{"id":545038,"date":"2026-04-22T17:48:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T17:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/545038\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T17:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T17:48:14","slug":"should-under-16s-be-banned-from-social-media-watch-as-teenagers-discuss-in-live-bbc-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/545038\/","title":{"rendered":"Should under-16s be banned from social media? Watch as teenagers discuss in live BBC special"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Australia&#8217;s world-first social media ban &#8211; how does it work?published at 15:47 BST<\/p>\n<p>15:47 BST<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A thumb hovering over a smartphone screen featuring apps such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/a8d0e74f-d6f4-43c8-87e4-0b7966d5785c.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"1000\" height=\"562\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, PA Media<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In December, under-16s in Australia were banned from using major social media services including Tiktok, X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and Threads.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the day the ban took hold that social media had contributed to a rise in mental health issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Under the ban, under-16s cannot set up new social media accounts and their existing profiles were deactivated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Children and parents are not punished for infringing the ban. Instead, social media companies face fines of up to A$49.5m (US$32m, \u00a325m) for serious or repeated breaches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Earlier this month Greece announced plans to ban access to social media for under-15s, with France, Austria and Spain also among a growing number of nations pursuing similar curbs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Social media companies argue that blanket bans will be ineffective, difficult to enforce and could isolate vulnerable teenagers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia&#8217;s world-first social media ban &#8211; how does it work?published at 15:47 BST 15:47 BST Image source, PA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-545038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}