Australia adds YouTube to platforms covered by world-first ban on social media for teenagers
The reversal could trigger a legal challenge.
The ban, set to take effect in December, seeks to protect minors from harmful content and algorithm-driven exposure.
The latest decision came after the internet regulator asked the government last month to overturn the YouTube carve-out, citing a survey that found 37 per cent of minors reported harmful content on the site, the worst showing for a social media platform.
The prime minister said his government was standing with parents and prioritising child safety online. 'I am calling time on it,' Anthony Albanese said, stating that Australian children were being negatively affected by social media platforms.
'I want Australian parents to know that we have their backs.'
While YouTube claims it's a video sharing platform, critics argue it functions similarly to banned apps like Instagram and TikTok.
'Our position remains clear: YouTube is a video sharing platform with a library of free, high-quality content, increasingly viewed on TV screens. It's not social media,' a YouTube spokesperson said by email.
'We have written directly to the government, urging them to uphold the integrity of the legislative process and protect the age-appropriate experiences and safeguards we provide for young Australians.'
Other social media platforms had criticised the earlier decision to exempt YouTube from the ban, arguing that it functioned similarly to them by promoting user interaction and algorithm-based content. TikTok had described it as a 'sweetheart deal'.
Although YouTube will now be included in the ban for users under 16, parents and teachers can still show videos to minors.
The decision to include YouTube in the under-16 social media ban reflects growing concern over AI-driven misinformation and big tech's influence, according to cybersecurity expert Adam Marre.
'The Australian government's move to regulate YouTube is an important step in pushing back against the unchecked power of big tech and protecting kids,' he told Reuters.
Mr Albanese had earlier asserted that the policy would be made independently of any corporate threats. 'The minister will make these assessments,' he told ABC TV on Sunday, 'independent of any of these threats that're made by the social media companies. I say to them that social media has a social responsibility. There's no doubt that young people are being impacted adversely in their mental health by some of the engagement with social media and that is why the government has acted.'
The decision was set to heighten tensions with Alphabet, which previously threatened to withdraw services over regulatory disputes.
Federal communications minister Anika Wells vowed not to be swayed by legal threats as the Albanese government awaited a report on age-verification tools that could shape enforcement of the ban.
'I will not be intimidated by legal threats when this is a genuine fight for the well-being of Australian kids,' Ms Wells told the parliament on Wednesday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Finextra
2 hours ago
- Finextra
The top payments stories you missed in July 2025
0 This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community. Catch up on Finextra's most-read Payments stories from last month. Australian banks launch nationwide Confirmation of Payee scheme Confirmation of Payee (CoP) has officially arrived in Australia, with Australian banks having started the roll-out of the nationwide scheme early in July. Even though Australia is one of the only countries where scam losses were reducing, banks have invested $100 million in the name-matching technology to further drive down losses. Bank of England mulls shelving of digital pound The BofE is allegedly willing to step back from the digital pound if private businesses continue to roll out new electronic-payment technologies. According to sources from Bloomberg, staff believe the gains from moving ahead with the launch have diminished, and have instead been privately urging the industry to accelerate payment innovations that could result in similar benefits. The Finextra news desk writes: 'The Bank's current thinking is in stark contrast to that taken by the European Central Bank, which is accelerating work on a digital euro to keep up with the 'ambitious pace' set by EU leaders. The project's urgency increases in the face of geopolitical challenges, including an increasingly hostile United States under Donald Trump.' PayPal unveils integration with domestic wallets across the world PayPal has announced multiple global partnerships to integrate many of the world's largest digital wallets and payment systems in a single platform. Named Paypal World, the new initiative aims to connect almost two billion users globally and is designed to transform the way people send money in-store online, as well as with AI agents across borders. Launch partners, apart from PayPal, include Venmo, Mercado Pago, NPCI International Payments Limited (UPI), and Tenpay Global. PayPal unveils 'Pay with Crypto' feature It has been a busy month at PayPal. The company also announced a new service, called Pay with Crypto, to enable US businesses to accept payments in over 100 cryptocurrencies. The service, which is expected to become available within weeks, will let customers pay with cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as stablecoins including USDC. They will also be able to use wallets such as Coinbase and MetaMask. The service is designed to simplify cross-border commerce for merchants by allowing payments in crypto to automatically convert to fiat or stablecoin, and also help cut transaction fees by up to 90% when compared to credit cards. $17 million taken in TikTok ATM scam Earlier in July, a fault in a youth job programme card scheme allowed $17 million to be withdrawn and lost across New York City. The programme had issued around 30,000 cards to 14-to 24-year-olds who could not be paid via direct deposit, and were only designed to give users access to that week's earnings. However, a fault allowed users to withdraw as much as $40,000 per ATM. As the fault went viral on social media, some users even sold their cards for $1,000. Mastercard unveils A2A Protect in the UK As account-to-account (A2A) payment fraud has soared to £592 million in the UK last year, Mastercard has rolled out a new service to help banks protect consumers from A2A payment fraud and resolve disputes. A2A Protect will initially focus on the most pressing concerns, such as Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud. The service also includes a uniform procedure for banks to resolve disputes and recover funds, across multiple use cases. Future phases will, among other features, include processes for recovering funds across a broader range of scenarios. Bailey and Reeves clash over Revolut banking licence - FT In July 2024, Revolut finally won its hard-fought-for UK banking license. The approval triggered a 'mobilisation' stage while building out its controls and infrastructure, which was expected to end after 12 months. However, in July 2025, the approval anniversary came and went without an update. The Financial Times reports that efforts to accelerate Revolut's authorisation as a fully-licenced bank failed over a clash between The Bank of England governor Andrew John Bailey and chancellor Rachel Reeves. The Treasury commented in the FT: 'The chancellor and the governor have a strong and productive relationship and the government fully supports the operational independence of the Bank of England.' The BoE and Revolut declined to comment.
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Amazon tumbles after cloud computing growth disappoints investors
Aug 1 (Reuters) - shares fell 7% on Friday as the tech giant's results fanned investor fears its cloud unit was falling behind Microsoft and Alphabet in the artificial intelligence race. Amazon Web Services, long the cloud-computing market leader, edged past Wall Street estimates for June-quarter revenue on Thursday with a 17.5% increase, but it widely lagged the 39% growth seen at Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud's 32% gain. That disappointing growth came even as Amazon shelled out $31.4 billion in capital expenditure, more than rivals, and suggested it would spend a more-than-estimated $118 billion for the year. Google and Microsoft also pledged higher spending, but were rewarded from investors on signs AI was already becoming a major growth driver across their businesses, justifying the bill. The companies have been spending billions of dollars on datacenters and cutting-edge chips that they say are necessary to overcome supply constraints hampering their efforts to capitalize on soaring demand for AI services. "The spotlight was firmly on AWS and it didn't quite shine as brightly as expected," said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. "While Microsoft and Alphabet have already shown strong momentum in cloud growth, AWS wasn't the knockout many wanted to see." Growing expenses have also started to take a bite out of AWS's margins, the business that has long been Amazon's profit engine, accounting for about 60% of its operating income. AWS margins contracted to 32.9% during the quarter, their lowest level since the final quarter of 2023, and Amazon also issued a current-quarter total operating income forecast that was lower than market estimates. CEO Andy Jassy told analysts on a post-earnings call that it was still "very early days" in the AI race and that Amazon's massive cloud business, much larger than rivals, was primed to perform well once the AI capacity constraints start to ease. The stock, now down 1.5% for the year, was at $216.2 in late morning trading. The drop was set to erase around $170 billion from Amazon's market value, if the losses hold. The company still trades at a relatively high premium, with a 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio of 33.87, compared with Microsoft's (MSFT.O), opens new tab 34.19 and Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab 18.64, according to data compiled by LSEG. At least 30 analysts raised their price targets on the stock, while three lowered, giving it a median view of $260. Some of that analyst confidence comes from the strong performance of Amazon's retail business, which has remained resilient in the face of Trump administration tariffs that have hobbled many retailers and their supply chains. Amazon has yet to see a drop in demand or a notable rise in prices in the first half of the year, Jassy said, as its online store sales jumped a better-than-expected 11% in the second quarter. Manufacturers and suppliers have shouldered most of the tariff impact so far, analysts said, but noted that much of the inventory Amazon sold in the quarter arrived in the preceding three-month period. "If Amazon's retail business was a standalone entity, it would be trading dramatically higher following the near-perfect results," said Michael Morton, analyst at MoffettNathanson. "Unfortunately, as we all know, the success of the retail business is not what's going to matter in the near term for Amazon's stock price."
Reuters
3 hours ago
- Reuters
Google asks court to halt app store overhaul as it mounts new appeal
Aug 1 (Reuters) - Alphabet's Google on Friday asked a U.S. appeals court to keep on hold an order that required sweeping reforms to the technology giant's app store Play, after losing a key ruling this week in a lawsuit brought by 'Fortnite' video game maker Epic Games. Google in a new filing, opens new tab to the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it planned to further challenge the lower court's October injunction, which a panel of appeals judges upheld on Thursday in a unanimous decision. The injunction, which was paused while the 9th Circuit considered the case, required Google to restore competition by allowing users to download rival app stores within its Play store and by making Play's app catalog available to those competitors, among other reforms. Google said the lower court's injunction is expected to take effect in 14 days absent a court order blocking it. The filing said an administrative stay of the order was necessary to let the company later ask the full appeals court to take up the appeal, and if necessary seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Google and Epic did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Epic in its 2020 lawsuit accused Google of monopolizing how consumers access apps on Android devices and pay for transactions within apps. The Cary, North Carolina-based company convinced a San Francisco jury in 2023 that Google illegally stifled competition. U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco issued his Play store injunction against Google in October after a jury earlier ruled for Epic. Google has denied any wrongdoing. In upholding the injunction on Thursday, a 9th Circuit panel said the record in Epic's lawsuit was 'replete with evidence that Google's anticompetitive conduct entrenched its dominance." The case is Epic Games v. Google, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 24-6256. For Epic: Gary Bornstein of Cravath, Swaine & Moore For Google: Jessica Ellsworth of Hogan Lovells Read more: Google loses US appeal over app store reforms in Epic Games case Apple cites Supreme Court's birthright ruling in fight over Epic Games injunction US judge delays Texas antitrust trial over Google digital ads Epic Games settles lawsuit against Samsung over app controls
