U.S. billionaire Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X, has blasted Australia’s planned law to ban social media for children under 16 and fine social media platforms of up to A$49.5 million ($32 million) for companies for systemic breaches.
Australia’s centre-left government on Thursday established the bill in parliament, revealing it plans to try an age-verification system to enforce a social media age cut-off. This will make it some of the harshest controls imposed by any country to date.
Elon Musk, who considers himself as a champion of free speech, had posted on X (formerly Twitter)
“Seems like a backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians,” in reply to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s post on X about the bill on Thursday.
Several countries have already pledged to limit social media use by children through legislation, but Australia’s policy might become one of the most severe with no exemption for parental consent and pre-existing accounts.
In 2023, France proposed a ban on social media for those under 15 but it did allow parental consent. In the U.S., the law has for decades required technology companies to seek parental consent to access the data of children under 13.
Musk has previously clashed with Australia’s centre-left Labor government over its social media policies and even went as far as to call it “fascist” over its misinformation law.
