On December 10, Australia will drop a legal hammer and become the first country in the world to ban social media accounts for under-16s. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, X, and Threads are all caught in the dragnet and face fines if they stuff it up.

It sets a frightening precedent for platforms which have banked trillions by being unregulated - and as the deadline has approached, the eSafety Commissioner at the heart of it has revealed she and her family have been targeted by a dirty tricks campaign.

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