00:00Australia threatened to sue social media giants on Tuesday
00:03for allegedly flouting the nation's social media ban for children under 16.
00:09Communications Minister Annika Wells said platforms had promised to follow the law.
00:14All the platforms who are covered by our social media minimum age laws
00:17said that they would respect our laws.
00:21And if these companies want to do business in Australia,
00:25they must obey Australian laws.
00:27As the independent regulator, e-safety is actively investigating potential non-compliance
00:34in relation to five platforms.
00:36Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.
00:41Australia's world-leading social media laws are not failing,
00:44but big tech is failing to obey the laws.
00:48Now the legal threat marks a change in tone.
00:51The government had initially praised tech companies for cooperating
00:54when the ban took effect in December.
00:56Australia's independent internet regulator, e-safety,
01:00said the platforms had removed around 4.7 million suspected underage accounts.
01:04But since then, reports have surfaced of teenagers easily getting around restrictions
01:09or staying online without ever being asked their age.
01:13In its first compliance report since the ban, e-safety found major gaps.
01:17It found that platforms prompted children who had already declared they were under 16
01:22to redo age checks, allowed repeated attempts at age assurance tests
01:26until a child passes over 16, and provided poor ways for users to report underage accounts.
01:33The regulator also said nearly a third of parents reported their under-16 child
01:37still had at least one social media account after the ban took effect.
01:41And in two-thirds of those cases, the platform had not asked the child's age.
01:46If e-safety finds these companies have systemically failed to uphold their legal obligations,
01:53then I expect the commissioner to throw the book at them.
01:56Under Australian law, social media platforms must show they're taking reasonable steps
02:01to keep out underage users.
02:03If they don't, they could face fines of up to around $34 million for each breach.
02:09Any penalties would need to be pursued by e-safety through civil courts.
02:13TikTok declined to comment on the legal threat.
02:16Meta and Snapchat said they were committed to complying with the ban,
02:20while Google was not immediately available for comment.
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