TechPulse USA

By Daniel Rao. Australia has stopped pretending one country can tame Big Tech on its own. Communications Minister Anika Wells told Bloomberg News she is building a worldwide coalition of nations to force companies like Meta to protect children online — because, in her words, "These are the most resourced, powerful companies in the world." The admission is striking: the country that pioneered the world's first under-16 social media ban now says going it alone isn't enough. Wells, 41, who has three young children, laid out the plan in an interview in Sydney: an alliance of lawmakers that would adopt Australia's new regulatory template — the sweeping Digital Duty of Care legislation — as a shared global standard for child safety. "It's going to take a coalition of lawmakers working together across the globe to take them on," she said. Photo: Sydney's skyline across the harbour — a file photo. Wells laid out the coalition plan in a Bloomberg in...

UK REGULATION Britain has stopped pretending it can keep children safe by asking nicely. In an interview with The Guardian published on September 30, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the planned under-16 social media ban is merely a "staging post" — a waystation on the road to "a very active interventionist state, policing and regulating the online space so that people are safe." That is not a policy announcement. It is a declaration of a new relationship between the British state and Silicon Valley — and it makes the original ban sound like a polite knock on the door. Published October 3, 2026 · By Daniel Rao Photo: The Palace of Westminster, London. The government's interventionist push — an under-16 social media ban from March 2027, curfews, device-level controls and AI chatbot rules — is now official Labour policy. Credit: Terry Ott / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Britain has stopped pretending it can keep children safe by asking nicely. In an int...