The U.S. and Australian governments are at odds over the country’s new draft social media regulations, with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese defending the country’s national interest while the U.S. embassy warned of potential censorship.

The new draft laws place more responsibility on social media companies to protect children from online harms. They would also give users the choice to not have their social media feeds dictated by highly personalised algorithms.

If firms fail in these duties, they could face fines of up to Aus$109 million (USD $78 million).

The U.S. embassy in Canberra published a statement on September 22, warning that a majority of platforms affected would be U.S.-headquartered companies.

It expressed “serious concerns” about Australia’s Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 – Exposure Draft, criticising “forced chronological feeds” and “opt-in recommendation systems.”

“If Australia compels platforms to aggressively filter content in algorithmic feeds to satisfy a government mandate, and such filtering draws in protected speech, the effect on a disfavored speaker or media source’s reach would not be meaningfully different than outright removal. The U.S. government would likely consider such a measure as facilitating censorship,” warned the statement.

“We ask that Australia withdraw any plans to mandate that platforms algorithmically suppress content based on ambiguous government-defined safety criteria,” it added.

The U.S. government asked for further clarifications about the definition of the harms that social media companies would have to address, and how enforcement actions would affect users worldwide.

Mr. Albanese responded to journalists in New York, highlighting that the policy was not a sudden decision.

“It’s not about giving government control, it’s about giving people back control over what they receive on their devices,” he was quoted as saying by AFP.

Australia in December last year instituted a social media ban for children under 16 years, becoming the world’s first country to do so.

However, experts are divided as to the effectiveness of the ban, which relies on still-experimental age verification methods in order to lock out younger children.

With inputs from AFP