Markets Slide Further As Fresh Set Of Bullish Brokerage Calls Arrive
U.S. President Donald Trump is busy erecting walls but American capital has found a way to climb over them
On Episode 748 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Garima Kapoor, Chief Economist at Elara Securities and Dr. Vandana Singh, Chairperson, at Aviation Cargo Federation of Aviation Industry in India (FAII).
SHOW NOTES
(00:00) Stories Of The Day
(00:18) The Take
(03:44) Markets Slide Further As Fresh Set Of Bullish Brokerage Calls Arrive
(09:59) India Is Seeing Unprecedented Crop Price Deflation, Decoding The Impact
(21:43) Indigo Will Have To Cut 10% Of Its Capacity, What Does That Mean For The Industry And Passengers At Peak Travel Time?
(31:30) Australia’s Move To Ban Social Media To Teenagers Below 16 Years Starts, With Some Learnings.
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NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on feedback@thecore.in.
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Good morning, it's Thursday, the 11th of December and this is Govindraj Ethiraj, still in transit but usually broadcasting and streaming weekdays from Mumbai, India's financial capital and I can tell you it continues to be pretty cold outside, at least for me, age-old Mumbaikar.
The Take
Trump raises tariffs but American capital is voting with its feet.
U.S. President Donald Trump is busy erecting walls but American capital has found a way to climb over them. In just the last four weeks, U.S. firms have committed more than $67 billion to India, a figure that roughly matches the average annual foreign direct investment inflow into India, even as trade and political relations between the two countries remain in limbo. The contrast is stark.
On one hand, the Trump administration is doubling down on protectionism. As of August 26, the U.S. imposed a 50% tariff on Indian imports, of which 25% are penal tariffs for India importing Russian oil. And just this week, Trump threatened new levies on rice, a symbolic though economically minor hit at New Delhi because only 5% of India's rice exports go to the U.S. Now, a bilateral trade deal which could have halved those tariffs to 25% by mid-December, as was expected, remains nowhere in sight.
On the other hand, the captains of American industry are aggressively stepping up their bets on the subcontinent. Leading the charge are the hyperscalers, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, pouring billions into data centres and cloud infrastructure. Amazon alone announced a $35 billion outlay on Wednesday, aiming to supercharge its Indian exports to something like $80 billion and support 3.8 million jobs by 2030.
Microsoft announced a $17.5 billion investment just a day before that. This also offers a lesson in the limits of managed trade. While tariffs can punish labour-intensive exporters of textiles, seafood, and jewellery, sectors where Indian firms are indeed hurting, they do little to stem the flow of digital capital.
A review of overseas data centre investments from the U.S. suggests off the cuff that India has become a premier destination for American tech investment ahead of even Japan and the United Kingdom and leaving most Asian countries far behind. It isn't just big tech. The proliferation of global capability centres, more than 1,700 now in India, tells a broader story of labour arbitrage moving up the value chain.
Perhaps the most ironic illustration arrived two months ago when McDonald's, a brand Trump holds in high culinary regard, opened a 1,500-seat technology hub in Hyderabad with plans to expand further. Now, the White House does want manufacturing jobs to return to the rust belt, and to some extent, tariffs encourage that effort in reshoring. But the modern economy is about data services and, of course, intellectual property.
To serve both the companies are building distinct ecosystems overseas that tariffs cannot easily dismantle, as is quite evident from all this activity. Trump may tax rice and shirts, but he cannot tax the economic logic that drives American business to where growth and talent reside.
And that brings us to our top stories for the day….
The stock market slight further even as a fresh set of bullish brokerage calls arrive.
India is seeing unprecedented crop price deflation that could hurt the agricultural economy, decoding the impact.
Indigo will have to cut 10% of its capacity. What does that mean for the industry and passengers at peak travel time?
Australia's move to ban social media to teenagers below 16 years starts with some learnings.
The Markets Slide
India's stock markets extended losses on Wednesday on concern that the U.S. Federal Reserve may signal a more hawkish 2026 outlook ahead of an expected rate cut later in the day.
The Nifty 50 and the Sensex were both down about 0.3% and the indices have fallen about 1.6% each over three sessions. That's each that Sensex and Nifty over three sessions this week. The Sensex was down 275 points to 84,391.
The Nifty 50 was down 81 points to 25,758. And the broader markets were also lower, so no divergence yesterday. That's the Nifty mid cap was down 1.1% and the Nifty small cap was down 0.9%. Citibank Research expects India's benchmark Nifty 50 to rise to 28,500 by end 2026.
That's up 10% roughly from the last close and that it believes is because of an improving consumption backdrop, sustained rural demand and early signs of an urban recovery, according to a report in Reuters. Citi's outlook, of course, is similar to similar calls from HSBC, JP Morgan, Omira and Goldman Sachs in the last few weeks. The Nifty has gained about 9%, a little over 9% in 2025 so far, but it still underperforms its emerging market and Asian peers.
As we know, both the Nifty and the Sensex hit record highs last month after 14 months, but has since not been or have since not been able to sustain that rally. Citi analysts said that the headwinds that hurt Indian markets in 2025, subdued earnings, relatively higher tariffs than most emerging peers and a lack of artificial intelligence themes are now reversing. According to them, that Goldilocks conditions of resilient growth and benign inflation would converge to support equities in 2026.
And on Wednesday, the rupee was down, ending as Reuters reports a session of back and forth price action thanks to portfolio flows and likely maturity of positions in the non-deliverable forwards market and caution ahead of the Federal Reserve policy decision. The rupee closed at Rs 89.96 to the US dollar, lower than the previous close of Rs 89.87 and obviously very close to Rs 90. Now just in case you have not been following it and you had some travel in mind, the British Pound is about Rs 120 now, give or take a rupee.
The Euro is at 104. The Singapore dollar is at Rs 69 and it appears to be rapidly catching up with the US dollar. Elsewhere, amongst other things that are going up and which you may have some investment or holding in, Silver was up 0.7% at $61 per ounce after hitting an all-time high of $61.61 earlier in the session on Wednesday thanks to two things, one is rising industrial demand, declining inventories and then its designation as a critical mineral by the United States according to Reuters.
Now Silver has risen 112% this year. Gold prices were down slightly to about $4193 so gold is clearly in a holding pattern right now.
Amazon Steps Up
Amazon on Wednesday committed to investing about $35 billion in India's cloud and AI space by 2030 even as the hyperscalers as we just spoke of earlier race to get a foothold in the market. The commitment was unveiled at the Sambhav Summit in Delhi on Wednesday and builds on some $40 billion already invested here. Amazon said the new funds will target AI-driven digitisation, export growth and job creation aligning with India's national priorities to build up its local AI environment.
By 2030, Amazon said the plan is expected to generate an additional 1 million direct, indirect, induced and seasonal jobs in India and quadruple exports to $80 billion and also deliver AI benefits to 15 million small businesses. Technology consulting company IDC told CNBC that India is one of the fastest growing regions for AI spending within Asia-Pacific. A major gap and therefore a significant opportunity lies in the shortage of suitable compute infrastructure for running AI models they said.
It also pointed out that several countries across Asia are accelerating efforts to build sovereign AI capabilities as the technology becomes more regionalised because of trade tensions and tariffs. Earlier, Microsoft on Tuesday said it would invest about $17.5 billion in India's cloud and AI infrastructure, making it its largest investment in Asia. The company said the investments aimed at expanding hyperscale infrastructure, embedding AI into national platforms and advancing workforce readiness will be spread over four years, building on a $3 billion pledge made in January.
Earlier, as you must have noted, India has attracted other investment pledges of about $15 billion from Google and about $8 billion from Amazon Web Services.
India Energy Week segment
Oil prices steadied on Wednesday as investors watched for progress in the Russia-Ukraine peace talks and of course waited for the Federal Reserve's rate decision.
Brent crude was up about 7 cents at about $62 a battle on Wednesday morning while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude gained about 10 cents to $58.35. Elsewhere, Reuters is also reporting that the Trump administration held the government's first sale of oil and gas drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico since 2023 on Wednesday, a key test of industry appetite for offshore acreage at a time when the United States is trying to unleash more domestic fossil fuel production. The auction is the first of 30 mandated by the president and his tax cut and spending bill which he signed into law in July. Now, these plans for offshore leasing are a departure from that of his predecessor, President Joe Biden, who had planned for a historically small number of oil and gas auctions as a part of an effort to move away from fossil fuels and address climate change, according to the Reuters report.
Price Deflation
Unseasonal rain-led crop damages and depressed Kharif crop prices are shrinking cultivation income and dampening sentiments in India's agricultural economy. This is also leading to a price deflation for farmers of the like not seen for a while.
New report from Elara Securities, the brokerage, quotes a proprietary model for income realisation for paddy farmers across top three paddy growing states, that's West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and says that net cultivation income fell about 10 percent in the current year, the weakest since COVID-19. The report says that while cash transfer schemes at the state level along with free power schemes are continuing and real rural wages are holding up, widespread crop losses and unprecedented collapse in prices does not bode well for sustaining strong rural demand. Elara says they're also watching to see the sustenance of two-wheeler sales in December 2025 amidst that weakening cultivation income.
Government registration data for two-wheeler sales is contracting 1.8 percent year-on-year to date in December versus a growth of 19 percent year-on-year during September to November, according to the report, which says that price realisation for key crops has now dropped well below minimum support prices. Now a lot of this decline has been driven by excess monsoon which caused crop damage, bunched up arrivals, amidst a delayed harvest, quality issues and limited government intervention to support prices. And then there is the spectre of a US-India trade deal which could cover agriculture and that is already depressing prices as well as we'll hear shortly.
Now this apparently is the worst deflation in food crops in recent years and the current deflationary cycle of food prices in India is unprecedented in its magnitude according to the report, which also says that the central government's rural spending has been in the slow lane lately with execution of key rural schemes witnessing moderation. I reached out to Garima Kapoor, chief economist at Elara Securities and author of this report and I began by asking her why there was such a price deflation.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Garima Kapoor: Broadly, our sense speaking to farmers across 12 states and looking at the primary as well as secondary data is that unseasoned rains, prolonged monsoons and very concentrated rains in the month of October have led to 62nd crop damages. There has been an impact which is twofold. One is the yield has got impacted and two, the quality of crop that arrived in the market has not been of the best of quality.
The prices on Monday are generally marked to the best of quality. So if your crop ends up being a tad lower or even below in terms of markup to quality, has more moisture content than what is desired or agreeable, you normally end up getting lower prices. So in general, there has been a disruption of sorts, both from quality perspective and as well as from output perspective.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And tell us about what this has meant from income and leading to potential demand in the agriculture sector.
Garima Kapoor: So what really happens is one big question people ask, which is perplexing, is if the output has fallen, how are the prices also falling? Shouldn't prices really rise? There are two idiosyncratic factors that one needs to pay attention to.
What normally happens is that India's cropping pattern is such that your Kharif crop normally gets harvested, that is the summer or the crop that you sow during rains, gets harvested in October and then you sow the winter crop, which is the predominant Rabi crop or for which the predominant crop is wheat, you sow it in November. This time around, because it was raining well into October, most of the farmers could not really harvest the Kharif crop. So the harvest of the Kharif crop and the sowing of the winter crop got bunched up into very limited days in the month of November, because of which what happens is that even if your crop has got damaged and then the output is not great, the arrivals tend to be very bunched up because you need money to sow your next crop.
So arrivals come up in huge quantities, depressing prices. Then there are other idiosyncratic factors such as import duties, where some of the commodities have very low import duties, particularly so impulses in oilseeds when you compare to landed prices that come from other countries like Australia otherwise. Then you have a duty-free imports, let's say in cotton.
Then you have a fear that when India USD does come about, you will have a significant import of maize and soya bean coming through, which has also been dominating the Monday chatter lately. So because of which the prices of almost all commodities are at unprecedented low, particularly pulses, oilseeds, cotton, maize and soya bean. Now while this may not really impact the entire rural economy, cultivation income is broadly 40% of rural economy, with rest being contributed wage income and other sources.
So in our assumption, the kind of euphoria or the positive sentiment that we had seen rural demand generate and last, I remember six to eight quarters, a broader commentary has been the rural is doing better than urban up until the GST rate cuts came in. Our assessment is that this development, the unprecedented deflation in prices along with the crop losses and destruction because of unseasoned rain should dampen this spirit to some extent. And that should reflect in particularly certain high frequency indicators that we look for rural demand, particularly two wheeler sales.
For example, the Vahan data, the Vahan registration data for which we get data on daily basis, we've been tracking it very closely. September, October, November, which was the entire festive season, the growth was close to 18 to 20% on year on year basis. The month of September has started with a degrowth of somewhere about 1.82%. We're looking at this number very closely to see whether this momentum of degrowth continues or not. And if it does, then our assessment that your rural demand of the sentiment will get dampened because the cultivation income has taken a hit will actually play out as anticipated.
Govindraj Ethiraj: When you say that this is the worst deflation in food crops in recent years, it's a double edged sword, I'm assuming because consumers are benefiting because they're seeing lower prices and we're seeing lower inflation at the macro level, but farmers are getting hurt because they're not able to realise better prices for their crops.
Garima Kapoor: That's right. Broadly, the policy of the government and centre has been to keep the prices, especially inflation contained. But in their attempt to keep inflation and prices contained, sometimes you end up taking measures that end up benefiting consumer economy, but affects your producer economy disproportionately or very badly.
For instance, the WPI in food prices that we track very closely, which is the closest proxy of secondary data that we can look at to corroborate what I'm looking at the primary data. The WPI primary food has been declined for past six months, partly because of base and partly because of the reasons that I mentioned to you. And the decline has been close to 4% so far financial year.
Any other episode for which we saw a decline of this magnitude, I'm looking at data for last 14, 15 years was only for a period of about four to five months in 2018. But the average decline was not more than 2%. Here I'm saying a decline already of 4%.
And I know the incoming data for November and December is also not going to look up because normally these are the periods when arrivals are very strong and prices tend to deflate even more on seasonal basis.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And if we were to now look ahead, what is the impact of all of this or potential impact on the broader economy? And I don't just mean GDP numbers.
And secondly, what can policymakers do about this? And I'm talking specifically about farmer distress, which can follow.
Garima Kapoor: There are two things. In many cases where there has been crop losses, the government has announced, state governments in particular have announced compensation. But in most cases, the compensation has not reached the account of the farmers, number one.
Number two, the government can act very aggressively by intervening in the market. It's beyond the procurement crops the government does at this paddy and wheat. The government operates in the market through price stabilisation mechanism, where it operates through NAFED, which is the agency that actually works with price stabilisation, where it tends to intervene both by procuring and sometimes releasing the existing stock in order to stabilise prices.
Currently, probably they might need to procure certain stock at a given price such that to stabilise prices to some extent. Third policy measure can be to actually increase import duties, particularly in terms of pulses and oilseeds. While I must admit government has done so recently in early November, when the import duty for China, etc.
was high. In many cases, the landed prices that are coming from other countries, even after your port handling charges are still lower after taking into account the import duty. So there might be need to increase import duty even further.
So most of the intervention measures are more policy related. But over a period of time, we need to have a more predictable ecosystem that is able to anticipate the arrivals in the market and the expected prices that will get determined mainly by doing a greater online trading through the national agricultural market, which tends to then link all the markets in the economy on a common platform such that the price discovery is almost real-time. In such cases, you then actually remove the malpractices of a middleman and actually lead to an ecosystem which is more supply and demand determined.
Right now, it is more ad hoc in nature.
Govindraj Ethiraj: If I can just go back to a point that you mentioned earlier, you said that one reason prices are being depressed is because of the likelihood of a India-US bilateral trade agreement, which might allow imports of certain crops. My question really is, how serious is that?
Garima Kapoor: The middlemen, which basically are those who actually work at the mandi, are very well educated and aware of the developments in terms of what will India-US trade deal. Not because they're privy to information, but simply because we know exactly what the US has to offer. They really have a lot of maize to offer us.
So in that case, they also have some bit of soybean to offer us. Now, what has happened is that in anticipation of the import, some sort of arrangement that could be provided within the India-US trade framework, the prices of soybean and maize, these are two crops that people are anticipating, which will have some arrangement of imports into India, have been significantly depressed. And more so because that even when parts of Maharashtra and Rajasthan, which saw very unprecedented rains leading to 20-30% damage to the standing crop on soybean, the soybean prices in the country, when you look at top three soybean markets, are nearly 20% below MSP.
So this is a dichotomy. There have been massive crop losses, but anticipation of India-US trade and hence increased supply or import into the economy is already driving down prices. We've seen a similar factor in maize as well, where if I look at the prices of maize in top three mandis, they are close to about 27% below their ruling MSP.
And if I look at the corresponding same time last year, maize was almost trading at par to its MSP, and soybean, which is currently not doing any well. Last year also the crop was significantly low because of import duties that were nearly zero for oilseeds. So yes, it is playing a sentiment impact driving down prices.
Also, to some extent, a factor which is not very spoken about is in many states, farmers were encouraged to grow maize, especially for use of ethanol. And because of which now if the offtake for the crop for basically ethanol has not been as aggressive as anticipated, farmers are not going to wait in perpetuity for basically the offtake to happen. So they will go to the open mandis and market and sell the crop at what and ruling prices.
So I mean, certain policy factors, one, apart from India-U.S. trade deal, particularly for maize, there is an ethanol angle that is also playing up on prices.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Garima, thank you so much for joining me.
Garima Kapoor: Thank you, Govind.
Indigo Impact
India's aviation regulator, the Director General of Civil Aviation on Monday slashed Indigo's winter schedule reducing the number of flights by 10% even as the airline says that it's returned to near normalcy. The flight cancellation, some 5,000 since last week because of crew shortages, has had a massive knock-on effect across the travel and tourism trade. Holidays have been scuttled, brides and grooms have not turned up at their own weddings and thousands have lost the money they put into hotel stays and onwards bookings and of course the sheer misery for all involved.
It's not been easier for Indigo staff either having to battle furious customers at every airport in the country. The larger question is where could this stabilise given that there is that 10% cut in Indigo's schedules and what could be the downstream impact. I spoke with Dr. Vandana Singh, Chairperson Aviation Cargo Federation of Aviation Industry in India and I began by asking her last evening how she was seeing the current demand pattern play out.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Vandana Singh: First and foremost, what I would like to say that this is the first welcome move. This is just the tip of the iceberg that the government of India has finally taken. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has taken and yesterday morning it was a 5% cut in slots and then by yesterday evening the minister added another 5% to it and it was 10% cut in slots.
Now let's go back when it came to filing of the summer schedule. Now the winter schedule we started on 26th of October 2025 and will last till 31st March 2026. Indigo had already filed for an extra 6.3% of extra flights, extra capacity. So obviously what the government has done, one is they've come down very sternly, very strictly and stringently and they have told them that look how did you file for that extra percentage when you did not have the pilots which is one question that they should have asked earlier the Directorate General of Civil Aviation or done an audit on it. Having said that there is not going to be any downstream because 220 flights per day are going to go off Indigo in the prime slots and already we have Air India ready to lap up 75 to 100 flights a day. Right now the number is 75 is the first figures we are getting in.
We have Akasa, we have Spicejet ready to take 100 flights additional a day and we have Akasa coming up with more. So first and foremost players who are there with a little less percentage of course Air India with a 27 point or 28% they are lapping this up and don't forget if it's a business traveller or if it's somebody who's wanting to go on a relaxed time we were always choosing Indigo. If it was a morning to evening meeting let's say I'm going in the morning from Delhi to Delhi to Bomb and I want a morning slot and an evening slot the first convenient thing that would come to me on my platter was Indigo or a traveller who's wanting to go leisurely and say look I'll try and fly I want to go relaxed at about 12 31 so I don't want that rush.
I want to reach let's say Bengaluru by 3 pm and then I want to relax and next day I want to go for my meetings. So those slots were all the prime slots were going to Indigo. Now a lot of prime slots are being taken away by the government so I don't see a downstream I see rather an opportunity edge for the rest of the players to really now come up and show their mettle rather than an operational stress.
There is not going to be any operational stress plus there are more players waiting to come in of course that's going to be a different story that we are talking about but already that 10% share has been lapped up.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Okay couple of questions so one is obviously people who are flying Indigo just like you mentioned just now were doing so out of choice and out of choice they did not want to or did not fly Akasa or Air India or SpiceJet. The numbers say that whether we know anything specific about the preferences or not. The second question is will this not put pressure on prices because obviously all the other airlines in those peak times will see almost near full load at least by current levels.
Dr. Vandana Singh: I see that as very healthy first of all I see a load factor which is growing I see everybody wanting the air travel is increasing it's going to increase six fold in the coming years as we all know the statistics. A lot of it has been held by the Uran scheme by all of the second tier three tier cities being connected so I don't see that kind of strain coming. It's quite simple mathematics I see this taking shape in a very nice way.
So now when it comes to pricing it's not going to have that impact because now already the bandwidth has been given let's say 7,000 to let's say 15,000 for A sector or B sector up to 11,000. So all the airlines have to comply. Now what happened during this fiasco or this incident where people have been harassed beyond belief and there is clear criminal breach of trust when it comes as to how Indigo has lied cheated and brought people to the knees brought government to the knees.
It's pure abuse of dominance and during this period Govind what has also happened is that there was no corporate civil culture shown by let's say Tata sons as far as Air India was concerned. If Indigo was cancelling their flights just to arm twist to get away from the AFDTL regulations and get an extension which they ultimately did till 10th of February Air India was charging 68,000 one way from Bengaluru to Delhi day before and even today Delhi Bengaluru on Air India is 18,000 which is the highest cap of that sector. It's not the lowest it's not the midway it's the highest.
So definitely prices have been capped and prices have to be now followed up in a disciplined manner it's not going to create a problem because anyway with the kind of load factor and the kind of slots that they are going to get they stand to benefit. We have to understand enemy's enemy is your best friend so when something goes down you take it up when you have a problem the other gets it so far it was like that. Air India coming with a 4000 crore demand and asking the government to rationalise for operational sindoor which is a national security issue and on the other hand Indigo coming up with such a shameless picture that they have portrayed of themselves over the last eight nine days.
So yes.
Govindraj Ethiraj: When you say Air India you're referring to the concession they asked for because they were losing money because of overflying or rather having to go around Pakistan airspace is that right?
Dr. Vandana Singh: That's right and that was just affecting four routes they did not have to go and read out operation sindoor over there and talk about national security concession which is a big joke they should not even touch that subject and when it comes to Indigo what they have done now it was a very planned move and they just knew that because they are the dominant players they will use their power arm twist and get the regulatory step back and extend it further by another three months which is very bad and absurd.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right what I'm taking away is that largely you do not see any major impact of this 10% reduction in Indigo slots because traffic will get redistributed and you're not also seeing pricing impact as such because there is a price cap in force and also like it goes back to the point that demand or seats will get redistributed. Last question so and as you look ahead how are you seeing the overall aviation environment I mean there has been a loss of trust what you said just now for example shows that you too have lost trust in a way not just with Indigo but with Air India for different reasons this doesn't show an industry in good health so how are you seeing things as you look ahead?
Dr. Vandana Singh: First of all Indigo has to start on a clean slate it has to build up its rebuild its image that it has lost so far it was more or less punctual airline lean mean machine as we call it and they were running it quite well but then this episode has spoiled it all so first of all they have to rebuild this trust Air India on the other side has got its opportunity to overcome its challenge whether it's restructuring whether it's maintenance issues whether it's equipment issues whatever it is they have a chance do not forget that Indigo has ordered about thousand plus more equipments of Airbus and Boeing don't forget that in Air India has ordered another 500 all those equipments are going to come in and definitely they need to rebuild their image and really there has to be a balance as far as the distribution is concerned so government is going to take more and more steps I also see two more players coming in one full service carrier coming in one budget carrier coming in so that people like you and me have a choice in the past days we had a choice whether we want Vistara we want Air Asia we want Air India we want Indigo and this and that Spicejet Akasa what now we are left with only two choices so this is going to change and I also see two or three more players coming in full service and budget.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right that's an optimistic note to end on Vandana thank you so much for joining me
Dr. Vandana Singh: It's been an honour.
Australia's Under 16 Ban
Australia has enacted a world first ban on social media for users aged under 16 which have caused millions of children and teenagers to lose access to their accounts. Facebook, Threads, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Xkick, Twitch and TikTok are expected to have taken steps from Wednesday to remove accounts held by users under 16 years of age and to prevent them from registering new accounts according to a report in the Guardian.
Platforms that do not that risk fines of up to $49.5 million. There have of course been some teething problems with the ban's implementation. The Guardian says there are several reports of those under 16 passing the facial age assurance tests.
The government has flagged it is not expecting the ban will be perfect from day one. All listed platforms apart from X or formerly Twitter had confirmed by Tuesday they would comply with the ban.
