encouraging children to use the summer break from <\/a>later this month to \u201cstart a new sport, new instrument, or read that book that has been sitting there for some time on your shelf\u201d.<\/p>\nThough the prohibition has been welcomed by some parents\u2019 groups and child safety advocates, major technology companies and civil liberties organisations have warned that it could compromise privacy, encourage children to lie about their age and push young people onto riskier platforms.<\/p>\n
The law arrived after a year of political debate in Australia over whether governments could realistically enforce age limits on platforms that played a critical role in social life, education, entertainment and communication. <\/p>\n
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Australia bans young teenagers from social media (AFP via Getty)<\/p>\n
The Albanese government argued the intervention was necessary, citing research linking heavy social-media use among younger teens to harmful content, bullying, misinformation and damaging effects on body image.<\/p>\n
Other countries have already signalled interest in adopting similar rules. Officials in Denmark, New Zealand and Malaysia have cited the Australian model as a potential blueprint, signalling a wider shift towards tighter age controls in the digital sphere.<\/p>\n
Julie Inman Grant, the American-born former tech executive who heads Australia\u2019s online-safety watchdog, said demands for stricter measures were rising across the world. <\/p>\n
Elon Musk\u2019s X was the latest major platform to confirm it would comply with the ban. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not our choice \u2013 it\u2019s what the Australian law requires,\u201d the firm said. \u201cX automatically offboards anyone who does not meet our age requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meta said the ban could send youngsters to less regulated platforms, making them less safe. “We’ve consistently raised concerns that this poorly developed law could push teens to less regulated platforms or apps. We’re now seeing those concerns become reality,” the American company said in a statement. <\/p>\n
Platforms say they will use a combination of tools \u2013 like behaviour analysis to estimate user age \u2013 and age-estimation technologies involving selfies to enforce the ban.<\/p>\n
They may also require identification documents or linked bank details to verify a user\u2019s age. <\/p>\n
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A teenager holds a mobile phone displaying a message from social media platform Instagram after their account was locked for age verification on 9 December 2025 (AFP via Getty)<\/p>\n
Supporters of the ban say such measures are overdue but critics point out that the required data collection risks creating new privacy problems.<\/p>\n
For social media firms, the implementation of the ban marks a new era of stagnation as user numbers flatline and time spent on platforms shrinks, studies show.<\/p>\n
Platforms say they earn little from advertising to under-16s but warn the ban disrupts a pipeline of future users. <\/p>\n
Just before the ban took effect, 86 per cent of Australians aged eight to 15 used social media, the government said.<\/p>\n
As of Wednesday morning, several platforms were still in the process of applying the restrictions. <\/p>\n
Tests by the Guardian showed that Twitch, Reddit and YouTube continued to permit accounts registered with the birth date of an under-16, while other major platforms had already blocked registration attempts. <\/p>\n
Twitch said it was completing testing while YouTube said it was phasing in the changes. Reddit was yet to issue a statement. <\/p>\n
Communications minister Anika Wells said that the ban would mark \u201cthe moment that sparked a movement\u201d, arguing that industry competition could one day revolve around user safety in the same way that car manufacturers compete on safety standards. <\/p>\n
\u201cBig tech could compete, like airlines, like auto manufacturers, to have the best safety record to offer their users,\u201d she said, according to the Guardian.<\/p>\n
Richard Waterworth, who served as TikTok\u2019s general manager for the UK and Europe between 2019 and 2024, said the ban risked backfiring. <\/p>\n
He told BBC Radio 4 that although the intention was laudable, the policy represented \u201ca magical thinking solution\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody who talks about it seems to acknowledge that it\u2019s not going to work as intended, that there are lots of loopholes,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Young people, he warned, would simply misrepresent their age and, therefore, lose access to tools designed to keep them safe on platforms.<\/p>\n
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A teenage boy displays a message from Snapchat after his account was locked for age verification in Sydney on 9 December 2025 (AFP via Getty)<\/p>\n
Children who bypass the restrictions \u201cwon\u2019t have access to safety tools\u201d, he said, such as the ability to link accounts to parents or receive age-appropriate recommendations. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to have a lot of unintended consequences, and unfortunately, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s necessarily a win for safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Waterworth also raised privacy concerns about age-verification technologies. \u201cYou have to collect data, biometric data, in order to do that and so that is a challenge,\u201d he said. Many people, he added, would not want Big Tech firms \u201cholding their biometric data\u201d.<\/p>\n
Andy Burrows, head of the Molly Rose Foundation, named after a teenager who died after exposure to harmful online content, said the UK should avoid copying Australia. <\/p>\n
An outright ban might push children to gaming platforms or encrypted messaging sites where monitoring was even more difficult, Mr Burrows argued. \u201cThe quickest and most effective response to better protect children online is to strengthen regulation that directly addresses product safety and design risks, rather than an overarching ban.\u201d <\/p>\n
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Noah Jones shows a warning on his phone that says he cannot access a social media site in Sydney (AP Photo\/Rick Rycroft) (AP)<\/p>\n
While some Australian teens said they planned to spend more time outdoors or meet friends in person, others worried the ban could sever support networks, especially for groups relying on online communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is going to be worse for queer people and people with niche interests, I guess, because that\u2019s the only way they can find their community,\u201d said Annie Wang, 14. \u201cSome people also use it to vent their feelings and talk to people to get help. So I feel like it\u2019ll be fine for some people, but for some people it\u2019ll worsen their mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n
Social media was a big part of people\u2019s lives today, Nick Leech, 15, told the Australian Associated Press, \u201cand taking that away so suddenly is going to definitely cause some issues\u201d. <\/p>\n
Ryan Angler, 14, said the ban made him aware of how much he depended on social apps for everyday communication. <\/p>\n
\u201cI just wanted to meet up with all my friends but I couldn\u2019t really because I don\u2019t have their numbers before we lost social media,\u201d he told The Age. <\/p>\n
After being locked out, he began collecting their phone numbers at school. \u201cI have just been riding around on my bike, playing games on my computer and laying down on my bed because I couldn\u2019t do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tania Kaniz, a teaching assistant and mother of two boys, said the ban had dominated conversation at her school. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey all have it \u2013 especially TikTok, if you see it, my God,\u201d she told The Age. Because phones are already banned during school hours, she cannot tell whether students are circumventing the new rules. \u201cI think they are, but they don\u2019t want to share it with us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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Anthony Albanese cooks sausages on a barbecue during an official function to mark the start of Australia’s social media ban in Sydney on 10 December 2025 (AFP via Getty)<\/p>\n
At a Sydney event marking the launch of the ban, Mr Albanese praised political rivals for supporting the policy and described a campaign by Rupert Murdoch\u2019s News Corp newspapers in favour of the ban as \u201cthe most powerful use of print media I have seen for a very long period of time\u201d.<\/p>\n
He conceded that the rollout would not be flawless. \u201cWe\u2019ll work through it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
To enforce compliance, the eSafety Commissioner will require the 10 major platforms to provide information on user numbers before and after the ban.<\/p>\n
Ms Inman Grant said the platforms should expect a period of trial and error as the law settled in. As some teenagers gloated about bypassing the restrictions, she said it would inevitably occur, but the government was committed to the long-term goal. <\/p>\n
The push for the ban was influenced by families whose children were harmed by online content. <\/p>\n
Wayne Holdsworth, a Melbourne father whose son died by suicide after being bullied online, said the ban would help prepare teenagers to handle digital spaces when they became eligible at 16. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur kids will be looking down with pride, with the work that we\u2019ve done, we have only just started,\u201d he told the Guardian.<\/p>\n
Emma Mason, whose 15-year-old daughter Tilly Roswarne died in 2022, said the ban was not the end of the struggle. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not going to be perfect, it\u2019s an evolving space, but, good God, it\u2019s a good day to be an Australian,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s ban comes as governments around the world grapple with how to regulate social media for young people. Many countries currently rely on parental-consent systems or child-specific settings on devices and apps, though enforcement varies widely.<\/p>\n
In the US, federal law prohibits online services from collecting any data from children under 13 without parental consent. In Europe, policymakers are working on plans for continent-wide age-verification rules. <\/p>\n
France, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Malaysia have all taken steps towards age restrictions of their own, though none has imposed a full legal ban like Australia.<\/p>\n
Whether other nations follow Australia\u2019s lead may depend on the success or failure of these first months. <\/p>\n
For now, Australia is the test case for how far governments can go in reshaping the digital landscape for young people and for whether social media, a defining force of modern childhood, can be regulated as strictly as more traditional risks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-340582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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