Australia considers court action against social media platforms over teen ban compliance
Australia's online safety watchdog says major platforms aren't doing enough to keep under-16s off their services, threatening legal action.
Australia's online safety regulator said Tuesday it is considering court action against Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube, alleging the platforms are not adequately preventing children under 16 from accessing their services.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant released her first compliance report since Australia's social media ban for minors took effect on December 10. The report found that while 5 million Australian accounts had been deactivated, a substantial number of children continued to maintain accounts, create new ones, and bypass age verification systems across 10 platforms examined.
The regulator expressed "significant concerns about the compliance" of the five major platforms and said it was gathering evidence that they had not taken "reasonable steps" to prevent young children from holding accounts. Courts could impose fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to comply with the world-first legislation.
Communications Minister Anika Wells accused the platforms of deliberately minimal compliance efforts. "Social media platforms are choosing to do the absolute bare minimum because they want these laws to fail," Wells told reporters, suggesting they oppose the legislation to discourage other countries from following Australia's example.
The regulator identified problematic practices including allowing unlimited attempts to pass age verification and prompting users to retry verification even after declaring themselves underage. Five platforms - Reddit, X, Kick, Threads and Twitch - are not under investigation.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said it was committed to complying with the ban while noting that "accurately determining age online is a challenge for the whole industry." Snapchat said it has locked 450,000 accounts in compliance and continues daily enforcement efforts. The regulator will decide whether to initiate court proceedings by midyear, while Reddit has filed a constitutional challenge to the law in Australia's High Court.