Social media giants would be forced to ban children under the age of 14 from their platforms or face hefty penalties, under proposed laws in South Australia that could be replicated in other states.

The SA government has released a 276-page report by former High Court justice Robert French on how companies providing social media services like Facebook and TikTok would need to take "systemic responsibility" for restricting children from using their products.

The report outlines how the draft legislation is "available for other state governments to pursue" if they choose to and could be rolled out across the nation.

SA Premier Peter Malinauskas said the proposal was fuelled by concerns 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."

Mr 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.

"What this [legislation] does is put the power back into the hands of parents."

If companies breach the rules, Mr Malinauskas said parents, or a regulator on behalf of a child, could seek compensation or financial penalties.

"The regulator can also, at the most severe end, pursue civil penalties that would be of a seven-figure sum or more against these social media platforms in the event they breach and break the law with impunity," he said.

"We want to create a big, massive deterrent against these giant companies where they do harm to our children."

Mr Malinauskas said he acknowledged not all social media sites were "bad' and the draft bill would exempt some services which have a positive impact on young people in an "education" or social support context.

Under the proposed law, 14 and 15-year-olds would need parental consent to access social media accounts.

How would it be enforced?

The review's author, Mr French, said some of the major social media companies were already looking at banning children under 13, in response to digital privacy legislation in the United States.

"But the question is how rigorous is that age restriction? Who does the age assurance?" he said.

"If the social media service companies are confronted with the need to comply with the duty — and it's not just happening in the state of South Australia, I mean these challenges are happening in the US and around the world — it would be in their interest to come to the party in terms of age assurance. 

"It's something they [social media companies] already claim to do to a large extent, we're just ramping it up a bit."

Mr French said under the draft bill, service providers would need to show they had taken "reasonable steps" to stop children under the age of 14 from accessing their platforms.

He said technology around age verification or age estimation was evolving.

"The question of what are reasonable steps is not written into the proposed legislation, that would be a judgement call from time to time, but the regulator would be expected to provide guidance on what reasonable steps would be," Mr French said.

"And that guidance would change from time to time according to the state of the technology."

The draft bill includes the appointment of a regulator who would oversee compliance, issue sanctions for breaches or seek significant penalties through the Supreme Court.

Going at it alone

Mr French said his draft framework allowed states to adopt it independently of one another and the federal government.

"Ultimately the preferential approach would be from a constitutional, legal point of view is to have a national response. That said, the state has the power to go at it alone," he said.

Mr Malinauskas said the prime minister and other state premiers and chief ministers expressed "keen" interest in the proposed regulations at national cabinet on Friday.

He said the SA government was committed to introducing this legislation.

"We'd much rather have social media companies work with us than against us because ultimately if they play a role that is constructive in the process of getting reformed, that's better for everybody."

Queensland Premier Steven Miles said a social media ban "would work best" on a national level but is not opposed to looking at progressing it in his state.

Western Australian Premier Roger Cook has similar sentiments on a national approach for a ban but "wholly" supported limiting children's exposure to social media.

The draft legislation will be open to public consultation this week.

'Ban not the right approach'

University of Sydney media and communications lecturer Catherine Page Jeffery said the debate around young people using social media was "polarising" and lacked nuance, and she did not believe a ban was the right approach.

"There is not a strong evidence base for the harms of social media for young people. So we actually need to go back to interrogate those assumptions rather than accepting it as fact and then imposing these policies and laws, which probably would have detrimental effects for young people."

She said simply responding to the potential risks of social media by banning it failed to acknowledge its substantial benefits.

"It's not enabling or allowing young people the opportunity to use these social media platforms to develop their online skills and their competence and their resilience that they are going to need to safely navigate these spaces," she said.

Dr Page Jeffery said resources should be put into making online spaces safer for young people rather than denying them access.

"We need to be working with young people, with parents, with educators, with platforms as a shared responsibility for helping young people safely navigate online spaces," she said.

Dr Page Jeffery said making children provide proof of age to use social media raised "all sorts of privacy issues".

She said young people would find ways to circumvent restrictions or switch to other services to communicate with their peers.

A spokesperson from the Office of eSafety Commissioner said Mr French's review contained some "useful policy ideas for future regulatory action" and applauded the state's leadership.

They said any additional measures at a state or territory level should work in tandem with the agency's ongoing work under the Online Safety Act.

The federal government is reviewing the act and looking at a trial of age assurance technologies that could make it harder for children to skirt minimum age requirements.

"Last week, eSafety requested information from some of the world's most popular social media and messaging services to find out just how many Australian children are on their platforms and what age assurance measures they have in place to enforce their own age limits," the spokesperson said.

"eSafety will continue using its transparency powers and research capability to build a more solid evidence base around Australian children's use of these platforms and the companies' readiness to address the pressing age assurance challenge."