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The social media account ban for under-16s is the latest in a line of Australian laws that have upset U.S. tech companies. | Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images<\/p>\nThe U.K. has also upset the White House with its existing online safety measures, and the Trump administration said earlier this year it is monitoring freedom of speech concerns in the U.K.<\/p>\n
Australia is used to facing down the Big Tech lobby, explains Daniel Stone, who advised the ruling Labor Government on tech policy. \u201cJulie has the benefit of knowing the [political] cabinet is fully supportive of her position,\u201d he said. \u201cIt defines what\u2019s permissible across the whole system.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The social media account ban for under-16s is the latest in a line of Australian laws that have upset U.S. tech companies. | Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there is a lesson for the U.K., it is that you don\u2019t have a strong regulator unless you have a strong political leader with a clear and consistent agenda,\u201d Stone adds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia has its anxieties, too, about pushing U.S. tech companies, but they carry themselves with confidence,\u201d said Stone. \u201cYou have to approach Trump from a position of strength.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rebecca Razavi, a former Australian diplomat, regulator and visiting fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, agrees. \u201cThe thinking is, we\u2019re a mid-sized economy and there\u2019s this asymmetry with tech platforms dominating, and there\u2019s actually a need to put things in place using an Australian approach to regulation,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Other countries, including Brazil<\/a>, Malaysia<\/a> and some European countries are moving in a similar direction. Last month the European Parliament called for a continent-wide age restriction on social media<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.K. has also upset the White House with its existing online safety measures, and the Trump administration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[186,1394,748,193739,2814,393,4884,4582,2452,1144,23740,7965,6512,2443,5549,712,182,16,15,49,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-623342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-big-tech","12":"tag-britain","13":"tag-chris-sherwood","14":"tag-data","15":"tag-england","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-human-rights","18":"tag-media","19":"tag-northern-ireland","20":"tag-online-safety","21":"tag-platforms","22":"tag-privacy","23":"tag-regulation","24":"tag-safety","25":"tag-scotland","26":"tag-social-media","27":"tag-uk","28":"tag-united-kingdom","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115693054092513689","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}