The Australian government has proposed a bill on a minimum age limit for children to use social media, citing mental and physical health concerns.

Anthony Albanese, prime minister of Australia, said his government would run an age verification trial before introducing the legislation.

“I want to see kids off their devices and onto the footy fields and the swimming pools and the tennis courts,” Albanese said.

“We want them to have real experiences with real people because we know that social media is causing social harm.”

The law would place Australia on the list of countries to impose age restriction on social media.

Australia’s internet regulator, eSafety Commissioner, said in June that “restriction-based approaches may limit young people’s access to critical support” and push them to “less regulated non-mainstream services”.

‘GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO STEP IN’

The proposal follows South Australia’s plan to restrict social media access to people aged 14 and over.

Peter Malinauskas, South Australian premier, said the proposal was fuelled by concerns that social media was harming young people and affecting their mental health, leaving parents “almost powerless”.

“The government is now going to step in, we’re going to ban kids from getting access to these accounts,” he said.

“We’re going to ban the social media services from providing access in that first place and where they do it and do it knowingly, they are subject to severe punishment, heavy financial penalties that will act as a major deterrent to ensure this doesn’t occur in the future.”

Malinauskas said the proposed regulation put “a positive obligation and duty” on social media companies to ensure children under 14 cannot access such platforms.

“That positive duty and obligation doesn’t just extend to prevent individual children from getting access to the platform but creates a systemic responsibility on the social media platforms to ensure they are undertaking all reasonable steps to prevent children from getting access,” he said.

If passed, the legislation will require social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent access by any South Australian child under the age of 14.

They would also have to ensure teens aged 14–15 could only access platforms with parental content.

Bans and limited access would be overseen by a state regulator who would monitor compliance and impose sanctions, such as: warnings, infringement notices and fines; and court proceedings that impose corrective orders or civil penalties.

Legal action could also be taken against providers by either a regulator or parents on behalf of a child who has suffered significant mental or physical harm.

The UK government is expected to release about 5,500 prisoners in England and Wales to ease overcrowding.

The BBC reports that more than 1,700 detainees are expected to be freed at first, with subsequent releases in September and October.

Data from the UK ministry of justice shows that there are a total of 88,521 prisoners in England and Wales as of September 6.

The “usable operational capacity” — the total number of people a prison can hold while taking into account issues like control and security — was 89,619, leaving spare capacity of just 1,098 places.

This is well above the prison service’s own measure of a “good, decent standard of accommodation”, which was 79,856 at the end of July.

Jonathan Reynolds, UK secretary of state for business and trade, told Sky News that the “emergency decision” had to be made because the previous government could not manage the justice system.

“Of all the scandals we inherited, I think the prison system, the justice system, is probably the worst of all,” he said.

Martin Jones, chief inspector of probation, told BBC radio that the pressure on prisons was “extreme”.

“It’s the highest population we’ve ever seen in this country. Prisons are absolutely close to 100 percent capacity”.

ELIGIBILITY

Prisoners who have served only 40 percent of their fixed term sentence, rather than the usual 50 percent, will be automatically released.

However, those who are in jail for serious violent offences with sentences of four years or more, as well as sex offenders, are not included.

The scheme also excludes those convicted of domestic abuse and what the government calls “connected crimes”, such as stalking and controlling or coercive behaviours.

More serious offenders serving life sentences, for example, will only be released after the Parole Board has assessed whether they still pose a risk.

Anyone released will be monitored by the probation service and this could involve the use of electronic tagging and curfews.

Abdelmadjid Tebboune has been declared the winner of Saturday’s presidential election in Algeria.

Mohamed Charfi, head of the Algerian electoral commission, told journalists on Sunday that Tebboune, the incumbent president, had won with over 90 percent of the votes.

“Of 5,630,000 voters recorded, 5,320,000 voted for the independent candidate Abdelmadjid Tebboune, accounting for 94.65 percent,” he said.

Charfi said, while announcing the results, that the body had worked to ensure transparency and fair competition among all candidates.

The closest contenders, Abdelaali Hassani Cherif and Youcef Aouchiche, amassed three percent and two percent of votes respectively.

The total turnout was said to have been 48 percent.

Cherif’s campaign team reportedly said polling station officials were pressured to inflate results.

The campaign team, citing its own rallies from regions, added that the candidate had won far more votes than had been announced.

Throughout the campaign period, activists and international organisations, including Amnesty International, railed against the campaign season’s “repressive atmosphere” and the alleged harassment and prosecutions of those involved in opposition parties, media organisations and civil society groups.

During his campaigns, Tebboune had promised to raise unemployment benefits, pensions and public housing programmes, all of which he increased during his first term as president.

He was first elected in 2019 during the mass “hirak” (movement) protests that forced Abdulaziz Bouteflika from power after 20 years.

The protests brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets every week for more than a year demanding an end to corruption and the ousting of Bouteflika.