‘Don’t have a fine-issuing button’: eSafety chief defends lack of fines for social media companies

The commissioner of Australia’s online watchdog defended the lack of fines for social media companies following the Albanian government’s under-16 ban, saying he predicted a Senate hearing “we don’t have a fine button”.

eSafety has been investigating the compliance of 10 major social media platforms since the ban came into force on December 10, 2026.

Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant told the Senate on Wednesday that she anticipates “complex investigations” into the compliance of platforms including Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are ongoing.

“We stated in our regulatory update in March that we were concerned about the industry’s compliance. Since then we have continued our investigation and have seen some improvements,” he said.

“However, we have not yet reached a final determination as to whether the platforms have taken reasonable steps, which is the highest standard we must prove under the legislation.

Ms Inman-Grant acknowledged there was “strong interest as to why sentences have not yet been handed down”.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have a fine button,” he said.

“Rather, systemic noncompliance needs to be proven in court with solid evidence and complex legal proceedings.”

Ms Inman-Grant said there were “early signs of progress” on social media sites.

“By March, we reported a 37 per cent reduction in the number of under-16s with accounts, and parents were consistently having much more constructive conversations with their children about online risks and social media use,” he said.

“I can report to the committee today that since our compliance update in March and our direct engagement with individual platforms, we have seen improvements and rollbacks to some of the poor implementation practices we identified.

“For example, some platforms have recently taken steps to restrict or age-verify accounts whose stated age reaches 16 by December 10 or shortly thereafter, in order to identify other underage users who still have accounts on their platforms.”

Ms Inman-Grant said there had also been a reduction in administrative hurdles that were “stifling” reports from parents, while other services had increased age ratings in app stores.

“I can inform the committee today that we have retained an external legal team to support our investigation and subsequent enforcement actions,” he said.

But when asked by Liberal senator Sarah Henderson which platform had made the change, Heidi Snell, eSafety’s director general of regulatory operations, said the information received from the platforms fell within the scope of “legally mandated notifications”. “We have not yet completed our evaluation of the effectiveness of any of these measures that they have taken and whether that is compliance,” he said.

“So, as these investigations are ongoing, we feel that disclosing specific details about any platform would risk harming the investigations and possible enforcement actions.”

Earlier, Ms Inman-Grant said eSafety had filed a three-year enforcement action against X Corp, formerly Twitter, for failing to comply with its transparency notice regarding child sexual abuse material.

“Ultimately, X Corp accepted liability and will pay a $650,000 fine plus costs,” he said.

“This is one of the few successful actions taken against exports by any regulator globally.

“Such results are hard to come by, and they show that careful, methodical application based on significant evidence is the result.”