Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday accused X owner Elon Musk of pushing his agenda against the nation's ban on under-16 from social media.
He also indicated he was open to discuss with Musk the legislation passed last Thursday.
The Australian Parliament passed a bill last week that bans all forms of social media for those aged below 16. The bill which was tabled previous Thursday drew sharp criticisms from many, who argued it was hasty and stood to do more harm to children than good.
The ban, pioneering in a way, was met with resistance from social media giants like Meta and google, which urged the government to delay it since they needed to work out the mechanism to gatekeep children.
Musk, however, in a post on X claimed the bill was a "backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians."
In response, Albanese on Sunday said, "We'll talk to anyone," when asked about Musk's view.
"With regard to Elon Musk, he has an agenda, he's entitled to push that as the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter," Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television, according to Reuters.
According to the bill, the onus of keeping the children away from social media rests on the tech firms rather than the parents or guardians.
The ban will take effect in a year.
"We are determined to get this done, the parliament has overwhelmingly passed this legislation," Albanese told the broadcaster.
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