Australia has announced plans to double potential fines for social media platforms — including Facebook and Instagram — that fail to prevent children from holding accounts on their services. The move signals a significant escalation in Canberra's efforts to hold major technology companies accountable for the safety of young users, and comes as governments around the world grapple with how to regulate the impact of social media on children.
The announcement places Australia among the more assertive regulators globally on this issue. By increasing financial penalties, authorities hope to compel platforms to take their age-verification and child-protection obligations more seriously. The measure targets some of the world's most widely used social media services, which have long faced criticism for prioritising engagement over user wellbeing, particularly among younger audiences.
The Australian move is part of a broader international shift. In the United States, the House of Representatives passed the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act on June 30 in a bipartisan 267-117 vote, marking Congress's most significant legislative action on online child safety in years. The bill would require companies to offer tools allowing children to limit addictive features and establish policies to guard against harms including sexual exploitation. The legislation now heads toward a potential clash with the Senate, where lawmakers favour more stringent standards — including a proposed "duty of care" obligation on platforms when it comes to young users, a standard that would go considerably further than the House version.
Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, has been negotiating with the White House to build support for a broader legislative package incorporating the stricter Senate approach. The Senate previously passed its own Kids Online Safety Act in a near-unanimous 91-3 vote in 2024, reflecting rare cross-party consensus on the issue.
Why this matters: the convergence of tougher regulation in Australia and intensifying legislative debate in the United States reflects a growing consensus among democratic governments that voluntary measures by technology companies have fallen short. As platforms face mounting legal and financial pressure, the coming months may determine whether enforceable international standards for child safety online begin to take shape — or whether regulatory fragmentation leaves significant gaps that companies can exploit.