\n<\/p>\n
Mr Wong also announced that social media platforms will be required to put in place stronger safeguards for children and teenagers.<\/p>\n
Social media created new opportunities and connected families and friends when it first emerged, he said, but some of its downsides only became clear over time: one in six young people aged 10 to 24 in Singapore today show signs of problematic social media use.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor some the problem can be severe \u2013 they spend six or seven hours a day on social media, sometimes till the wee hours of the morning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Children and teenagers are particularly vulnerable as their brains are still developing, making them \u201cmore susceptible to social pressures and more easily hooked by features designed to keep them constantly engaged\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
While most platforms already set a minimum age of 13, enforcement is largely left to the platforms themselves, Mr Wong said.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday they mostly rely on users to declare their own ages, and we know this is not working well,\u201d said Mr Wong, adding that he is struck by how many children are already active on social media when he visits primary schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cSelf-declaration is just not good enough,\u201d he said. \u201cThey will have to put in place robust and reliable checks, so that the minimum age is properly set and enforced, and our children are genuinely protected.”<\/p>\n
Even for children aged 13 and above, social media can have negative effects. The immediate priority is to make social media safer by design, Mr Wong said.<\/p>\n
Many platforms are designed to keep users endlessly scrolling, he said. These features are hard enough for adults to resist, and the risks are greater for teenagers.<\/p>\n
Stronger safeguards will thus be required for young users, and any platform that wants to serve young users in Singapore must meet these requirements, he said.<\/p>\n
If safeguards remain inadequate, additional restrictions will be considered, including raising the minimum age for access to that platform beyond 13, Mr Wong added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough every major technological shift, we have embraced change on our own terms, built new capabilities and emerged stronger,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have done it before, and we will do it again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo said in a Facebook post on Sunday that she will share more in the coming days on the new requirements, including “how they can partner the Singapore government to make their platforms safer for children and youth in Singapore”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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SAFEGUARDS FOR YOUNG SOCIAL MEDIA USERS Mr Wong also announced that social media platforms will be required to put in place stronger safeguards for children…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}