Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban 7 months ago
The Australian government didn’t do this because of any concern about children; it’s to punish (mainly) Meta for backing out of the Australian Social Media Bargaining Agreement [1]. Other social media companies are collateral damage.
News Corp wanted Meta et al to pay for the privilege of sharing links to News Corp articles (imo, ridiculous). Meta played along for a short period, but has now refused to engage, which has clearly upset News Corp (and their shrinking top line). It’s slowly changing, but it’s an unfortunate truth that News Corp still has incredible influence over Australian politicians, hence this had bipartisan support.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/12/meta-coul...