Elon Musk’s X says social media ban will violate human rights

Elon Musk’s company X has accused the Albanese government of undermining children’s rights by curbing their free speech and access to information as the social media site seeks a delay of at least six months to Australia’s social media ban for under-16s.

US President Donald Trump has had a tumultuous relationship with Musk, who was one of his closest confidants in the early months of his presidency, and has vowed to impose tariffs or export restrictions on foreign nations that try to regulate American tech firms.

In a submission to an Australian Senate inquiry, X said less than one per cent of its Australian users were under 16, and argued its content moderation teams — which were dramatically cut following Musk’s 2022 aquisition of the service then named Twitter — could protect young people.

The world-first ban, which covers sites such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook comes into effect on December 10, and could be expanded to dating and gaming sites including Lego Play, Reddit, Tinder and Hinge after the eSafety Commissioner requested their operators check if they were covered by the law.

But X, which has repeatedly tangled with the eSafety Commissioner over attempts to rein it in, argued the listing of platforms based on ministerial discretion posed “significant risk of regulatory weaponisation” and posed a “major threat to freedom of information, speech, and access to the internet”.

“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,” X’s submission reads, naming the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The platform requested the start of the ban be delayed at least six months with a grace period for engineering changes. It said children would evade the laws and that giving parents greater controls over their children’s use of social sites would work better than a ban.

Speaking from New York on Thursday morning, Communications Minister Anika Wells said X’s claims were wrong because the government was acting to support children’s wellbeing, which was also protected by international agreements.

“There is so much evidence in now about particularly the mental harms that are afflicted to children by being exposed to social media too young,” Wells told Nine’s Today.

Wells said she was meeting with and “eyeballing” tech platforms while in the United States and would communicate the government’s expectations before the December 10 deadline. The minister did not say who she had met, but told Nine’s Today that she had not scheduled a meeting with Elon Musk

“These are pioneering, innovating, some of the richest companies in the world. They transact a lot of business and they make a lot of revenue off Australians here on our shore, and I think it’s reasonable to ask them to use some of that tech and some of that revenue to look after our kids online,” Wells said.

Opposition communications spokesperson Melissa McIntosh was critical of Wells’ travel to the United States, which she described as “a PR tour”, during the ongoing fallout of the deadly Optus network outage and new developments on the social media ban.

“Australian parents and children are still left wondering how these changes will be implemented and which platforms will be included … this chaotic and scatter gun approach as to which platforms are in or out is just creating more confusion for Australian families,” McIntosh said.

Trump posted on his own platform Truth Social in August, saying: “I will stand up to countries that attack our incredible American tech companies. Unless these discriminatory actions are removed, I, as president of the United States, will impose substantial additional tariffs on that country’s exports to the USA, and institute export restrictions on our highly protected technology and chips.”

After a months-long feud following Musk’s departure as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, the billionaire met with Trump at a memorial service for assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk this week.

Lego Play and Reddit have been contacted. Tinder declined to comment.

Communications Minister Anika Wells said gaming and messaging apps would not fall under the ban, but it was incumbent on platforms to demonstrate to the eSafety Commissioner that they were not harbouring harmful behaviour.

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