Member of Parliament (MP) Sjamira Roseburg’s take on a social media ban for kids (see Tuesday newspaper) is clear. She does not support such legislation in St. Maarten.
According to her education and digital literacy would be more effective than restrictions. She also thinks it will be extremely difficult to effectively enforce.
The United Resilient St. Maarten Movement (URSM) politician believes the focus should be on preparing young people to use social media responsibly. In her opinion children ought to understand why certain online behaviour can be harmful rather than simply forbidding access.
She has a point, but the graphic accompanying her story showed three countries including Australia already have active bans for youths under the age of 16, while those of Greece and France -both under 15- are listed as “incoming.” The latter’s Parliament recently passed a law to introduce the ban, as the first European country to do so. It will thus be interesting to see how implementation fares on the French side.
No fewer than 17 nations are currently preparing similar legislation, with Italy’s version targeting children of 12 or younger. That illustrates room for variation not only in terms of age, but also in other details.
Although the Netherlands was not mentioned, in February, around six months after the previous Dutch government decided to urge parents to keep their kids off social media instead of implementing a ban, the newly sworn-in Jetten I Cabinet put the option back on the table. The D66, VVD, and CDA coalition accord states that government wants “an enforceable minimum age of 15 for social media.”
Plans are still vague, only saying that enforcement of this age limit must be done with “privacy-friendly age verification for young people, as long as social media remains insufficiently secure.” The agreement does not clarify when government will consider social media sufficiently secure or what the coalition parties mean by “privacy-friendly age verification.”
According to research agency Newcom in its annual social media survey last January, 63% of people in the Netherlands now support a ban on such for children under 16, up from 57% last year. Several experts have suggested a gradual approach.
So, the answer is not necessarily limited to a simple “yes” or “no” but can also be some kind of compromise. Instead of between the proverbial black and white, one could rather choose for different shades of gray.
