Australia social media watchdog sees common cause with US as age ban begins

The regulator overseeing Australia's world-first teenage social media ban rejected the "technological exceptionalism" championed by mostly U.S.-based platforms and said a groundswell of American parents wanted similar measures.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said Australia was entitled to restrict access to social media, just as it applied safety rules to any imported good, and added that many American parents had decried a lack of equivalent guardrails there.

The comments show the regulator framing the Australian law as a step toward a common goal and shrugging off complaints by some of the world's biggest tech firms and senior U.S. lawmakers who have called the Australian law, with its corporate fines of up to A$49.5 million ($33 million), a threat to free speech.

Ahead of Aus