Global pressure needed to rein in 'failings' of social media giants, say Australian analysts

Record ID: 2372208

  • Title: Global pressure needed to rein in 'failings' of social media giants, say Australian analysts
  • Date: 1st April 2026
  • Summary: MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA (APRIL 1, 2026) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE CENTRE FOR AI AND DIGITAL ETHICS CO-DIRECTOR, PROFESSOR JEANNIE PATERSON, SAYING: “The social media ban requires effectively, reasonable efforts to prevent children under the required age from accessing social media and the government has listed a series of failings on the part of
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  • Keywords: Australia Facebook Google Instagram Meta TikTok ban social media
  • Location: SYDNEY, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
  • City: SYDNEY, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
  • Country: Australia
  • Topics: Asia / Pacific,Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Social Media
  • Reuters ID: LVA001911301042026RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:     Increasing global pressure on social media giants could prove effective in enacting change, Australian analysts said on Wednesday (April 1) as the nation’s government threatened to sue social media companies for flouting the ban on under-16s.
        Australia’s internet regulator disclosed on Tuesday (March 31) that it is investigating some of the biggest platforms for suspected non-compliance with the world-first measure, targeting Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, Google’s YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok.
        The legal threat is a striking change of tone from a government which had hailed tech giants' shows of cooperation when the ban went live in December 2025.
        Professor Jeannie Paterson, co-director at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for AI and Digital Ethics, said the global attention on Australia’s handling of the ban could have spurred on the government’s crackdown announcement. 
        “This is certainly a moment in time when a number of countries have just lost patience with the claim of social media companies to present some sort of ‘town square’ for the sharing of views,” she said.
         Paterson drew attention to the recent lawsuit in the U.S. which found Meta and Google liable for social media addiction harm, saying that the pressure is building on the tech companies to change.
        Senior research associate at the University of Sydney, Dr. Rob Nicholls said the combination of the U.S. lawsuit and the rising number of countries enforcing youth social media bans  would likely push platforms to implement changes to eliminate litigation risks.
        “We’ll do it once and get it right rather than trying to get it right in lots of different versions of Instagram all around the world,” he said.
        Nearly one-third of Australia's parents reported that their under-16 child had at least one social media account after the ban took effect, of which two-thirds said the platform had not asked the child's age, a compliance report from the regulator said.
        (Production: Cordelia Hsu)
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