![\"Australian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/the-feature-will-be-turned-on-by-default-globally-for-teens-W5Z5MDMTJVB5BGLNV7A737GFHY.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTeens and parents are bracing for the onset of a world-first social media ban as another platform announces it will comply with the laws.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of thousands of Australians under 16 will be kicked off their accounts and blocked from making new ones on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitch, Kick, X, YouTube and Reddit are be among those to be banned, with fines of almost $50 million for failing to take action in removing under-16s from their platforms.<\/p>\n
Communications Minister Anika Wells has said the list of sites is dynamic and may expand if children migrate to other platforms not already included in the ban.<\/p>\n
Bluesky, which functions similar to X, announced on Tuesday it will comply with the laws despite not being on the eSafety Commission’s list of banned platforms.<\/p>\n
The laws are supposed to apply to all social media sites.<\/p>\n
“We’ve upgraded our age assurance system to comply with upcoming laws in Australia and other regions,” Bluesky said in a statement. <\/p>\n
It comes as popular online forum Reddit, which was added to the list in early November, indicated it may launch legal action against the “erroneous” ban.<\/p>\n
Reddit enlisted barrister Perry Herzfeld SC to mount a legal challenge, supported by law firm Thomson Geer, the Australian Financial Review reported.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the San Francisco-based platform did not deny the company was preparing a lawsuit.<\/p>\n
“The only decision we’ve made is to comply with the law,” they said.<\/p>\n
In a post to users, Reddit spelled out how it would comply with the ban despite disagreeing with its scope, effectiveness and privacy implications.<\/p>\n
“By limiting account eligibility and putting identity tests on internet usage, this law undermines everyone’s right to both free expression and privacy, as well as account-specific protections,” the post read.<\/p>\n
The post said the laws go “far beyond the intent of the Australian parliament, especially when other obvious platforms are exempt”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Australian under-16s can no longer legally be on social media. (Source: istock.com)<\/p>\n
Under changes on the platform, new Australian users will provide their birthdate during sign up and all account holders will be subject to an “age prediction model”.<\/p>\n
If they are believed to belong to a user under 16, accounts will be suspended, but there will be an opportunity for users to appeal and verify their ages.<\/p>\n
Ballarat schoolgirl Pippa Martin, 13, was feeling positive about getting her attention back as she snuck final scrolls of her social media accounts before the ban comes into effect.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes I see videos of someone else playing the piano and I think I’m never going to be that good and I should just stop trying,” she told AAP.<\/p>\n
“I feel like now I’ll start playing the piano more without my apps.”<\/p>\n
The social media age limit is attempting to protect children from online harms and what Wells has described as “predatory algorithms”.<\/p>\n
Pippa said she had previously been exposed to harmful content, including a video of American political activist Charlie Kirk being fatally shot in September.<\/p>\n
She hoped to feel more present with her friends and thinks the ban will help prevent “toxic” fears of missing out on events that she sees her peers post about.<\/p>\n
Lizzie Muller, the mother of a 14-year-old girl, doesn’t believe the ban will work how the government wants it to but was pleased it has started conversations about online harms.<\/p>\n
“When your kids’ world becomes more and more mediated by social media, it becomes harder as a parent to hold that line,” the Wollongong woman said.<\/p>\n
“It’s kind of useful for the ban to be a talking point.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teens and parents are bracing for the onset of a world-first social media ban as another platform announces…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,42,43,145,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-175241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-australia","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-technology","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}