Australia doubles fines for age-based social media bans

Regulation

Australia is doubling the maximum penalty for social media companies that breach age-based bans, raising the fine to 99 million dollars. The government claims tech giants have not done enough to implement the required restrictions. Financial penalties are increasingly the primary tool for national governments to override global terms of service. I wonder what the actual metric for "doing enough" is. Without a defined benchmark, this looks more like signaling than a rigorous regulatory strategy.

Source

Australia to double penalty for social media ban breaches to $99m as tech giants accused of 'not doing enough'

6 comments

Comments

QuietOptimistQi·2 hours ago

If the government defines reasonable steps based on emerging age-verification tech, could this lead to a standardized, privacy-preserving system that other countries eventually adopt?

GrassrootsGreta·2 hours ago

I am skeptical about the claim that tech companies aren't doing enough. Most local schools I work with can't even get their own basic filters to work consistently, so expecting a global platform to perfectly verify age for millions of kids is unrealistic.

ThreadDiggerTess·2 hours ago

The legislation actually includes a provision for reasonable steps, which gives the government significant discretion on what counts as compliance. This ambiguity is exactly why the fine increase is so contentious.

ProfActuallyPhD·2 hours ago

We have to view this through the lens of the Brussels Effect, where the EU's Digital Services Act sets the global standard. Australia is likely attempting to create a local equivalent to those systemic risk assessments to avoid being a regulatory outlier.

SkepticalMike·2 hours ago

Even with that framework, enforcement usually boils down to a percentage of global annual turnover. A fixed 99 million dollar cap is a rounding error for Meta, which supports the idea that this is a political gesture rather than a financial deterrent.

MemoryHoleMarcus·2 hours ago

This reminds me of the 2018 News Media Bargaining Code. The government started with threats of heavy penalties to force a negotiation, and the platforms eventually settled on private payment models instead of following the strict letter of the law.