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Rethink teen social media ban, Meta urges Australia

Rush to pass hate speech, gun laws SYDNEY: Australia’s parliament will reopen two weeks early to crack down on hate crimes and gun ownership following the mass shooting at Bondi Beach. Australia has flagged a suite of reforms to hate crime and gun laws since the Dec 14 attack killed 15 people. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would recall both houses of parliament for a sitting on Jan 19-20 to pass the new legislation and offer condolences to the victims. Members of parliament had been scheduled to return from their summer break on Feb 3. The legislation would create new offences for “hate preachers”, stiffen hate crime penalties, expand a ban on prohibited symbols, and set the framework for a new list of banned hate groups. It would allow the home affairs minister to reject or cancel visas for people intending to spread hatred, the prime minister said. The laws would enable the launch of a national guns buyback scheme. Stricter checks would also be imposed for gun licences, the government said. Details of the draft laws are to be released publicly today. – AFP NEW DELHI: The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (Isro) rocket launch carrying as many as 16 satellites failed yesterday, with an “anomaly” detected in its third stage. A significant deviation was witnessed from the intended flight path and the satellites could not be placed in orbit. An online report by India Today quoted Isro chairman V. Narayanan as saying that “the mission encountered a technical anomaly”. “While the initial flight stages were nominal, the third stage failed to provide the required thrust due to an unexpected drop in chamber pressure. We observed a significant deviation from the intended flight path and the satellites could not be placed in orbit.” – Bernama ‘MORE BUSHFIRES LIKELY’ SYDNEY: Australian firefighters warned people yesterday to prepare for more bushfires in a “high-risk” summer, after blazes killed one person and incinerated more than 350 buildings in the southeast. Weather conditions have eased since strong winds and temperatures topping 40ºC fed dozens of wildfires in Victoria, which declared a state of disaster on Saturday. But officials said 12 major fires were still burning across the state. Country Fire Authority chief officer Jason Heffernan said another “heating event” was expected towards the end of the month, though its intensity was uncertain. “We are early in the high-risk weather season.” – AFP SMART CHIMPANZEE AI DIES KYOTO: A female chimpanzee known for her ability to recognise letters and numbers has died of old age and organ failure at 49 years of age. Kyodo News reported Kyoto University’s Centre for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behaviour in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, said Ai was born in western Africa in 1976 and arrived at the centre the following year. She then began language learning using materials, including computers, at the age of 18 months. Ai died on Friday as staff watched over her, according to the centre formerly known as the Primate Research Institute. She showed strong literacy skills, including pointing to the kanji character for green among many characters after seeing a green image. – Bernama INDIAN SAT LAUNCH FAILS

BR I E F S

o Company committed to complying with the law

of data on their users for commercial purposes. They can and must use that information to comply with Australian law and ensure people under 16 are not on their platforms,” a government spokesperson said. Meta said parents and experts were worried about the ban isolating young people from online communities and driving some to less regulated apps and darker corners of the internet. Initial impacts of the legislation “suggest it is not meeting its objectives of increasing the safety and well-being of young Australians”, it said. While raising concern over the lack of an industry standard for determining age online, Meta said its compliance with the Australian law would be a “multilayered process”. Since the ban, the California-based firm said it had helped found the OpenAge Initiative, a non-profit group that has launched age verification tools called AgeKeys. – AFP

from Threads in the week to Dec 11. The company said it was committed to complying with the law. “That said, we call on the Australian government to engage with industry constructively to find a better way forward, such as incentivising all of industry to raise the standard in providing safe, privacy-preserving, age appropriate experiences online, instead of blanket bans,” it said in statement. Meta renewed an earlier call for app stores to be required to verify people’s ages and get parental approval before under-16s can download an app. This was the only way to avoid a “whack-a mole” race to stop teens migrating to new apps to avoid the ban, the company said. The government said it was holding social media companies to account for the harm they cause young Australians. “Platforms like Meta collect a huge amount

SYDNEY: Tech giant Meta urged Australia yesterday to rethink its world-first social media ban for under-16s, while reporting that it has blocked more than 544,000 accounts under the new law. Australia has required big platforms including Meta, TikTok and YouTube to stop underage users from holding accounts since the legislation came into force on Dec 10 last year. Companies face fines of A$49.5 million (RM134.87 million) if they fail to take “reasonable steps” to comply. Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta said it had removed 331,000 underage accounts from Instagram, 173,000 from Facebook, and 40,000

Korean activists attach tags reading ‘Stop military cooperation’, ‘Apology for war crimes’ on a board-cut of Takaichi during a protest near the presidential Blue House in Seoul yesterday. – AFPPIC

South Korea seeks to balance ties SEOUL: South Korean President Lee Jae Myung is set for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi today, a week after one with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as Seoul seeks to balance ties with both neighbours. Japan go on for a long time,” said Yang Kee-ho, a Japanese studies professor at South Korea’s Sungkonghoe University. “It is very likely that the Sino-Japanese relationship will deteriorate throughout (Takaichi’s) term in office.”

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. “Not only has Japan’s relationship with China deteriorated, the United States has also put a little distance from Japan in its (Taiwan) stance,” said Lee. South Korea’s Lee and Takaichi may discuss the Japan-China dispute during their meeting, a security adviser to Lee, Wi Sung-lac said on Friday. However, South Korea is unlikely to take sides, analysts said. “Our relationship with Japan is as important as our relationship with China,”Lee told reporters during his state visit to China last week. – Reuters

The summit in Nara City comes amid a growing diplomatic dispute between Beijing and Tokyo, and analysts expect Takaichi to highlight the stability of three-way ties between the United States, Japan and South Korea. Lee has taken an approach of “pragmatic diplomacy” in seeking to balance ties with China and Japan. “Historically, disputes between China and

Beijing was infuriated after Takaichi said in November a Chinese attack on Taiwan could be deemed an existential threat to Japan, which could trigger a military response from Tokyo. In the face of the tension with China, Japan may seek to bolster diplomatic ties with South Korea, possibly through a strategic partnership, said Lee Chang-min, another Japan expert at