Australia to Sue Meta, TikTok, Snap and Google Over Alleged Under-16 Age-Ban Breaches, Bloomberg Reports

3-line summary

• Australia's government plans to sue Meta (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok, Snap, and Google's YouTube over alleged breaches of the country's under-16 social media ban, Communications Minister Anika Wells said in a Bloomberg interview; the case would proceed in the Federal Court and is currently at an evidence-gathering stage, with no lawsuit yet filed.
• The move follows an investigation opened in March by online safety regulator eSafety, which found in a July report that the platforms' age-verification measures were ineffective at keeping users under 16 off their services.
• Lawmakers have since doubled the maximum penalty for breaches to A$109.2 million (about $76 million), underscoring the government's push to enforce the ban, one of the world's strictest social media age restrictions.

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