A high school student poses with her mobile showing her social media applications in Melbourne, Australia, on Nov 28, 2024. Some 77% of the nearly 2,000 respondents in the YouGov poll, seen by dpa, indicated that they would either ‘fully’ or ‘somewhat’ support such a law in Germany. — Reuters
BERLIN: A large majority of Germans would support a law similar to what parliament passed on Nov 29 in Australia, restricting access to social media to those older than 16, a survey published on Nov 30 showed.
Some 77% of the nearly 2,000 respondents in the YouGov poll, seen by dpa, indicated that they would either "fully" or "somewhat" support such a law in Germany. In contrast, 13% said they would either "fully" or "somewhat" oppose it. The remaining said they didn't know.
The Australian ban, which passed the House of Representatives on Friday after getting the okay in the Senate on Thursday, takes effect in a year's time and will impact platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit and X. Exemptions will apply for health and education services including YouTube, Messenger Kids and WhatsApp.
It remains unclear how the measures will be implemented, but verification is set to be the tech companies' responsibility – not parents. There are no penalties for users, but companies could face fines in the millions for violations.
Additionally, the survey showed 82% are either "absolutely certain" or "somewhat certain" that social media has negative effects on children and adolescents, while 9% were either "certain" that platforms like Tiktok, Instagram, and Facebook do not have negative effects on children and teenagers, or answered the influence question with "rather no." The rest stated that they did not know enough about social media to be able to assess this or they responded with "don't know."
Of those who more likely believed in negative effects, 26% believe the content might be responsible for a negative effect, while 20% feared social media could be addictive. Some 52% believed both aspects equally contributed to their belief that social media could have negative effects on children and adolescents.
Just 1% stated that "something else" was responsible for the negative effect or answered with "don't know."
The representative online survey was conducted between Nov 22 and 25 with 1,976 eligible voters in Germany aged 18 and over participating nationwide. – dpa
