Online games escape social media ban for children… for now

Under new laws which will take effect in about 12 months’ time, providers of age-restricted social media platforms will be required to take reasonable steps to prevent children under the age of 16 from having an account. An “age-restricted social media platform” is defined as an electronic service that meets the following conditions:

• it has the sole or significant purpose of enabling online social interaction;
• it allows users to link to or interact with other users; and
• it allows users to post material on the service.

The legislation allows rules to be made to specify additional conditions, as well as types of electronic services that are or are not age-restricted social media platforms. No doubt to the relief of makers of online games like Roblox, Minecraft and Fornite, the Australian Government has said it will make a rule that excludes online games from being treated as age-related social media platforms.

So where does that leave online games?

In Australia, online games are regulated under the National Classification Scheme. The Scheme creates classification categories and computer games are required to be classified before being made available in Australia. Generally speaking, games classified R 18+ are restricted to adults, and games classified MA 15+ are restricted to persons aged 15 years or over with some exceptions for parental consent. The National Classification Scheme is implemented through legislation in each Australian State and Territory, and to keep things interesting each one does it slightly differently. To make things worse, the National Classification Scheme was developed in 1995 when games were demonstrated in shops and sold over the counter, so it does not work well for online games. For example, in Queensland an MA 15+ game cannot be sold to a person under 15 unless they are “accompanied by an adult”. Exactly how a child is to be accompanied by an adult when making an online purchase is unclear. Incidentally, while this exception applies in Queensland, there is no similar exception in New South Wales and Victoria.

The Australian Government has recognised these problems with the National Classification Scheme and in 2023 announced a review. The first changes to come out of that review were to introduce a mandatory minimum classification of R 18+ for games containing simulated gambling and M for games containing paid loot boxes. Watch this space for further changes.

In the meantime, providers of online games will have to contend with the out-of-date National Classification Scheme, but at least appear to be spared from the new laws applying to social media platforms. But for how long? In explaining the legislation, the Government has said it will conduct a review after 2 years which will include considering whether the social media ban should be extended to online games. So, watch this space too.