My Thoughts on the Australian Social Media Ban for Under-16s

I'm sure that many of you are aware that at the end of last year (December 2025), the Australian government brought in a social media ban for under-16s. The ban that effected platforms such as X, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and several others. This ban, the first of its kind, was basically aimed at stopping under-16s from setting up new accounts, along with the deactivation of existing under-16 accounts. According to the BBC, the government's aim was to "reduce the negative impact of social media's design features that encourage [young people] to spend more time on screens, while also serving up content that can harm their health and wellbeing". Firms must be showing that they are taking "reasonable steps" to keep kids off their platforms, and that they should use multiple age assurance technologies. These could include government IDs, face or voice recognition, or so-called "age inference", which analyses online behaviour and interactions to estimate a person's age. For serious or repeated breaches, social media companies could face fines of up to A$49.5m (US$32m, £25m).

What Australia has done is being closely watched by governments around the world. In fact, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil have in the last couple of months brought in their own bans on social media for under-16s. Here the UK government say they are "committed to implementing social media restrictions for under-16s" and who recently set up an online public consultation looking for public feedback on a range of measures which could include,"potential age restrictions on social media and other services such as gaming sites and AI chatbots, restrictions on addictive design features and risky functionalities, and better support for parents and families." Coincidently, yesterday the UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, announced that he vowed to "act quickly" on a social media ban amid reports of a decision within two weeks. 

So, after 6 months into the ban, what has been the impact on young people in Australia? Has it actually resulted in less under-16s having access to social media? Well, from what I have been reading, the ban possibly hasn't had the immediate impact that the Australian government might have hoped for. 

The BBC reports that according to the Australian government, 4.7 million under-16 accounts were deactivated, removed or restricted within the first few days of the ban. However, recent research from Australia has found that the ban has had "limited reach so far." According to their report, "61% of under-16s who had previously been using banned platforms reported little or no change in their social media use" and for the "majority of young people surveyed, the ban was ineffectual. In fact, only one in four (26%) reported their social media use had been affected." Watch this short video from BBC News to hear several Australian under-16s explaining how the ban didn't really impact access to their social media accounts or that of the majority of their peer group. 

The Molly Rose Foundation, implemented its own research on the Australian ban and produced similar findings:

- Three fifths (61%) of 12–15 year-olds who previously held accounts on restricted platforms continue to have access to one or more active accounts.

- More than half of 12–15 year-olds who previously used TikTok, YouTube and Instagram remain able to use accounts on these platforms.

- 70% of children still using restricted sites say that it was ‘easy’ to circumvent the ban. In most cases, social media platforms have failed to detect or seek to remove under-16s accounts.

It's still relatively early days into the social media ban for under-16s in Australia and as I outlined above, initial research appears to be showing that the ban is possibly not having the effect on young people that I'm sure the Australian government were hoping for. Either the young people have seen little impact on access to their existing accounts or that they can easily get around any restrictions that are put in place. I think that what this highlights is a more concerning question around whether the companies themselves are doing enough to seek out and remove access to these accounts. They certainly have the tools and data that would help them to spot under-16 users of their platforms. But as research has found, most users have had no disruption to their existing accounts, so it arguable that these companies are not taking the 'reasonable steps' to remove these accounts as the government hoped. According to The Times, a report from KJR, a testing company, they found that nine of the ten platforms were just accepting teenagers’ word about their age and not requiring any verification. Australia's e-safety commissioner in March also recognised that there was still work to be done, saying that "a substantial proportion of children under the age of 16 continued to retain accounts, created fresh accounts or passed platforms’ age assurance systems."

What does this mean for governments such as the UK, who are watching closely at what is happening in Australia? Firstly, I can understand why a government would like the idea of a ban on social media for under-16s. There certainly appears to be a momentum from parents and various organisations who urgently want something done to address the issues. However, what I don't quite understand is how the Australian governments aim to "reduce the negative impact of social media's design features that encourage [young people] to spend more time on screens, while also serving up content that can harm their health and wellbeing", could be fully achieved by simply putting a blanket ban on under-16s accessing those platforms. For example, many would have predicted that users would easily circumvent the ban. Just look at the rise in VPN downloads after the UK government implemented the age verification on porn websites in July 2025. Also, there is the assumption that the social media companies would fully comply to the ban. I realise we're still in the early days of this ban, but for research to show that the majority of younger users still having access to their account, for me, points towards the companies not rushing to remove or disable these accounts. Paul Smith, from YouGov, who prepared a report for 7 News on the ban, said that it was clear "that the social media companies have not done anywhere near enough to get young people off social media." The Age Verification Providers’ Association (AVPA) adding, "it is clear that social media platforms are not making great efforts to detect underage accounts." I think it would also be fair to say that these tech companies do not want this ban to succeed and will do as much as they possibly can to make the ban a failure. It is certainly not in their business interest for this ban to succeed. Imagine if many governments around the world implemented a similar ban based on an Australian success. These platforms could lose millions of young customers, which would not be good for their business. 

In my opinion, this ban on the ability for under-16s to create social media accounts is part of the solution for governments, but certainly not the complete answer. Something more persuasive needs to be done. Australia's e-safety commissioner has recognised that under-16s are still able to create and bypass age control systems. The threat of fines hangs over platforms who do not take the reasonable steps to keep under-16s off their platforms. But I do wonder whether the level of fine is a big enough threat for some of these platforms? Many of them could see a fine as 'the cost of doing business'. Let's be clear, some of these companies, such as Meta (Facebook and Instagram) are generating up to hundreds of billions of dollars annually, so any fines are in reality paid off in mere days, sometimes hours, with barely a dent in their bottom line. Therefore a fine of up to £25m is a small drop in the ocean compared to what many of them make every year. An alternative solution would be to fine the companies based on a percentage of their global annual turnover. Both the EU and UK now have the regulations to do this, up to 6% in the EU and 10% in the UK, which neither have used as yet, but would result in huge fines. However, the EU maybe saving this for what might be called 'the nuclear option', that is, making companies change the design of their product. This appears to be what the European Commission are currently investigating with regards to TikTok. The Commission currently considers that "TikTok needs to change the basic design of its service. For instance, by disabling key addictive features such as ‘infinite scroll' over time, implementing effective ‘screen time breaks', including during the night, and adapting its recommender system." I'm guessing that if TikTok are pushed to make these changes across the EU or face huge fines, then it will set a precedent and all social media platforms will be forced to follow suit or face similar huge fines. Social media companies will be hugely reluctant to make these design changes, as it would certainly negatively impact their profits. Not just TikTok, but all these companies would certainly "face the challenge of maintaining user engagement and advertising revenue whilst complying with regulatory requirements." 

The ban on creating and removing under-16s social media accounts is just the start and it increasingly looks like many other countries will soon be following Australia's example. I would now like to see Australia and others, demand that in order to operate in our country, social media platforms must produce a product that is safe. A product that does not have addictive features designed to encourage users to spend more time in front of screens and a duty of care for the health and well-being for all users. If the social media companies are reluctant to make these changes then, following the example of the EU, there needs to be the threat of a large fine, a fine substantial enough that would make social media companies think twice that this is just 'the cost of doing business' in this country.