Examining Australia's Move on Social Media Ban for Those Aged 16 and Below

54 Ms Foo Mee Har asked the Minister for Digital Development and Information in light of the Australian government’s recent move to ban social media access for individuals under the age of 16 through legislation (a) what is the Government’s current assessment of the effectiveness of such bans in protecting young users from online harms; and (b) whether the Government has plans to consider similar measures, or alternative regulatory approaches, to further safeguard children and teenagers on social media platforms in Singapore.

68 Mr Pritam Singh asked the Minister for Digital Development and Information (a) whether the Government assesses that there are more advantages as opposed to disadvantages in legislating for an age limit on the use of social media access by young children and teenagers; and (b) if not, why not.

The Minister of State for Digital Development and Information (Ms Rahayu Mahzam) (for the Minister for Digital Development and Information): Mr Speaker, may I have your permission to address Question No 54, and Question No 68 filed by Leader of Opposition Mr Pritam Singh, scheduled for today's Sitting, together with the Parliamentary Question filed by Mr Saktiandi Supaat for tomorrow's Sitting, together?

Mr Speaker: Please go ahead.

Ms Rahayu Mahzam: The stated objective of legislating age limits for social media access is to protect children and youths from its harms. We share the same objective and will continue to study the effectiveness of mandating age limits. For example, how will the authorities assess the extent of violation? Where will the line be drawn if younger users turn to accessing unregulated platforms or services? We are engaging our Australian counterparts in social media platforms to understand their views. This will help inform our thinking on the next steps.

In the meantime, we have taken several steps to protect our children on social media. In 2023, we introduced the Code of Practice for Online Safety. It requires designated social media services to put in place measures to enhance the safety of Singapore users, including more stringent measures for children. Among other obligations, they must ensure children are not targeted to receive content that is detrimental to their physical or mental well-being. They must also have more restrictive account settings for children and provide tools for parents to manage their safety.

We have also taken decisive steps to require the implementation of age assurance methods, which have grown in availability and effectiveness, and can help to minimise children’s access to harmful online content. Such methods include age estimation using technology and age verification based on submission of official documents. Our upcoming Code of Practice for Online Safety for App Distribution Services will require designated app stores to put in place such measures to ensure that children access only apps that are appropriate for their age.

Even as we consider further steps to improve protection for children online, we are mindful that research findings on the impact of social media on children are not conclusive. While it has been linked to mental health issues, social media has also been shown to help children develop social skills and build connections with their peers.

This is why we have stepped up complementary efforts in public education to equip and educate parents and children on how to be safe online. We do this through Cyber Wellness lessons in the Ministry of Education’s (MOE's) Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) curriculum, as well as various initiatives such as Parenting for Wellness launched in 2024 by MOE, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), the Health Promotion Board (HPB) and the Online Safety Digital Resource Kit on the Infocomm Media Development Authority's (IMDA's) Digital for Life (DfL) portal. These are complemented by efforts of industry and community partners, such as Google’s Be Internet Awesome Programme and Touch Community Services’ First Device Campaign.

We are constantly looking to do better, and I welcome Members and everyone’s suggestions. Ensuring online safety is a whole of society effort and everyone can play their part.

Mr Speaker: Ms Foo.

Ms Foo Mee Har: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have two supplementary questions for the Minister of State. The first supplementary question relates to the assessment of the adequacy of the current framework. I think Singapore's implementation of the Code of Practice for Online Safety is our key legislative framework now. So, it depends on social media services such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok to enhance social safety by a series of things they have to do. So, I want to ask the Minister of State what key insights have been drawn from the compliance reports that they have to submit as part of this framework, Code of Practice for Online Safety? I believe this was due by end of July 2024, so, they would have submitted reports to say what are the things they are doing and how do you think they are doing.

Furthermore, I want to ask the Government whether you think these social media companies are investing adequately in infrastructure, resources, expertise and also leadership accountability to enhance their organisation's capacity to implement robust safeguards and also to respond effectively to incidents. So, this is all about depending on social media platforms doing their job.

The second supplementary question pertains to community involvement to nurture safe online practices. Given the importance of digital literacy and community involvement in nurturing safe online practices, how does the Government view the role of community, particularly parents and also educators, in fostering such practices? What specific initiatives or frameworks does the Government consider critical to achieving this effectively?

Ms Rahayu Mahzam: I thank the Member for her questions. On the first bucket of questions that she raised relating to the designated social media services, indeed, the whole intent of having them submit the annual online report is to provide transparency on their measures and levels of safety to see what they are already doing in the space and also help us to understand what are some of the features that can be put in place to provide the safeguards. These reports are in, but IMDA is still in the midst of assessing these reports. We plan to publish them, so that will be coming in soon. With this, indeed, we will be seeking to learn from this exercise and we will look to improve the safeguards and processes.

With regard to the second bucket of questions that the Member had in relation to the role of parents and the community, as I mentioned earlier, it is a whole-of-society effort. This is something that we need to do together. The Government is looking at how we can enhance regulatory measures, but we also are strengthening our public education efforts.

This gives me the opportunity to share some of the work that we have already been doing in this space. These efforts include the National Library Board's S.U.R.E programme. I think that is something that Members will be familiar with because that is something that had been launched in 2013 to strengthen Singaporeans' resilience to misinformation and online falsehoods.

We have also more recently launched the IMDA's Digital Skills for Life Framework, which was launched in January 2024. It identifies the set of skills to equip Singaporeans to carry out day-to-day tasks online, including staying safe and smart online.

We are also looking at equipping parents with the skills to guide their children on online interactions. IMDA offers many bite-sized resources on their DfL portal. So, one example is the Online Safety Digital Resource Kit, which was developed in collaboration with technology companies, and recommends the necessary parental controls and safeguards to protect their children's safety online.

We also work closely with other Ministries, with MOE, as I mentioned earlier in their CCE curriculum. The Cyber Wellness lessons are important to teach the children how to be safe, respectful and responsible users of digital devices.

The Ministry of Health also has the Guidance on Screen Use in Children which we will continue to update and revise.

To empower and equip parents further to build strong parent-child relationships, and strengthen their children's mental well-being, and emotional resilience through this digital journey, MOE, MSF and HPB also launched the Parenting for Wellness initiative in September of 2024. This also brings together resources to help support parents in this journey.

My Ministry, the Ministry of Digital Development and Information, will also introduce a Positive Use Guide on Technology and Social Media in the first half of this year.

So, these are the different initiatives and efforts that we were putting in place to hopefully strengthen community's ability to also walk together in this journey in safeguarding and protecting our children.

Mr Speaker: Ms Foo.

Ms Foo Mee Har: Thank you, Mr Speaker, for indulging. Since at this stage, the Minister of State is not able to reveal the findings now, I would just like to ask, depending on the outcome of the compliance report, whether the Government will consider insisting on a minimum standard of investment by these social media platforms in terms of the way they can respond your key performance indicators for them, leadership accountability, so that they do put in the necessary investment and capacity to take this obligation very seriously.

Ms Rahayu Mahzam: I thank the Member for the further question. Indeed, these are things that we can continue to review as we see what have been the efforts that are put in place.

But just to clarify, the Online Safety Code had already put in certain things that the designated social media companies need to comply with, and if they do not, they will be subject to penalties. These include putting in place systems and processes to minimise presence of harmful content in the services, particularly for children, and establishing community guidelines, enforcing them, providing users of access to tools to manage their own safety and proactively detecting and removing child sexual exploitation and abuse material, as well as terrorism content. So, there are already basic things that they have to do. They are also supposed to provide an effective and easy-to-use reporting mechanism for Singapore users to report harmful content or unwanted interactions on the platform.

So, as we continue to do this, there are already some stringent measures that we have put to the designated social media companies to comply with and we will continue to improve on these.

Mr Speaker: Mr Pritam Singh.

Mr Pritam Singh (Aljunied): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to thank the Minister of State for replying to a variation of the question that I asked.

The Minister of State referred to the Australian example and just a few weeks ago, the Australian Internet Commissioner who is overseeing this piece of legislation, which is supposed to come into effect this year, towards end of the year I understand, was quoted as saying, "the onus to date has been falling on parents and the children themselves" and "this law is the government making a very definitive statement and saying, 'we need to put the burden back on you, companies, just like we did with car manufacturers 60 years ago with seatbelts'... and now there is so much life-saving technology in our cars that we take for granted. Back then, car manufacturers pushed back but now they compete on safety... The law is really aimed at making normative change that the onus should fall on platforms." This is one fragment of a larger interview she did and was reported on National Public Radio.

With regard to the Online Safety Code that the Minister of State spoke about vis-a-vis IMDA's conversation with social media platforms, is the Government of the view that in Singapore at least, these social media companies actually respond quite proactively to the requirements that the Government puts on them with regard to Online Safety? What is the position in Singapore vis-a-vis the relationship with social media companies?

Ms Rahayu Mahzam: I thank the Member for the questions and the insight. Indeed, we are learning robustly from different countries. They are all having different experiences and some of the experiences are useful in informing us as to the actions we need to take in our space.

In Singapore, we have had a very collaborative approach that we have taken with the technology companies. We have been very stern and strict in making sure that they comply with some of the requirements that we have set forth. But we also want to ensure that this is something that can be sustainable and meaningful.

With regard to the question on whether they have been putting in the necessary safeguards, I think this is the whole point of the exercise with the annual reports because it is going to be a continuous iterative process. Based on what we have learned so far, we have put in the requirements that we think are necessary for the social media companies to put in place. We constantly engage them to make sure that they comply with these. And the reports actually provide transparency and give us that opportunity to assess whether they have done well. We are still in the midst of reviewing these and when we assess these, this is going to be the foundation of how we can then move forward in either strengthening levers or seeing what are the other measures that we can put in place to provide the necessary safeguards and protection for our children.

11.28 am

Mr Speaker: Ms Jessica Tan, did you raise your hand just now. No? Okay, alright.

Order. End of Question time.

[Pursuant to Standing Order No 22(3), provided that Members had not asked for questions standing in their names to be postponed to a later Sitting day or withdrawn, written answers to questions not reached by the end of Question Time are reproduced in the Appendix.]