Today, Jennifer Stout, our SVP, Global Policy & Platform Operations, joined Meta and TikTok to testify before the Australian Parliament to discuss the country's Social Media Minimum Age legislation. You can read Jennifer's opening statement below.

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I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Committee to discuss Snap’s approach to the Social Media Minimum Age law.

Snapchat is, and has always been, a messaging app. Since its founding, Snapchat was designed to help close friends communicate in the moment — to stay connected through photos, videos, and chats that reflect real life.

While we’ve added features over the years, messaging remains the core purpose of Snapchat and the primary way our community uses it today.

The Government created Exclusion Rules that exempt platforms whose sole or primary purpose is messaging, voice, or video calling from the minimum age requirement. They did this because they recognized that young people need to be able to communicate with friends and family.

Over 75% of time spent on Snapchat in Australia is messaging and calling — the same functions used on services like WhatsApp, Messenger, and iMessage, all of which have been excluded from these restrictions. Yet, despite this, Snapchat has been classified as an age-restricted social media service.

We do not agree with this interpretation. We have provided compelling evidence to the eSafety Commissioner showing that Snapchat’s primary purpose is messaging, in line with the Government’s stated approach.

Nonetheless, we will comply with the law, even though we believe it has been unevenly applied and risks undermining community confidence in the law.

Beginning December 10, we will disable accounts for Australian Snapchatters under 16.

We know this will be difficult for young people who use Snapchat to communicate with their closest friends and family. For teens, connection and communication are strong drivers of happiness and well-being. Taking that away does not make them safer — it may instead push them toward other messaging services that lack Snapchat’s safety and privacy protections.

We share the Government’s goal of protecting young people online, but we believe restricting their ability to communicate on Snapchat will not achieve that outcome.

We will act responsibly and transparently throughout this process, including helping users verify their age so that, if they are 16 years or older, they can keep their accounts.

We’ll continue to engage constructively with the eSafety Commissioner and the Government, with full respect for the law, even if we fundamentally disagree with it.

Thank you. I am pleased to answer your questions.