Apple Executive Chair Tim Cook has praised Australia’s restrictions on children’s social-media use as “world-leading,” according to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, adding influential technology-industry support as governments increasingly experiment with age limits and stronger controls for young users.
After meeting Cook at Apple Park in California, Albanese said Cook regarded Australia’s work on social media as world-leading. The meeting comes less than a year after Australia became the first country to prohibit children under 16 from accessing major social-media platforms.
Business Recorder quotes Albanese saying Cook viewed Australia’s approach as a global benchmark for social-media regulation rather than simply another national experiment.
Australia Is Moving Beyond an Under-16 Ban
Australia’s policy is expanding beyond simply determining who can create an account.
Reuters reports that the government this month proposed giving social-media users the option to choose the content they see in their feeds, extending its online-safety push into how recommendation systems influence what users encounter.
Australia introduced its under-16 social-media ban in December 2025, becoming the first country to introduce such a nationwide restriction. Other governments have since moved in similar directions, with the European Commission most recently proposing restrictions for children under 13.
That evolution matters for platform builders because youth regulation is shifting from a simple policy question toward a product-infrastructure problem. Age estimation, parental controls, account restrictions and recommendation settings increasingly have to be implemented in software rather than left inside terms of service.
Apple Is Building Child-Safety Controls Into Its Products
Apple did not independently characterize Australia’s policy in the Reuters report, but an Apple spokesperson pointed to a post by Cook after his meeting with Albanese.
Cook said he had shared some of Apple’s newest innovations, including strong and intuitive controls to help keep kids safe online. Cook recently stepped down as Apple CEO after 15 years and now serves as executive chair.
For Apple, youth-safety rules have implications beyond social-media applications themselves. Device-level operating systems sit between users and platforms, giving companies such as Apple and Google potential roles in age assurance, parental controls and app-level access restrictions.
That could make the smartphone operating system an increasingly important layer in how governments enforce youth-access requirements.
Albanese Also Pushes for Global AI Rules
The conversation extended beyond social media.
Albanese said artificial intelligence carries risks that need to be mitigated and called for a discussion about a “global framework” for AI deployment because the technology is advancing quickly. He added that governments need to ensure that “humans remain in control.”
His position contrasts with U.S. President Donald Trump, who Reuters notes has argued that additional AI regulation is unnecessary.
For technology companies, Cook’s reported endorsement is significant because Australia’s approach is beginning to look less like an isolated national rule and more like an early model for age-aware platform architecture.
If similar restrictions continue spreading, platforms may increasingly need to build youth safety the same way they handle privacy or payments: as a jurisdiction-sensitive infrastructure layer that determines who can access a service, what they can see and which controls activate automatically.
