Australia latest nation to face insults, threats from US over online safety laws

America has summoned Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, to answer for her alleged offenses against free speech. In a letter that reflects the current tone of U.S. politics, Jim Jordan, chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives, says Australia’s Online Safety Act unfairly “imposes obligations on American companies and threatens speech of American citizens.”

“In addition, you have been working with U.S.-based organizations and universities to facilitate and encourage cooperation with foreign censorship regimes, including the OSA. As such, we respectfully request your testimony at a transcribed interview to inform the Committee’s Oversight.” 

In keeping with the administration’s fondness for belittling women, Jordan’s letter is pointedly  disapproving of Inman Grant. “As a primary enforcer of Australia’s OSA and noted zealot for global takedowns, you are uniquely positioned to provide information about the law’s free speech implications – both in the U.S. and abroad. Please contact Committee staff to schedule your transcribed interview as soon as possible but no later than 10:00 a.m. ET on December 2, 2025.”

To quote the letter at further length would risk legitimizing it and its Team America: World Police bravado. The deep connections between Silicon Valley’s barons and the second Trump administration are well documented, as are the problems said barons have with the OSA and its headlining policy: the incoming prohibition on social media for kids under 16. 

Meta says it can ‘only do so much’ to comply with social media ban

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, is preparing to purge its platforms of accounts belonging to users under the age threshold, and block the creation of new underage accounts – which, according to InnovationAus, it plans to begin up to a week before the December 10 deadline. That’s probably not much of a problem for Facebook, which has aged into the social media site for grandparents. But there are plenty of Instagram users between 13 and 16, and weeding them out is not a task that aligns with Meta’s business objectives. 

A statement from the company effectively undercuts its efforts by saying Meta can “only do so much” to determine a user’s age – the policy equivalent of “sorry not sorry.” 

“We share the Australian Government’s goal of creating safe, age-appropriate online experiences, but cutting teens off from their friends and communities isn’t the answer,” it says.

Kids’ accounts won’t go away entirely in Meta’s scheme. The company has given underage users a two week window in which to download their data and contacts – but “content will become available on the accounts again when users turn 16.” Moreover, it is encouraging kids to hop on over to WhatsApp, its messaging platform that is not covered under the Safety Commissioner’s regulations. And, for those who believe their accounts have been deactivated in error, there’s the option to provide proof of age through Yoti’s age verification or facial age estimation tools. 

Age assurance requirements could hurt user numbers: Snap

It’s not unlikely that social platforms will lose some Australian users over the law. A transcript of Snap Inc.’s Q3 2025 earnings call predicts that daily active users (DAU) may decline in fiscal Q4, in part due to “the rollout of platform-level age verification, and new minimum age regulations for social media in certain jurisdictions.”

“New regulatory mandates and age verification initiatives, particularly in Australia and other jurisdictions, are expected to negatively impact DAU and future growth, as cited by management in forward-looking commentary for fiscal Q4 2025,” says the report, as published by The Motley Fool. 

Reuters reports that up to a million accounts could be affected across the covered platforms, which include Meta’s sites, as well as Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, X and (most controversially) YouTube. 

 As such, Jim Jordan’s letter can be read in much the same spirit as U.S. threats to Europe over the Digital Services Act: international bullying on behalf of grumpy tech billionaires who stand to lose a sliver of their empires, cloaked in the noble vestments of the First Amendment. To take it at face value would mean accepting that the government suing universities and broadcasters for being mean actually cares a whit about free speech. 

UK, Australia, EU regulators to form technical cooperation group

U.S. belligerence may end up backfiring, by pushing what it calls the world’s “censorship regimes” closer together. A joint statement from eSafety, the European Commission’s Directorate‑General for Communications Networks (DG CNECT) and UK regulator Ofcom says the groups are committed to working together to mutually support shared goals, and strengthening partnership on age assurance through a new technical cooperation group. 

This trilateral cooperation group will “explore, among other topics, the interoperability of age assurance solutions as well as broader technological developments, and consider best practices for the evaluation of age assurance deployments and their robustness.” It will also “explore how the three regulators can further build the technical evidence base with respect to age assurance and, where relevant, how regulators can support independent research in this field.” That implies more projects like the Australian Age Assurance Technology Trial, to assess and evaluate firms in the growing global age assurance sector.  

For their part, academics remain split in their opinions on the social media law. In a release, Dr. Catherine Page Jeffery, a lecturer in media and communications at the University of Sydney, says that “while there’s broad support for age verification, our research shows young people and parents doubt it will work and worry about privacy and data security.”

Dr. Timothy Koskie, a post-doctoral research associate in digital communication at U Sydney, has a more positive take. “Australia’s social media ban is already driving change, and is proof that the threat of regulation works, even before the law takes effect. Waiting for perfect policy risks paralysis when real progress is already within reach.”

Professor Terry Flew, co-director of the Centre for AI, Trust and Governance, says that regardless of the outcomes, the world is watching Australia. 

“The introduction of the social media minimum age framework is a pathbreaking measure by the Australian Federal Government. While Australia is the first to adopt such restrictions, it is unlikely to be the last. Many governments around the world are watching how the power of Big Tech was successfully taken on and are considering their own measures to address the adverse consequences of platform power.” 

Article Topics

age verification  |  Australia  |  Australia age verification  |  eSafety Commissioner  |  Meta  |  Online Safety Act (Australia)  |  regulation  |  Snapchat  |  social media  |  United States