The Albanese government will double maximum penalties for social media platforms that breach Australia's under-16 ban, lifting the fine ceiling from $49.5 million to $99 million, and grant the eSafety Commissioner expanded enforcement powers, with the law having not produced compliance.
A study published in the British Medical Journal found 85 per cent of Australians aged 12 to 15 were still using social media three months after the ban took effect. Two-thirds of those users had bypassed the age restriction by self-declaring as over 16 or passing a selfie-based age verification check. More than five million underage accounts have been deactivated or restricted, but Facebook and Instagram, as well as Snapchat and TikTok, remain under active investigation for systemic breach of the law, as does YouTube.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese left no ambiguity about the government's position. "It's clear Big Tech are not doing enough to comply with the law: there are still too many children on social media," he said.
The government's response to demonstrated non-compliance is to raise the cost of it. The question the doubled penalty leaves open is whether the platforms' failure is a matter of calculation or capability. If the platforms can technically prevent under-16 access and have chosen not to, which the BMJ evidence suggests, then higher fines are the right pressure instrument. If the age-verification problem is genuinely unsolvable at scale, the doubled penalty changes nothing about outcomes.
The eSafety Commissioner's expanded powers have not been fully specified in government communications released to date. The scope of what the Commissioner can compel platforms to do, and on what timeline, will determine whether the enforcement upgrade has practical effect.
Australia is running this regulation as a global test case. The BMJ study, at the three-month mark, shows the mechanism is not working as intended. The government's answer is a higher penalty and broader regulatory authority.
