence from teaching at Harvard University on Wednesday in response to emails revealing their friendly ties to the late financier.

Clinton and Summers have neither been charged with any criminal activity related to their ties to Epstein, who passed away in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while being charged with sex trafficking.

Because I just signed the bill to release the EPSTEIN FILES, “Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed”! Trump’s platform, Truth Social, contained some writing.

Epstein’s associations included prominent Republicans and Democrats across the political spectrum.

In the 1990s and the early 2000s, Trump himself had a friendly relationship with Epstein, and his name was prominently displayed in his estate’s earlier emails.

Epstein claimed that Trump had spent “hours” with a sex trafficking victim in an email from 2011 to 2011 to Ghislaine Maxwell, his ex-girlfriend.

Trump has repeatedly claimed he had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has denied any wrongdoing.

Critics doubted Trump’s administration’s ability to fulfill its pledge to transparency in the matter after his announcement.

California’s Democratic Senator Adam Schiff claimed he was “not at all confident” that the legislation would be put into action as it was intended.

In an interview with MS NOW host Chris Hayes, Schiff said, “If the past is the prelude, what we can expect is more stonewalling, more coverup, and more ingenious ways of explaining why they’re covering up.”