Like this, I remember hearing about Ofcom trying to enforce age verification on American owned and operated websites in which was met with resistance as British legislation has no jurisdiction on US soil (there is even an actual court case about it in the US) since it contradicts freedom of expression towards American citizens. It makes me wonder why try to enforce someone else’s laws on another nation, it won’t work as laws are geographically bound.
Social Media companies are NOT headquartered on where age checks have became a thing (UK or AU), like how X (Twitter) or Facebook have their HQ in California which should render AU’s -16 SM “Ban” useless as those laws carry zero jurisdiction in the US. It doesn’t matter if they tried to fine them 50m AUD (they have more in USD and remains stronger than AUD), the thing is FB, Instagram or X are US based firms (so AU legislation has no jurisdiction).
You can be the CEO of any SM company & retort “YOUR LAWS MEAN NOTHING, AS I DO NOT LIVE IN YOUR COUNTRY!” simply refuse to comply as you are aware they cannot enforce laws from one country to someone elses since legislation is geographically bound. It happened with the “Hub” as they stood their ground refusing to comply, what happened? They simply stopped supporting those regions (as in the website no longer works there).
If you are something like 4chan or a descendant of that type of website, the answer is as easy as that. If you are Xwitter or Facebook it is not. You’re too big. You may have opened an office in the country, either because it was a legal requirement to continue operating in the country or because you collect money through it. So throwing your hands up and saying eff you we just don’t serve your country any more comes with a cost. Your ad money now needs to be paid abroad, which comes with the danger of increasing the cost for advertisers who now need to pay in dollars rather than pounds. And the representative in the local office, which you may want to close now, may find themselves in court for all the infractions that occurred before you threw your hands up (something that happened in Brazil IIRC). Also, you want the people who make the laws continue to use your platform to give it relevance. A Melon Usk Xwitter hissy fit may finally drive the rest of the politicians away. Loss of relevance will translate to loss of money.
The internet is multilaterally interdependent and scale matters.