Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee.
I would like to begin with a matter of significant interest to the Senate and the Australian public—our progress in enforcing the social media minimum age laws.
Let me be clear at the outset: eSafety’s enforcement stance is firm, our complex investigations are ongoing, and our compliance and safety uplift work continues.
In our March regulatory update, we indicated we were concerned about industry compliance. Since then we have continued our investigations and have seen some improvements.
However, we have not yet reached a final determination on whether platforms are taking reasonable steps, which is the high standard we must prove under the legislation.
I know there is strong interest in why fines have not yet been issued. Unfortunately, we do not have a fine-issuing button. Rather, systemic non-compliance needs to be proven in court with solid evidence and complex legal proceedings.
We are no stranger to such cases, having just concluded a three-year enforcement action against X Corp for failing to comply with a transparency notice about child sexual abuse material. Ultimately, X Corp admitted liability and will pay a $650,000 penalty, plus costs.
This is one of the few successful actions brought against X Corp by any regulator globally. Such outcomes are hard-won, and they demonstrate that careful, methodical enforcement, with a substantial evidence base, delivers results.
As I have said consistently, even before the law came into effect, this is a complex reform. It seeks to unwind more than 20 years of social media entrenchment in our daily lives and the dismantling of platform architecture that was engineered to be immersive and addictive for under-aged users.
We need to be clear-eyed about what this regulation is asking platforms to do; to cut off a lucrative pipeline of revenue now, and into the future.
It also sets a global precedent and a subsequent domino effect.
This is not a recipe that incentivises flawless execution by industry. But we continue to work to both uplift compliance, and to build the evidence base necessary to inform any potential enforcement action.
Meaningful regulatory impact is rarely achieved in months; major cultural resets eventuate over years. We have seen this with car, water, sun and other safety standards and practices.
By way of comparison, the ACCC’s recent case against Coles under Australian Consumer Law related to conduct from February 2022. From this initial kernel, it has taken more than four years to reach an outcome in the courts. In the New Mexico case recently won against Meta, the investigation commenced in 2023. That is the reality of building a case that is robust, defensible, and successful – it is deliberate and takes time.
As a parent of children under 16, I understand the urgency many families feel. They want safer online environments now. eSafety wants that too, and my team is working every day to achieve the strongest possible outcomes.
We continue to focus on uplifting compliance, as I mentioned. Only five months into these laws, we are already seeing early indications of progress. By March, there had been a 37% reduction in the number of under-16s holding accounts, with parents consistently reporting more constructive conversations with their children about online risks and social media use.
Today I can inform the committee that, since our March compliance update and direct engagement with individual platforms, we have seen improvements and reversal of some of the poor implementation practices we identified. For instance:
- Some platforms have recently taken steps to restrict or age verify accounts that had increased their stated age to 16 in the lead up to, or shortly after, 10 December to identify further underage users who still had accounts on their platform.
- Another introduced new age verification measures, particularly when users attempt to change their date of birth, to reduce circumvention of age requirements.
- The platform who gave under 16s numerous tries to jail break facial age estimation systems – daily – reversed this practice.
- We’ve also seen a reduction in administrative hurdles put in place by the platforms to stifle reports made by parents.
- Some of the major social media apps have increased their age rating on Apple’s Australian App Store from 13+ to 16+. For parents using parental controls, this can help prevent children downloading apps that they are too young to have accounts on.
These are important developments, demonstrating that sustained regulatory pressure is influencing platform behaviour.
I would like to reiterate that we have not yet completed our investigations or reached conclusions about the efficacy of these measures. That work is ongoing, and we will continue to assess compliance against the reasonable steps outlined in our Regulatory Guidance.
Today, I can update the committee that we have retained an external legal team to support our investigation and any subsequent enforcement action.
In the meantime, we will continue to use the full range of regulatory tools available to ensure online spaces and tools are safer by design – and by default - for young people.
Just last week, for example, we commenced another enforcement action against a popular AI-powered “nudify” service, this one accessed by around 50,000 Australians per month.
