U.S. billionaire Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X, has criticised Australia's proposed law to ban social media for children under 16 and fine social media platforms of up to A$49.5 million ($32 million) for companies for systemic breaches.
Australia's centre-left government on Thursday introduced the bill in parliament. It plans to try an age-verification system to enforce a social media age cut-off, some of the toughest controls imposed by any country to date.
"Seems like a backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians," Musk, who views himself as a champion of free speech, said in a reply late on Thursday to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's post on X about the bill.
Several countries have already vowed to curb social media use by children through legislation, but Australia's policy could become one of the most stringent with no exemption for parental consent and pre-existing accounts.
France last year proposed a ban on social media for those under 15 but allowed parental consent, while the U.S. has for decades required technology companies to seek parental consent to access the data of children under 13.
Musk has previously clashed with Australia's centre-left Labor government over its social media policies and had called it "fascists" over its misinformation law.
In April, X went to an Australian court to challenge a cyber regulator's order for the removal of some posts about the stabbing of a bishop in Sydney, prompting Albanese to call Musk an "arrogant billionaire".
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Israeli military bulldozers have begun demolishing buildings in the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday, 23 October, following armed clashes with Palestinians that left two Israeli soldiers dead, according to the Israeli military.
Around 11,000 people joined a demonstration in Orléans on Saturday against the National Rally congress, according to the local prefecture.
Typhoon Champi swept past Taiwan on Saturday, leaving one person dead and more than 500 injured as strong winds and torrential rain brought down trees, cut power and disrupted transport across the island.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday described a deadly shooting in the towns of Trappes and La Verrière, west of Paris, as a racist attack and ‘a turning point’ for the country.
Missile and drone attacks have put Saudi Arabia on high alert, disrupting life in Riyadh and testing a new defence pact with Türkiye and Pakistan as regional tensions escalate.
Serbia is voting on Sunday as a mass student protest movement seeks to unseat long-time populist leader Aleksandar Vučić in the biggest challenge to his rule for more than a decade.
Portuguese police cleared a housing protest camp in Lisbon on Sunday (25 October), as new figures reveal house prices have risen 16.5 per cent in a year, the fastest increase in the European Union.
Six people were killed and another was seriously injured when a passenger train collided with a minibus at a railway crossing in Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Region on 24 October, local authorities said.
Incumbent Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro have wrapped up their campaigns ahead of Sunday’s closely fought presidential runoff, making a final push to mobilise supporters and win over undecided voters.
Ukraine says Starlink and Starshield services have returned to required speeds after more than a week of restrictions that disrupted military operations, as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk accused Kyiv’s forces of using the satellite system for prohibited drone strikes.
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