Elon Musk criticizes Australia’s proposed ban on social media for children

Tech billionaire Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X, criticized proposed legislation in Australia that aims to ban social media for children under 16.

Australia plans to trial an age-verification system that may include biometrics or government identification to prevent children and young teenagers from accessing social media platforms such as X, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, with companies liable to be fined up to 50 million Australian dollars ($32.5 million) if there are systemic breaches.

The legislation, which was introduced in Parliament by Australia’s center-left government on Thursday, is among the world’s toughest on social media.

“Seems like a backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians,” Musk, a self-proclaimed free speech advocate, said Thursday on X in response to a post about the bill by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Other countries have tried to impose limits on social media for children, including the United States which requires technology companies to obtain parental consent to collect data from children under 13. But the Australian proposal goes further, setting the world’s highest age limit at 16 and providing no exemptions for parental consent or pre-existing accounts.

This is not the first time Musk has been publicly critical of the Australian government over tech regulation. In April, he accused Australia of censorship after a court ordered X to remove graphic content related to a stabbing attack on a Sydney bishop that was streamed online. The case was later dropped.

At the time, Albanese called Musk an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law.”

In September, Musk called the Australian government “fascists” over plans to crack down on misinformation online.