Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned senators who blocked changes to a world-first social media ban for children, saying tech giants would use the delay to destroy incriminating documents that could be used as evidence against them.

Background

The government introduced amendments aimed at increasing powers of the eSafety Commissioner to enforce the ban on Australian children younger than 16 from holding accounts on platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

The amendments would have given the commissioner power to demand documents as well as information from platforms about their efforts to exclude young children. The center-left Labor Party government does not hold a majority in the Senate.

Reaction

Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp that the delay would allow platforms to delete material that could be used as evidence. The amendments would also give the commissioner power to demand information from third parties, including age assurance technology providers, to test claims made by platforms about how children continued to circumvent the ban.

The bill would double the maximum fine to 99 million Australian dollars ($68 million) for platforms that fail to take reasonable steps to exclude children. Opposition communications spokesperson Sen. Sarah Henderson said the amendments needed to be tougher, calling the social media ban a "half-baked law" that was "poorly designed" and "not working".

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.