Australia Increases Fines for Social Media Rules

Australia's social media ban for teens started in December, but the government thinks it's not working well.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia will increase the maximum fine for breaking social media age rules from $49.5 million to $99 million. The government also wants to give more power to the eSafety Commissioner to make platforms provide evidence of keeping under-16s off their services. The government is taking this step to ensure social media platforms follow the rules. The new fine will be $99 million.

About six months ago, Australia made a law to keep under-16s off social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Since then, over five million accounts have been removed or restricted, but the government thinks this is not enough. The government wants to see more action from social media platforms.

The government says social media platforms are not doing enough to follow the rules, and are just doing the minimum to get by.

The eSafety Commissioner is currently looking into whether five platforms, including Facebook and TikTok, are following the rules.

New laws will also give the Commissioner more power to check other companies that help with age verification and app stores, so platforms can't blame others for not enforcing the rules.

The issue is about social media and government.

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