Volkswacht Bodensee - Tech giants object as YouTube set to dodge Australian social media ban

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last year unveiled landmark laws that will ban under-16s from social media by the end of 2025.

While popular platforms such as Facebook, TikTok and Instagram face heavy fines for flouting the laws, Australia has proposed an exemption so children can use YouTube for school.

TikTok's Australian policy director Ella Woods-Joyce said YouTube had been handed a "sweetheart deal" that gave it an unfair advantage.

"Handing one major social media platform a sweetheart deal of this nature -- while subjecting every other platform in Australia to stringent compliance obligations -- would be illogical, anti-competitive, and shortsighted," said Woods-Joyce.

"The government's arguments citing unique educative value do not survive even the most cursory of closer examinations," she added in a submission to a government agency released Wednesday.

It would "further entrench Google's market dominance", she said, referring to YouTube's parent company.

Meta -- the parent company of Facebook and Instagram -- made similar arguments against the exemption.

"This proposed blanket exception makes a mockery of the government's stated intention, when passing the age ban law, to protect young people," Meta said in its own submission to the communications department.

"YouTube has the very features and harmful content that the government has cited as justifying the ban."

Both companies argued they produced video content that was virtually indistinguishable from YouTube's.

While a host of countries from France to China have mooted similar measures, Australia's looming ban would be one of the strictest in the world.

Firms face fines of up to Aus$50 million (US$31.3 million) for failing to comply.

Albanese has painted social media as "a platform for peer pressure, a driver of anxiety, a vehicle for scammers and, worst of all, a tool for online predators".

But officials are yet to solve basic questions surrounding the laws, such as how the ban will be policed.

The ban is set to come into effect by December 2025.

R.Flueckiger--VB