Meta settlement draws global calls for curbs

Meta Platforms Inc’s move to restrict teenagers’ use of social media in the US shows that companies have tools to better protect young people online, Australian officials said yesterday, as the EU and South Korea also called on Meta to address its “addictive design” following a landmark settlement.

Meta on Wednesday agreed to pay up to US$18 billion over a decade and limit how teenagers use Facebook and Instagram under an agreement with nearly all US states to resolve claims that it designed those platforms to addict children. Meta denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.

Governments around the world are trying to curb children’s access to harmful online content, including a world-first ban in Australia late last year on social media for children younger than 16.

Australian Minister for Communications Anika Wells said social media companies “have the tools at their disposal to protect young people from their addictive features, but have chosen not to use them.”

The Meta deal brings sweeping changes to the company’s Facebook and Instagram platforms in the US, including imposing a default two-hour limit on its apps for users younger than 18.

In Seoul, the Korea Media and Communications Commission said that some of Meta’s measures should be applied to young users worldwide, rather than just in specific markets.

“Improvements to features that may encourage excessive use or addiction, such as algorithm-based content recommendations, disclosure of engagement metrics such as ‘likes,’ and push notifications designed to encourage users to log in, would ideally be applied to youth users worldwide,” it said.

Malaysia, which has barred those younger than 16 from registering accounts on social media platforms, welcomed the US settlement, calling it “a positive sign that social media platforms must be held accountable for what takes place on their platforms.”

European Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier told reporters that the EU — which last month ordered Meta to make its platforms safer for children or face heavy fines — has had new “exchanges” with the firm since the US settlement.

“The ball is in Meta’s court,” Regnier said. “Meta knows what we are expecting from them. Now it is for the company to offer these commitments in the European Union to protect our kids here too.”

However, enforcement of similar restrictions in Australia has been patchy so far.

Early evidence suggests the law has been undermined by weak age-verification systems, with multiple studies, including from Australia’s Internet regulator, showing that 80 percent of minors were still on social media months after the ban took effect in December last year. That prompted lawmakers to double the maximum fine and increase regulatory powers.

As governments worldwide seek social media curbs, Polish Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski said he has asked the European Commission to impose a 250 million euro (US$290.94 million) fine on Meta.

“I also call on Meta to immediately introduce effective tools to eliminate scams, false advertising and the promotion of illegal applications,” Gawkowski wrote on X.

In Asia, countries including Taiwan, South Korea, India, Malaysia, China, Indonesia and the Philippines are also seeking tighter oversight of social media as well as curbs, including to block alleged scams and in particular to protect children.

A fire and subsequent explosion in a residential area in Tainan early yesterday injured 15 people and damaged 68 homes, the Tainan City Fire Bureau said. The bureau said it received a report at 1:12am yesterday that a pile of waste in a vacant lot in Annan District’s (安南) Haidian Road had caught fire and exploded, adding that it dispatched 144 firefighters and 53 firetrucks to battle the blaze and evacuate nearby residents.

It took more than four hours to extinguish the fire, it said. The incident damaged 11 privately owned vehicles, as well as eight fire engines, one ambulance and two disaster

DELUGE: The Tainan City Government requested five mobile water pumps from the central government to supplement the 511 pumps it had already prepared Torrential rain caused by the combined effects of southwesterly winds and a low-pressure belt battered southern Taiwan yesterday, causing widespread flooding across Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung County. More than 2,300 people were evacuated as authorities warned of continued heavy rain through tomorrow.

Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung County yesterday announced that work and classes would remain suspended today for the second consecutive day amid heavy rain and flooding. Chiayi, Hualien and Taitung counties later last night also announced that work and classes would be canceled today. The Kaohsiung City Government said it expected cumulative rainfall over the five-day period of the low-pressure system to

A US Navy P-8A Poseidon aircraft transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace on Friday, in a move the US 7th Fleet said “demonstrates the US’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.” The Chinese military tracked and monitored the patrol and reconnaissance aircraft throughout the transit, the state-backed Global Times newspaper reported, citing a military source, saying the “situation was under control.”

US military ships or aircraft pass through or above the waterway that separates Taiwan from China every few months. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is expected to visit the US next month to meet US President Donald Trump as Washington

‘ALARMING’: Many of the officers being investigated were rising military stars, with good service records and grades in the military academy, anonymous sources said Law enforcement officials have broadened a probe into a suspected network of Chinese spies, after the Kaohsiung branch of the High Court on Wednesday convicted two former military service members on espionage and corruption charges. The court sentenced an ex-army sergeant surnamed Fang (方) to 10 years and four months in prison and an ex-air force sergeant surnamed Huang (黃) to seven years in prison.

The verdict may be appealed. Fang and Huang were found guilty of passing military secrets to China and attempting to turn their colleagues into Chinese spies as members of Wo Long Hui (臥龍會, “Crouching Dragon Society”), an