Australia to sue Facebook, TikTok over violations of under-16 social media ban

Australia plans to sue Facebook, TikTok, and other major digital platforms for allegedly breaching a national ban on under-16s using social media, Communications Minister Anika Wells announced in an interview. The country's online safety regulator, eSafety Commissioner, has been investigating Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube for non-compliance with the law since March.

The legislation mandates companies to take reasonable steps to prevent underage users from creating social media accounts. An eSafety report in July revealed that most underage social media users could maintain their accounts or create new ones due to insufficient age verification measures on the platforms. Since the world-first ban's implementation a year ago, the government has doubled the maximum penalty for breaches to A$109.2 million (US$76 million) and granted eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant expanded investigative powers, enabling her to request documents from social media platforms and question current or former employees.

Wells stated that the regulator is utilizing these enhanced powers to prepare a case against the five companies, which is expected to proceed in the Federal Court. Meta and eSafety had no immediate responses to the minister's remarks. Representatives for Snapchat's parent company, Snap, TikTok and its owner ByteDance, and YouTube's parent company, Google, did not respond to emailed requests for comment.