Global Black Voices: News from around the World
- eSafety Commissioner warned Meta, Snap, TikTok, and Google's YouTube for suspected violations of Australia’s under-16 ban.
- eSafety is gathering evidence for possible sanctions, with a compliance decision expected by midyear.
- Platforms could face fines up to A$49.5 million and severe reputational damage if found noncompliant.
- eSafety found tactics like repeated age checks, optional photo checks, and lack of age inference enabling under-16 accounts.
- Despite initial shutdowns, many parents report under-16 children still have accounts; Anika Wells decries the big-tech playbook.
The Australian internet regulator said it was looking into five of the top social media platforms for possible violations of its new ban on users under 16. This is the strongest evidence yet that businesses may face enforcement action under a world-first policy.
The declaration is the first time the government has publicly evaluated how well people are following the law that lawmakers around the world are looking into. If the major platforms don’t follow the rules, it might slow progress for countries considering implementing comparable rules.
Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety Commissioner, said that Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Google’s YouTube had been warned for suspected violations. The watchdog was gathering information for possible sanctions, and a decision would be made by the middle of the year.
She added in a statement, “While social media platforms have taken some initial steps, I am worried that some may not be doing enough to follow Australian law.”
Inman Grant said, “We are now going to take action.”
Meta and Snap both indicated they would comply with the prohibition, and a Meta spokesman noted that the government’s own test of age-assurance technologies revealed “natural error margins” around the 16-year age cutoff.
TikTok didn’t want to talk, and a Google official wasn’t immediately available to comment.
If platforms don’t comply with Australian legislation, they could be fined up to A$49.5 million ($34 million). The regulator also said on Tuesday that businesses could lose their reputation if they are found to have broken the law.
Minister calls out the “big-tech playbook”
After US courts concluded that social media corporations were culpable for designing addictive algorithms that hurt kids, the global movement for more rules on these platforms has grown.
Australia’s eSafety first praised the ban’s success, saying that in the first few weeks, the platforms shut down 4.7 million accounts believed to belong to minors. On Tuesday, they announced that the companies had blocked another 300,000 accounts from being activated.
But the regulator found that the platforms weren’t following the rules. For example, they asked kids who had already said they were under 16 to perform new age checks, let them do age-assurance tests over and over until they achieved a result over 16, and made it hard for others to report accounts that were underage.
Some platforms didn’t employ age inference, which estimates someone’s age based on their online behaviour. Others only used age-assurance checks, including a photo check when a user tried to change their age, rather than during sign-up.
The agency added that this made it “likely that many Australian children under 16 have been able to make accounts on age-restricted social media sites by simply saying they are 16 or older.”
Almost a third of parents reported that their child under 16 had at least one social media account after the prohibition took effect. Two-thirds of those parents said the platform had not queried the child’s age.
Anika Wells, the Minister of Communications, said that the platforms were employing “right out of the big-tech playbook” to weaken Australia’s world-leading rules.
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