Twitch Added to Age Restricted Social Media in Australia

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has added Twitch to its growing list of age-restricted social media sites.

Following Twitch’s own self-assessment, eSafety assessed Twitch as meeting the criteria for ‘age-restricted social media platform’, because it has the sole or significant purpose of online social interaction with features designed to encourage user interaction, including through livestreaming content.

This means that by December 10, “Twitch and the previously announced Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X and YouTube, will be required to take reasonable steps to prevent Australian children under the age of 16 from having accounts.”

eSafety highlights that it’s ultimately up to the courts to decide, but an assessment from an official government agency is a good indicator that they will have to comply.

This comes after Australia launched its digital ID. The Australian government is trialling the IDs for some applications, but the technology is not widely deployed across services yet. This makes it a bit strange that they are now about to enforce age verification before a robust system for privacy-preserving verification is rolled out. Ideally, the government would work out the kinks in the system before requiring it for millions of Australians to use social media.