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As Australia prepares to ban under-16s from social media ban, Elon Musk’s X has warned of legal concerns, unintended harms, and potential human rights violations.

Elon Musk’s social media company X has urged the Albanese government to delay Australia’s “world-first” ban on children under 16 using social media platforms, citing serious concerns about its lawfulness and the broader implications for freedom of speech.

The ban, due to commence on 10 December, will apply to platforms such as X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and potentially dating and gaming platforms like Tinder, Lego Play and Reddit.

While ostensibly aimed at protecting children from harm, the law carries significant unintended risks according to X, which has formally requested at least a six-month delay on its implementation.

In a submission to a Greens-led Senate inquiry, X declared: “We have serious concerns as to the lawfulness of the Social Media Minimum Age, including its compatibility with other regulations and laws, including international human rights treaties to which Australia is a signatory.”

The company noted less than 1% of its Australian users were under 16, but warned that banning children from large platforms could drive them to unregulated and dangerous alternatives.

“Not least amongst these concerns is the risk that when minors are barred from mainstream, regulated social media services, they will migrate to less moderated or entirely unregulated alternatives, thereby exposing them to greater potential harms,” X said.

Instead of platform-level bans, X and other companies such as Meta have suggested that any age-assurance technology should be implemented at the smartphone level, giving parents more direct control over their children’s usage.

The eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, confirmed that enforcement would not begin immediately on 10 December. She said regulators would first focus on “systemic failures” before moving towards fines, which could reach $50 million for non-compliance.

U16s Ban a Potential Tool for ‘Weaponisation’

Supporters of the ban, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, have described the measure as necessary to safeguard children’s wellbeing.

Addressing world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly this week, Mr Albanese promoted the policy as a model for other nations to adopt. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised the initiative, calling Australia’s decision “world leading” and confirming Europe was considering similar restrictions.

But X’s submission objected to framing the law as a moral necessity, highlighting its incursion on fundamental human freedoms. The company cited concerns from the Australian Human Rights Commission and international treaties such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which enshrines both a child’s right to protection and their right to freedom of expression and information.

X described the legislation as a “punitive regime” that unfairly shifts the burden for young people’s online activity entirely onto platforms.

It further warned that because the government had not defined which services the law applies to, ministers could use the discretion as a tool of “regulatory weaponisation.”

Julie Inman Grant and Elon Musk’s History

Australia’s eSafety regime has a history of singling out Elon Musk’s platform for legal challenge.

In 2023, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant launched civil penalty proceedings after X allegedly failed to answer all questions in a “transparency notice”. X argued the notice was overreaching, but the Federal Court ruled in eSafety’s favour, upholding a $610,500 fine against the platform.

In 2024, eSafety sought Federal Court injunctions to force X to block footage of the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel. X resisted, citing free speech and jurisdictional limits. The Commissioner later dropped the case, but not before it became a global flashpoint over censorship and regulatory overreach.

More recently, Julie Inman Grant was named in a US Congressional report for colluding with the left-wing Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) to influence censorship of conservative speech.

Inman Grant, who worked at Twitter before it was rebadged as X, has taken aim at Elon Musk on several occasions, claiming that X’s trust and safety teams have “seriously diminished” under his leadership, and accusing Musk of allowing “sewer rats” back onto the platform.

Inman Grant, a dual US-Australian citizen, has dismissed the First Amendment as something that “does not apply in Australia” and told a World Economic Forum panel she believed human rights like freedom of speech are in need of “recalibration”.

She is affiliated with the World Economic Forum (WEF) as an ‘agenda contributor.’

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.