Posts about PNG sending troops to Israel misuse old footage
"PNG is in the 7 allied force joining the Israelites," reads a caption of a video shared June 29, 2025 by a Facebook user in Papua New Guinea.
It includes a video of soldiers emblazoned with the logo of news organisation "7News" at the bottom right corner.
The post, which includes the hashtags "#iranisraelconflict" and "#warzone", has been viewed over 130,000 times and shared more than 500 times. It also circulated on TikTok.
Israel launched an unprecedented surprise bombing campaign against Iran on June 13, prompting Tehran to respond with drone and missile attacks. A ceasefire between the long-time foes has been in effect since June 24 (archived link).
While some Facebook users expressed scepticism over the video, a few appeared to believe the false claim.
One user criticised the supposed move as "inviting disaster to a country with no superpower at all". Another said they could "smell WW3... just around the corner".
Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister James Marape has said his country "continues to stand with Israel" when asked about the conflict with Iran in late June (archived link).
But posts about troop deployment to the Middle East are false, according to Defence Minister Billy Joseph (archived link).
"It's fake news," Joseph told AFP in a text message sent on July 23.
He added that the military exercise shown in the circulating video was "not done in preparation for deployment to any conflict region like in the Middle East, Europe or elsewhere".
A keyword search found the original 7News report published May 19, 2025, four weeks before the Iran-Israel war erupted (archived link).
The report was about a month-long military exercise called the North Queensland Warfighter (archived link).
The war games -- which included troops from Papua New Guinea, Japan, Malaysia and the United States -- were also featured on the Australian Army's official YouTube page (archived link).
The Israeli army did not take part in the exercises, Australia's Department of Defence told AFP.
The Australian Associated Press has earlier debunked similar posts (archived link).
AFP has fact-checked other false claims related to the Iran-Israel war here.
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5 hours ago
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The U.S. military is investing in this Pacific island. So is China.
The U.S. military is investing in this Pacific island. So is China. KOROR, Palau - The U.S. military will next year upgrade Palau's main harbor, usually frequented by dive boats full of tourists heading to emerald lagoons, so that American warships can enter the Pacific island nation's narrow channels and dock here. The wharf will be expanded and elevated. There will be a new logistics hub with a warehouse, enabling U.S. Navy ships to refuel, reload and rearm. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. This is all part of a broader effort to boost the U.S. military's presence in the Western Pacific, allowing for the rapid mobilization of American forces in the event of a conflict involving China. Complicating that plan, however, is a Chinese-owned hotel overlooking Malakal Harbor that U.S. and Palauan officials worry could be used for surveillance. Across Palau, Chinese businesses and developers have leased land near a half-dozen strategic locations where the United States is beefing up efforts to detect and deter China's growing reach into the region, according to intelligence and security documents and interviews with 20 American, Palauan and Taiwanese officials. A months-long Washington Post investigation found that Chinese businesses have leased land or built properties for tourism developments near the port, the airport, a U.S. coastal surveillance outpost and a U.S. 'over the horizon' radar system. (Palauan law doesn't allow foreigners to buy land, but they can lease it for up to 99 years.) These Chinese leases or buildings potentially provide Beijing with not only a bird's-eye view of the increasing American footprint in Palau but also opportunities to disrupt U.S. military activities here, the officials said. Some of the projects have connections to groups allegedly linked to organized crime, according to records obtained by The Post including a U.S. intelligence assessment and parts of a Palauan national security briefing, and officials in both countries are concerned these groups could act as proxies for Beijing, complementing the expansionary goals of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 'The Chinese are very sophisticated,' Palau's president, Surangel Whipps Jr., said in an interview. 'They play the long game. They know exactly what they're doing and so we've got to be smarter.' China, which has the world's largest navy, has been aggressively increasing its influence across the South China Sea and into the Western Pacific, seeking to becoming the predominant maritime power in a region the U.S. has long considered its domain. The location of Palau, a Micronesian archipelago of more than 300 islands east of the Philippines, has long made it strategically valuable. Japan occupied it during the first half of the 20th century, then fought bloody battles with the U.S. here during World War II. Today, Palau is an important link in the Second Island Chain, the string of outposts stretching from Japan through Guam and Micronesia to Indonesia that the U.S. is fortifying to constrain China's expansion. (The First Island Chain includes Taiwan and is closer to China.) The U.S. military, which has broad access in Palau as part of a compact of free association, sees the island nation as a small but key piece of its strategy to quickly disperse forces and project power in the region. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has vowed to take control of Taiwan - by force if necessary - potentially involving the U.S. in a military conflict. In the meantime, Beijing has convinced several countries in the region to sever diplomatic ties with the self-governing democracy that China claims as a province. Palau is one of only three Pacific nations that still recognize Taipei over Beijing. Whipps said that soon after he was first elected in 2020, he received a call from China's ambassador to the Federated States of Micronesia, who offered a 'million' tourists a year to fill Chinese-built hotels - in exchange for Palau's abandoning Taiwan. China's Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment. 'This is a national security issue not only for Palau but also Taiwan and the United States,' said Jessica C. Lee, Taiwan's ambassador to Palau. 'If there is a 'D-Day,' the Chinese will be able to cut cables in Palau, activate devices on rooftops, whatever they can to delay a U.S. response to Chinese aggression.' Beijing has studied U.S. force projection closely and knows that facilities in places like Palau are critical to American readiness, said Abraham Denmark, who was a defense official in the Biden and Obama administrations. 'It's very clear they want to do what they can to disrupt U.S. operations as best they can using whatever means they have available.' Officials say this country of just 17,000 people has seen a surge in violence, drugs and corruption involving Chinese nationals that Whipps claims is designed to pressure Palau to recognize China, something Beijing denies. Whipps has cracked down on foreign, and especially Chinese, influence in Palau. Since his reelection in November, his administration has deported dozens of people, denied more than 150 tourist visas or work permits, and added more than 100 names to its list of undesirable aliens. In all three categories, the majority of people have been Chinese, including some with land leases near strategic sites, records show. Joel Ehrendreich, the U.S. ambassador to Palau, said the pattern of overpriced land leases in strategic but often economically unviable locations fits with Beijing's modus operandi. 'Leasing land is certainly the right of the landowner under Palauan law,' Ehrendreich said. 'But you've got to wonder when you see where the Chinese are doing it, the prices that they're doing it and what they do with the land after they lease it. It just raises a lot of questions, a lot of suspicion.' A document obtained by The Post shows that the U.S. Embassy has asked the Trump administration for more assistance, including a senior U.S. law enforcement official with experience in combating Chinese organized crime and a Drug Enforcement Administration agent to tackle trafficking and corruption, plus a rotation of five U.S. police officers and a pair of prosecutors to handle cases involving Chinese suspects. The State Department said that it couldn't comment on embassy requests but that transnational organized crime linked to China was 'evolving' in the region. 'We've seen the CCP deepen its influence to undermine Pacific regional security, damage economies and endanger citizens,' it said in a statement. Analysts say it's unclear what approach the Trump administration will take to the Pacific. The U.S. DOGE Service canceled the final months of a contract for some U.S. security assistance in Palau. Whipps hopes President Donald Trump will restore and bolster ties. 'Don't cut off your partners,' the Palauan president said. 'We're on the front line.' - - - Interest in a remote island Roughly 40 miles south of Malakal Harbor sits the island of Angaur. It, too, is in the middle of an American military upgrade. It, too, has been the focus of Chinese interest. The U.S. military has spent the past two years and $100 million clearing 100 acres here for a receiver for its Tactical Multi-Mission Over the Horizon Radar, or TACMOR. The system, which requires transmitter and receiver stations at least 50 miles apart, will enable the U.S. to detect Chinese hypersonic missiles or airplanes that might target U.S. forces in the Second Island Chain to prevent them from aiding Taiwan. In 2010, Palau's government publicly urged the U.S., which was relocating Marines from the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, to move them to Angaur. Soon after, Chinese investors started expressing interest in the remote island. Land records show that in 2014, Tian Hang, a longtime Chinese resident in Palau known here as Hunter Tian, signed contracts with four family groups to lease about 250 acres of land, including near Angaur's airstrip and port, for what he said would be a resort. Tian, who declined interview requests, is the president of the Palau Overseas Chinese Federation, which functions as part of the CCP's United Front Work Department promoting state objectives and whose members have given illegal campaign contributions to pro-China politicians in Palau, according to the U.S. intelligence assessment, parts of which were first reported by Reuters. None has been charged. The U.S. and Palau announced the plan for the TACMOR system in mid-2017. A few months later, Tian took prominent Palauans to China to meet with officials, according to the U.S. intelligence assessment and former president Johnson Toribiong, who went on the trip. Tian also launched a China-Palau trade organization and an ill-fated media organization in Palau with ties to Chinese security services, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. In 2018, Tian's deputy in the federation introduced Palau's then president, Tommy Remengesau Jr., to Wan Kuok Koi, a Macao mob boss known as 'Broken Tooth' who served 14 years in prison in Macao for illegal gambling, loan-sharking and attempted murder. Remengesau told The Post he wasn't aware of Wan's background. But it became clear in 2019 when Wan boasted in Hong Kong media of his plans for a Palau casino resort - located in Angaur, it was later revealed - where he would control 'customs, ports and an airport.' Remengesau responded by banning foreigners with criminal histories from coming to Palau. The U.S. Treasury later imposed sanctions on Wan. Previously unreported, however, is the fact that Wan was also interested in leasing land next to a second TACMOR site, a transmitter 60 miles north of Angaur in Palau's Ngaraard state. Alan Seid, a prominent Palau businessman, told The Post that he signed a memorandum of understanding to lease to Wan a plot of land across the road from the Ngaraard transmitter site. Wan promised to pay as much as $15 million but never delivered, according to Seid, who declined to provide a copy of the MOU and said he, too, was unaware of Wan's background. Wan could not be reached for comment. Whipps said it was 'suspect' that Wan, who had been honored by Beijing for his patriotism, had explored leasing land near both TACMOR locations. 'When you begin to see the connections, then you begin to wonder how can the Chinese government say they're not working with organized crime,' the president said. Experts say Beijing selectively uses organized crime groups to further its objectives overseas - something the Chinese government has denied. 'It works for Beijing in two ways,' said Euan Graham, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a Canberra-based think tank. 'They can export their criminal problem, but then they also turn that criminal problem into their front line of influence, basically just to sow corruption and to erode governance in these small island states.' Tian's Angaur leases have expired, and Wan's plan for both TACMOR sites ended when he had to leave the country. But the transmitter site in Ngaraard state, where work awaits an environmental permit, could soon be overlooked by a 275-room Chinese resort. Tian Shuchun (no relation to Hunter Tian) leased 60 acres here in 2015, two years before the TACMOR announcement. But it wasn't until late 2023, shortly after the U.S. military held its first public meetings on the radar, that he registered plans to build the Palau International Grand Hotel, according to local tax records. His company, Great Wall Garments, a women's clothing manufacturer in Tianjin, near Beijing, has branched out into 'high-end hotel resorts' in China, Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Palau, according to its website. Tian, who declined interview requests, has been a member of the CCP for 46 years and has been awarded several honors, including 'Outstanding Communist Party Member of Tianjin,' according to the Tianjin Small and Medium Enterprises Association, where Tian serves as a deputy director. The association has close ties with the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a key part of China's United Front Work. Tian joined the People's Liberation Army at age 19. When his company hosted an event for PLA veterans in 2022 to promote patriotism and loyalty to the CCP, he told the gathering that he still practiced many PLA habits including 'a hard work ethic,' according to a local government press release. U.S. and Palau officials also worry about Tian's local ties. In January, Palauan authorities busted what they said was a Chinese-language online gambling and scam operation in a hotel owned by the family of Vance Polycarp, the local agent for Tian's hotel project. A dozen people, including eight of Polycarp's employees, were detained, according to court records. Polycarp, who was charged with four misdemeanor labor violations, told The Post that he'd done nothing wrong and that the government was 'overreaching.' - - - 'An intelligence coup' In October, six U.S. C-17 transport planes swept down on Palau's Roman Tmetuchl International Airport, part of an exercise simulating scenarios the U.S. could face in Palau in a conflict with China. Hundreds of Army Rangers practiced rapidly securing the airfield before an artillery brigade launched six missiles from High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), all while an electromagnetic warfare squadron provided secure communications. A mile from the western end of the runway, a sign in Chinese and English warns the public to stay out. Atop a hill, workers were finishing the foundations of a 50-room hotel called the Ritzy. According to an analysis by Pacific Economics, a Hawaii-based consultancy, the company building the Ritzy - Horizon Holdings Group - has ties to a Chinese-Cambodian conglomerate - Prince Holding Group - that Chinese officials have linked to transnational crime. In a risk assessment prepared for Palauan authorities, Pacific Economics analyzed records from two commercial databases and found ties - including shared directors across two subsidiaries - suggesting that the two companies are associated. Li Yangkun, Horizon Holding's chairman, told The Post that the links stemmed from a partner's selling a company to the Prince Group in 2017. However, commercial data reviewed by The Post shows that Li's partner, Zhou Bo, continued to serve as a director of the company for at least two years after the sale, alongside Prince Group Chairman Chen Zhi. Zhou also served alongside Chen for several years as a director of Prince Bank PLC, a Prince Group subsidiary. Chinese prosecutors have accused Prince Group subsidiaries of luring people to Cambodia to work in online casinos, according to public court records. The CCP's Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission has called the Phnom Penh-based conglomerate a 'massive cross-border online gambling corporation,' with officials estimating illicit revenue of $700 million between 2016 and 2024. In response to The Post's questions, Prince Group spokesman Gabriel Tan acknowledged the past links between Zhou and Chen but said Zhou's involvement with the Prince Group ended in 2019. Records show that is when Horizon Holdings was incorporated, also in Cambodia. Tan said the Prince Group has no ties to the Ritzy or Horizon Holdings and 'no operations, investments, development activities, subsidiaries, or partnerships in Palau.' He said that any court cases mentioning the company were 'cases of impersonation' and that 'no executive or employee' has been prosecuted, convicted or 'formally investigated in China or any other jurisdiction.' The conglomerate has maintained its business in China, including several real estate offices that work with Chinese state-owned companies, and is involved in projects in the Belt and Road Initiative, China's global infrastructure investment program, according to local government press releases. Citing Pacific Economics, Palau's National Security Coordination Office warned in a report that the Ritzy's alleged ties to the Prince Group threatened to introduce 'illegal gambling and other illicit activities.' Whipps's government put three people associated with the Ritzy on the undesirable-alien list in April. The only employee still in Palau, a Chinese project manager named Mu Hongyue, insisted the project wasn't linked to the Prince Group and didn't pose any threat. 'It's ridiculous,' he said in late April as he gave Post reporters a tour of the construction site, including what would eventually be a badminton court. 'How can we use this place to attack your aircraft?' But Bryan Clark, a former U.S. Navy officer and an expert in electronic warfare at the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, said a mile would be close enough to launch an unjammable fiber-optic drone or intercept radio communications. 'You just need to find one or two pilots or navigators who aren't on the ball and forget to do the right equipment setup and, boom, you've got an intelligence coup for your country,' he said. The Ritzy isn't the only Chinese development with alleged links to the Prince Group. A project is set to begin in Palau's north near a U.S. coastal surveillance system, a radar with a 75-mile radius. In late 2019, not long after he was in discussions with Wan over the land near the TACMOR site in Ngaraard, Seid was approached about an uninhabited islet he co-owned. He took a group of Chinese businessmen led by a 'Mr. Chen' - who insisted that he wasn't to be photographed, Seid said - to Ngerbelas, where he barbecued freshly speared fish for them. He eventually leased them the island for up to 99 years for $7 million, records show. The Grand Legend International Asset Management Group is now poised to build a luxury resort on Ngerbelas. Palau corporate records show its largest joint shareholder is Chen Zhi, the Chinese-born naturalized Cambodian citizen who heads the Prince Group. A document for the resort filed with the Palauan government and obtained by The Post says that 'Grand Legend is a subsidiary of Prince Real Estate Group.' The website for another Prince Group subsidiary featured a map - now removed - showing a project in Ngerbelas. Tan, the Prince Group spokesman, confirmed Chen's involvement but said that it was only in a 'personal capacity' and that he had not been to Palau. Tan said that Grand Legend was not a subsidiary, that the resort was unrelated to the Prince Group, and that the Prince Group had never positioned developments near U.S. strategic sites in Palau. - - - Creating options for later Above Malakal Harbor in Koror, the upper reaches of the Belmond Hotel are being renovated. Its Chinese owner, Zhang Zhengrong, says it will soon have a rooftop lounge. U.S. and Palauan officials fear it could house electronic surveillance devices aimed at visiting U.S. warships. Zhang scoffed at the idea. 'I'm a simple businessman,' the 35-year-old said in a phone interview. 'I have zero interest in politics. Not in China. Not in Palau.' Zhang said he grew up in China's Fujian province and went into construction after dropping out of school at age 14. He said he went to Palau on vacation in 2019 and liked it so much that he decided to stay and invest. He bought the partly built Belmond for $3 million during the covid-19 pandemic using the proceeds from his construction businesses, he said. According to the Palau national security brief, however, Zhang has ties to the Fujianese mafia - known for its global reach - and his money comes from running online scam operations in Southeast Asia. Zhang denied any involvement in the mafia or scam operations. In December, however, police raided a suspected illegal online gambling and scamming operation in one of his four Palau properties. They arrested one person and several others fled. Zhang said he was merely the landlord. Zhang said he learned of the Belmond from Siegfried Nakamura, a local lawyer whose family owned the hotel. Nakamura was elected to Palau's Senate in November. Nakamura is one of at least three Palauan politicians who allegedly received illegal campaign donations from Zhang, according to the U.S. intelligence assessment. (Foreigners are not allowed to make campaign donations in Palau.) Zhang said that he gave Nakamura $10,000 in cash but that it was for legal services. Nakamura also denied the accusation, which he called 'unfounded, defamatory and false.' It's unclear whether authorities investigated. Neither Nakamura nor Zhang was charged. Zhang's alleged illegal activity, plus the hotel's proximity to the port, gives U.S., Palauan and Taiwanese officials cause for concern. Analysts say the biggest risk is electronic surveillance. That could be monitoring U.S. Navy communications or taking acoustic signatures from U.S. ships that can be used for torpedo targeting, said Clark, of the Hudson Institute. If satellites were disabled - something many military analysts say would be likely in a conflict between the U.S. and China - the hotel could be used to target the port. 'What China does is what we do,' said Clark, 'which is to try to create a bunch of options for later.' Palau is trying to chip away at China's options. In April, Zhang flew from Hong Kong to Koror but was sent back after finding out he'd been added to Palau's rapidly growing list of undesirable aliens. Zhang - speaking, he said, from Thailand - insisted he had zero ties to Beijing, which he said wouldn't need him anyway. 'In a small country like Palau, if China wants to do surveillance, they can do it from anywhere easily,' he said. 'They don't need a hotel with a good location.' GRAPHIC Related Content The U.S. military is investing in this Pacific island. So is China. In a stressful human world, 'mermaiding' gains popularity in D.C. area 'College hazing' or training? Amid shortage, air traffic recruits wash out. 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Forbes
7 hours ago
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The World Court Rules On Fossil Fuels
TOPSHOT - Vanuatu's Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu (C) delivers a speech as he attends a ... More demonstration ahead of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) session tasked with issuing the first Advisory Opinion (AO) on States' legal obligations to address climate change, in The Hague on July 23, 2025. (Photo by JOHN THYS / AFP) (Photo by JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images) The International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague thrust itself into the energy/climate debate last week. Via a unanimous advisory opinion issued in connection with a complaint filed by the nation of Vanuatu, the ICJ ruled that government actions driving climate change are illegal and that states are legally obligated both to cut their emissions and to compensate nations that are at risk of the effects of climate change. Vanuatu, a tiny island nation in the Pacific, has warned that its entire land area may be swallowed up by predicted rising sea levels. Agreeing with Vanuatu's position, ICJ President Yuji Isawawa's written decision declared that climate change is an "urgent and existential threat of planetary proportions.' The sweeping ICJ ruling contains broad implications for the future of the fossil fuel industry and the greenhouse gases (GHGs) that it produces. Most significantly, "the Court reaffirmed that a state's failure to take appropriate measures to protect the climate system from GHGs—including via fossil fuel production, consumption, licensing, or subsidies—may amount to an internationally wrongful act (para. 427). Importantly, the wrongful act lies not in the emissions themselves, but in breaching the obligation to prevent significant climate harm." (Source). While countries like the United States, which are not members of the ICJ, likely will ignore what is only an advisory opinion even for ICJ members, one can still expect climate activists to attempt to use this opinion as dramatically as possible. Indeed, it is not out of the question to anticipate that activists will seek international arrest warrants for directors of fossil fuel companies, citing the ICJ opinion as their foundation despite its advisory nature. Regardless of the above, one likely result of this ruling will be to spread chaos in world energy supply and availability. Will Dutch energy companies like Shell and British energy companies like BP henceforth be allowed to continue operating at all? If so, under what future restrictions? As renewables like solar, wind, and geothermal constitute only a tiny part of world energy supply, does this opinion relegate poorer countries to perpetual poverty as they will now face almost guaranteed energy insecurity when heretofore conventional (i.e., fossil fuel) energy sources go away? Internally, certain nations already find themselves battered in two directions. Nowhere will that be truer than in Canada, where the western provinces are threatening "separation" over energy issues, yet new Prime Minister Marc Carney has demurred in allowing increased fossil fuel development to continue to occur. (Source). This ruling potentially now places Mr. Carney in an even deeper legal hole internationally, as he can either possibly tear his nation apart or face claims that he is purposely violating international law. (Source). While the ICJ ruling otherwise sounds commendable to those who claim their only goal is to save the planet, it nevertheless highlights the uneasy relationship between law and science that permeates the issue of climate change generally, and energy policy specifically. By seeking to discourage or eliminate fossil fuels altogether, the World Court is, in fact, forcing future international economic development to rely upon intermittent renewables at a time when the science is just not there, yet, for these sources alone, to propel the future world economy. The result could be both economic and environmental disaster in much of the developed world, as locals, stripped of their most reliable power source, may have no choice but to resort to things like deforestation and other environmentally destructive methods to provide the energy that they will need to survive. For the international environmental community, last week's ICJ ruling might turn out to be the ultimate example of "be careful what you wish for, you just may get it."
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
Australia bans YouTube accounts for children under 16 in reversal of previous stance
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The Australian government announced YouTube will be among the social media platforms that must ensure account holders are at least 16-years-old from December, reversing a position taken months ago on the popular video-sharing service. YouTube was listed as an exemption in November last year when the Parliament passed world-first laws that will ban Australian children younger than 16 from platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and X. Communications Minister Anika Wells released rules Wednesday that decide which online services are defined as 'age-restricted social media platforms' and which avoid the age limit. The age restrictions take effect Dec. 10 and platforms will face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for 'failing to take responsible steps' to exclude underage account holders, a government statement said. The steps are not defined. Wells defended applying the restrictions to YouTube and said the government would not be intimidated by threats of legal action from the platform's U.S. owner, Alphabet Inc. 'The evidence cannot be ignored that four out of 10 Australian kids report that their most recent harm was on YouTube,' Wells told reporters, referring to government research. 'We will not be intimidated by legal threats when this is a genuine fight for the wellbeing of Australian kids.' Children will be able to access YouTube but will not be allowed to have their own YouTube accounts. YouTube said the government's decision 'reverses a clear, public commitment to exclude YouTube from this ban.' 'We share the government's goal of addressing and reducing online harms. Our position remains clear: YouTube is a video sharing platform with a library of free, high-quality content, increasingly viewed on TV screens. It's not social media,' a YouTube statement said, noting it will consider next steps and engage with the government. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia would campaign at a United Nations forum in New York in September for international support for banning children from social media. 'I know from the discussions I've had with other leaders that they are looking at this and they are considering what impact social media is having on young people in their respective nations,' Albanese said. 'It is a common experience. This is not an Australian experience." Last year, the government commissioned an evaluation of age assurance technologies that was to report last month on how young children could be excluded from social media. The government had yet to receive that evaluation's final recommendations, Wells said. But she added the platform users won't have to upload documents such as passports and driver's licenses to prove their age. 'Platforms have to provide an alternative to providing your own personal identification documents to satisfy themselves of age,' Wells said. 'These platforms know with deadly accuracy who we are, what we do and when we do it. And they know that you've had a Facebook account since 2009, so they know that you are over 16." Exempt services include online gaming, messaging, education and health apps. They are excluded because they are considered less harmful to children. The minimum age is intended to address harmful impacts on children including addictive behaviors caused by persuasive or manipulative platform design features, social isolation, sleep interference, poor mental and physical health, low life-satisfaction and exposure to inappropriate and harmful content, government documents say. Rod Mcguirk, The Associated Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
