Australia is tightening its social media access restrictions for under-16s by including Reddit and Kick on a watchlist. Under the new restrictions, sites that allow access to underage users could face fines of up to A$49.5 million (~RM 135 million) when the bill comes into effect on December 10.
The full list of sites that must comply with the government's directive has been published by the Australian eSafety Commissioner. The only sites that have escaped enforcement so far are Discord, GitHub, LEGO Play, Roblox, Steam, Steam Chat, Google Classroom, Messenger, WhatsApp and YouTube Kids because they already have built-in features to block underage users.
Although the list has been published, the Australian eSafety Commissioner says it is not a static list due to the rapidly changing nature of technology. As new technology platforms emerge or existing platforms change their purpose, they may re-evaluate the services.
Australia's outright ban on platforms labelled as "social media" is the strictest in the world to date and is now a template for enforcement in other countries such as Indonesia. In Malaysia, the Ministry of Communications has proposed an eKYC system for platform owners on the grounds of "protecting underage users" but has been opposed by free speech advocates who believe it could become a future system for monitoring government critics.
