Hafenecker: Government distracts with social media from AmoFlauf in Graz!

Hafenecker: Government distracts with social media from AmoFlauf in Graz!

In the past few days, the Austrian government has been very criticized for stricter age rules for social media platforms due to its announcements. FPÖ general secretary Christian Hafenecker described these measures as an attempt to distract from the serious failures of the authorities, which may have led to the killing spree in Graz. He sees the planned changes as a distraction maneuver that really addresses the security problem nor the support for endangered young people. According to Hafenecker, an ID Austria is now to be introduced through the 13-year-old in order to be able to view Tikok videos. This regulation is criticized by political representatives as a digital symbol policy that limits the fundamental rights of young people and raises the question to what extent the state is able to identify and act mentally conspicuous people in good time.

A central problem is the contradiction that young people up to 15 years of age should be denied access to social media, while they are already eligible to vote at the age of 16. Hafenecker warns that this step could interpret as an attempt to control the opinion formation of young voters, which could restrict the freedom of gathering information. Instead, he calls for stronger approaches in school media education and more intensive parental responsibility to promote media literacy of young people.

government plans for age restriction

State Secretary Alexander Pröll from the ÖVP announced further details on the proposed age restrictions on Tuesday. The goal of the government is a national solution to oblige social media platforms to comply with age limits. The first steps for this could already be determined in the Council of Ministers. According to Pröll, the General Data Protection Regulation could serve as a lever, since the processing of data from under 14 year olds is not permitted.

The WU economist Sarah Spiekermann has also spoken out for an EU-wide age limit of 15 years and advocates that a strict registration for digital platforms should be required. Pröll keeps the proposal to link social media accounts with ID Austria, it makes sense and would like to further examine this idea. The Greens support the introduction of age limits for social media and emphasize the need to establish similar rules in the online area as they also exist in the physical world.

youth media protection and media literacy

Youth media protection plays an important role, especially against the background of increasing digitization. In Germany, for example, the protection of adolescents is guaranteed by various institutions that check content for suitability для children and adolescents. The challenges in this area are in particular to identify and regulate unsuitable content that could negatively influence the development of young people.

It is crucial that media literacy is promoted to protect children and adolescents from harmful content and to raise them to deal with the media. Topics such as cyberbullying and cyber grooming must also be integrated into media education. The focus should also be on the support of parents in the digital age to enable them to actively accompany the media consumption of their children

Overall, it is indicated that the Federal Government measures for age regulation on social media platforms cannot be viewed in isolation, but in the context of a major discussion about youth media protection and the need to form media literacy of adolescents.