X Tells Australian Senate Panel That Tougher Under-16 Enforcement Bill Violates International Law

Elon Musk's X filed a submission with an Australian senate committee this week, arguing that proposed legislation to strengthen enforcement of the country's under-16 social media ban would violate international law.

The submission, published Tuesday and reported by Reuters, targets a specific bill. It would give the eSafety Commissioner broader power to demand documents and information from companies, including from people who have no physical presence in Australia, and would roughly double the maximum penalty for noncompliance to A$99 million, about $69 million.

X's core objection is legal, not just political. The company told the committee the amendments would "compel any person outside Australia... to provide information and documents merely because they are affiliated with a company," calling that "in clear conflict" with international legal principles. It warned the changes raise "potential for a severe impact on international comity," the doctrine under which one country's courts and regulators defer to another nation's legal system.

X also argued the bill fails to give "due regard to procedural fairness, privacy, the broader impacts on online services, and Australia's digital economy." The company separately called the information-gathering powers "highly invasive" and accused the commissioner of having "seemingly no understanding" of how compliance would actually work for platforms, according to Wired.

The Ban Itself Is Already Law

Australia's ban on social media accounts for under-16s took effect in December, making it the first country to impose a blanket age restriction of this kind. The law puts the compliance burden on platforms, not parents or kids, requiring companies to take "reasonable steps" to verify user age or face penalties.

X has said it intends to comply with the ban itself. Its fight is narrowly with the enforcement bill now before parliament, which would sharpen the eSafety Commissioner's investigative reach.

Musk has been consistently hostile to the underlying law. When it was first announced in late 2024, he called it a "backdoor way to control access to the internet by all Australians." He leveled similar rhetoric at Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in February, calling him a "tyrant" and "true fascist totalitarian" over a comparable proposal.

X is not a first-time combatant with eSafety. Australia fined X $463,000 in May for failing to comply with a 2023 information request about how the platform was handling child sexual abuse material, a request submitted a month before Musk's takeover of Twitter. X has previously called the country's penalty regime "excessive" and told the committee this week that the plan to raise fines against individuals is "entirely unjustified and disproportionate."

Enforcement Has a Real Compliance Problem

The regulator's own case for more power rests on a practical gap. eSafety told the senate panel that its current inability to compel documents from third-party age-verification providers creates "significant" barriers to investigations, leaving it dependent on "representations from providers about their own compliance," according to Ammon News.

A regulator that can only take a company's word for its own compliance has limited teeth. eSafety says it is preparing a possible enforcement lawsuit against five platforms, and Australia has said Meta, TikTok, and YouTube are not currently complying with the rules.

Industry group DIGI pushed back on the premise, telling the committee the commissioner already holds extensive enforcement powers that simply haven't been tested yet, according to Ground News. A live dispute exists: is this a genuine legal gap, or an untested authority the regulator hasn't bothered to use?

Surveys taken since the ban's rollout suggest most Australian under-16s still hold social media accounts, and early age-verification trials stumbled on basic accuracy, according to TNW. This suggests the ban may not be functioning as the government claims, regardless of how the enforcement bill turns out.

Washington Is Now Involved

A U.S. congressional committee has requested that the eSafety Commissioner testify, accusing the regulator of imperiling American free speech through what it characterizes as aggressive pursuit of foreign companies, according to Ground News and Ammon News. No hearing date or formal proceeding beyond the request has been confirmed in current reporting.

That request adds a genuine cross-border dimension: an American legislative body is now weighing in on an Australian regulatory dispute involving an American-owned platform.

What Happens Next

The bill has not passed. The senate committee reviewing it is scheduled to deliver final findings on August 25, according to Ground News. Until then, X's objections remain arguments in a public submission, not a legal outcome. Whether Australia narrows the bill's foreign-reach provisions, or pushes ahead with the A$99 million penalty and expanded document powers, will determine whether this becomes an actual test of international comity or stays a war of words between Canberra and one of Musk's companies.