Australia’s eSafety boss seeks easier access to documents in ongoing battle with social media

Australia continues to try and find ways to make social media giants follow its social media minimum age (SMMA) law. The latest ask from eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant is for increased powers to order social media companies to disclose documentation and usage data.

A report from InnovationAus says the commissioner appeared before the Senate’s Environment and Communications committee to argue that allowing platforms to self-report numbers “is really like relying on the accused to write their own confession.” She would prefer evidence-gathering powers that allow her to refer directly to platform data. And she says that, if given those powers, she would move to use them quickly.

Inman Grant is among the few regulators globally who has not been shy about calling out Big Social on their inconsistencies. She says Meta and their ilk are following a two-sided playbook. “On one hand we’ve seen executives here this week talking about what a great job they’re doing complying. Yet we are seeing evidence they are saying in other jurisdictions and capitals that the policy is a failure.”

Meta talks big talk on compliance

Meta’s comments to the committee emphasized that its response to age verification laws is “iterative” and “ongoing”.

“If we suspect an account is underage, we delete it,” says Meta regional director policy Mia Garlick. Last week, the firm announced it had deactivated 750,000 accounts believed to belong to Australian users under 16 years of age since the Social Media Minimum Age act took effect in December 2025.

Inman Grant, meanwhile, claims her office has seen documents showing companies were purposefully undermining adherence to the ban, and says the numbers – which show that  social media account ownership by children under 16 years old declined by over 10 percent in the first three months of the law being in effect – is less an indicator that the law is ineffective, and more proof that social media companies are happy to break it.

All of Meta, X, Snap and TikTok say they are actively trialing Apple’s Declared Age Range API – but only TikTok, in its appearance before the committee, committed to implementing it.

Per the report, “advocacy groups and academics also repeated calls for the social media ban to be urgently backed with a digital duty of care (DDOC).” Communications Minister Anika Wells says work is ongoing, but subject to policy bandwidth. However, the recent decision in the EU, where a Constitutional Committee ruled that France’s age checks are a violation of the right to free speech, may add fresh fuel to the discussion about a DDOC, which would introduce legal requirements that platforms not publish content that is harmful to users.

X not subject to RES Standard: courts

That said, social media companies are not lying down in Australia. According to Information Age, microblogging site X – a sort of Venom to its Spider-Man predecessor, Twitter – has won a lawsuit it brought against the eSafety Commissioner, with Australia’s Federal Court ruling that the company “does not need to follow a new safety standard for harmful online content.”

The standard in question is the Relevant Electronic Services Standard (RES Standard), enforced since mid-2025. Effectively, X argued that it could not be regulated as both a social media platform and a “relevant electronic service” covered by the RES Standard. Relevant electronic services, it says, typically contain online messaging, email, or gaming capabilities, and social media doesn’t belong simply because it allows users to message each other.

The court is in agreement, noting to eSafety that legislation is founded on “siloed characterisations” of online platforms, and cannot ignore its own distinctions.

To do so would allow the commissioner “to create a standard and apply it to a provider who is already the subject of another industry sector code and effectively bypass the consultative industry-led model.”

As such, the court decision ultimately puts X in the social media bucket, come what may.

The RES Standard “remains valid and enforceable” for entities that qualify, which can face penalties of up to $49.5 million for breaches.

There is no love lost between X and eSafety, which have been embroiled in multiple legal battles. Elon Musk, the billionaire who owns X, has publicly called Inman Grant a “censorship commissar” and an “unelected bureaucrat,” leading to doxxing and death threats directed at the commissioner.

Article Topics

Australia  |  Australia age verification  |  Declared Age Range  |  eSafety Commissioner  |  social media