Regulating Young People's Access to Social Media after US Negligence Finding against Meta and Alphabet

9 Mr Vikram Nair asked the Minister for Digital Development and Information in light of the US Court's finding that Meta and Alphabet were negligent in designing platforms that harmed young people, whether the Government will consider action to regulate young people's access to social media platforms, including a potential ban on such use.

The Minister of State for Digital Development and Information (Ms Rahayu Mahzam) (for the Minister for Digital Development and Information) : Mr Speaker, the question by Mr Vikram Nair on the Government's measures to enhance safeguards for children and adolescence when they go on social media platforms, have been addressed in the written reply to Question No 40 for oral answer as well as Question Nos 36 and 37 for written answer at yesterday's Sitting. The answer given also addresses related questions for written answer by Mr Louis Chua and Miss Elysa Chen in today's Order Paper. The Member may wish to refer to the answer given.

Mr Speaker : Mr Nair.

Mr Vikram Nair (Sembawang) : Thank you, and I thank the Minister of State for flagging the answer to me as well. So, I have a supplementary question. The answer was that the Ministry is engaging the digital service providers as well as preparing advisories for parents.

These are commendable efforts, but the judgment in the United States was actually quite damning, in that it said social media platforms, in particular, Google and Meta, were responsible for creating addictive platforms that caused mental health issues for the young plaintiff concerned. All our youths are equally exposed to these platforms and while it is helpful to, I guess, engage the alleged perpetrators as well as engage parents, it may be necessary for the Ministry to take a harder stance and draw a firm boundary, like some other countries have done, to say that social media should be restricted for young people and then you talk after that.

Ms Rahayu Mahzam : I thank the Member for the question. I just want to highlight that, indeed, we are taking reference from the judgment, from the decision, and the information that we are seeing, the findings, actually add to the growing body of evidence. We know that the harms are real and we are taking it seriously.

So, it is not that we are not doing anything. We have been acting on protecting and safeguarding our young children from the harms online.

But we take a different approach in that we also want something that is more effective. A more durable approach that will withstand the test of time and the test of evolution of the technologies. Because, as what the Member pointed out, what we have found from the decisions was that there were some specific features and dimensions of the social media platforms that actually impact the youths.

So, it is not just about saying, "Okay, none at all". There are certain dimensions of it that causes the harm. And so, our approach targets the specific harms and the specific design features that produce them, and so this is also calibrated by the age of the user. And this is actually more demanding, more rigorous than a blanket ban. Because if you just say, "Okay, do not use it at all", you may not even solve the problem. What we are trying to do is to look at what is it that is causing the harm. Our approach has always been one that is outcomes-driven.

And we have been building progressively on this. As I have said, we are not starting from a blank slate. We already have the Code of Practice for Online Safety, for the social media services. We introduced age assurance for apps and we also have the annual reporting that the designated social media services have to provide to us. In recent times, based on their reporting, we have actually acted against X and TikTok. So, that shows that there is a mechanism for us to actually take action.

Moving forward, we are going to be extending the age assurance measures to the designated social media services and looking beyond the content, to the design features. We are going to understand it a bit better. These are the things that are actually causing the harms the direct messaging from strangers, auto-play, other features that drive excessive use, emerging risks from AI companions and all that. So, we are actually going to break it down and see how we can improve it.

Having said that, we are not foreclosing the decision on a ban, because we will do whatever it takes to protect our young ones. And if there is a need for stronger action, we will take it. But we are learning robustly from many different countries. Minister Desmond Lee made reference to Estonia, his visit to Estonia. Estonia is a country that we look up to, because it is quite advanced.

And so, this idea of a blanket or social media ban is not a globally accepted position. Estonia has not applied it; in fact, I think Belgium as well as the state of New York. There are different approaches internationally. In fact, Australia has also amended its legislation to be a bit more targeted, looking at the design features.

So, firstly, we are not starting on a blank slate. We do have safeguards in place and we do not think just rushing into having a ban may necessarily be the best thing. We are not foreclosing it as a decision, but we are studying what is more effective to achieve the desired outcome that you will want to see.

Mr Speaker : Moving on. Mr Melvin Yong.