Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese denied on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, that his government’s digital duty of care law amounts to state control, saying its purpose is to give people “back control over what they received on their devices,” after the US administration warned the proposal risked becoming “viewpoint-based censorship” and asked for American platforms to be exempt, according to The Guardian.

Albanese, who told the UN General Assembly that sovereignty “must have a digital dimension,” is meeting President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the assembly. In Australia, NetChoice, whose members include Meta, TikTok, X, Reddit, Snapchat, Twitch and YouTube, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have applied to join the High Court challenge in which Reddit is contesting the law banning social media accounts for under-16s, in force since December 2025, according to Politico. Platforms have removed or suspended 1 million accounts because of the Australian law, and the government has yet to file its formal defence in the case.