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A new Australian law that bars children under 16 from having social media accounts on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube will take effect on December 10. In the weeks leading up to the deadline, tech giants such as Meta began locking out hundreds of thousands of under-16 users from their accounts on the platforms.
The social media ban stems from the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024, which was passed by the Australian Parliament exactly a year ago. Rather than placing the burden on children or their parents, the law shifts compliance to social media companies, which initially campaigned against the ban but have since said they will adhere to it. It also carries a fine of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for companies that do not comply with the ban.
The implementation and effectiveness of Australia’s social media ban will be closely watched by parents, researchers, lawmakers, and government officials around the world, including in India. Denmark, the European Union, and Malaysia are reportedly planning to impose similar restrictions, and Australia’s experience may provide a legislative template for authorities in these countries.
Calling it the first domino to fall in the global effort to rein in big tech, Julie Inman Grant, the commissioner of eSafety, Australia’s internet regulator, said, “Our data is the currency that fuels these companies, and there are these powerful, harmful, deceptive design features that even adults are powerless to fight against. What chance do our children have?”
Here are five important things to know about Australia’s teen social media ban.
Over 96 per cent of teenagers in Australia are under 16. An estimated 440,000 Australian teens between 13 to 15 years are on Snapchat. As many as 350,000 in the same age group have Instagram accounts, and Facebook reportedly has 150,000 active users in that age group. More than a million of the country’s 27 million population have social media accounts, according to eSafety.
In promoting the law, Australian officials have highlighted concerns about social media being a vehicle for online bullying, an amplifier of anxiety, a conduit of peer pressure, and a tool for potential predators.
They have highlighted the experiences of parents who lost children to mental illness and suicide, which the families believed were aggravated and facilitated by social media. Officials have insisted on calling it a delay, rather than a ban, likening it to age restrictions on alcohol, tobacco, and driving.
In a large-scale survey of 9- to 16-year-olds by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the nation’s public broadcaster, the vast majority of teens said that they did not think the ban would work and that they did not think it was a good idea. Three-quarters of all children polled said they intended to continue to use social media. In the weeks leading up to the ban, photo-sharing or messaging apps similar to the restricted services were among the top apps downloaded in Australia.
Two 15-year-olds have filed a constitutional challenge to the law in the state of New South Wales, contending that it infringes on teens’ rights of freedom and participation in political communication.
Tech companies have criticised the law as being rushed and poorly designed, saying teens will no longer benefit from features that they have been introducing to make their platforms a safer place, like parental controls or teen-specific accounts.
Most of them have also said they still intend to comply with the law and deactivate hundreds of thousands of accounts belonging to young teens.
The platforms currently affected by the law are Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X, and YouTube.
Other services widely used by young teens were excluded because Australia’s eSafety commissioner deemed them to be primarily for messaging or gaming, including: Discord, Messenger, Pinterest, Roblox, WhatsApp, and YouTube Kids.
Regulators say they will continue to monitor and review the services and may add to the list of age-restricted apps.
The burden is on the tech companies to deactivate younger users by utilising an array of age estimation and verification technologies at their disposal, in addition to the user’s self-reported age.
Regulators have said the companies may rely on factors like how long the account has been active, whether it interacts with other underage users, facial or voice analysis, or activity patterns consistent with school hours. Phones are already banned in all Australian schools.
The law specifies that the platforms cannot require users to provide government identification as the only option to verify their age—a response to privacy concerns.
Underage users will continue to be able to access posts or videos that are openly available to those without an account. The Australian Government has said that barring young children from having accounts is effective enough as it will spare them from the apps’ most harmful design features, like the algorithms or push notifications that are central to their addictive potential.
There are no punishments for children or parents who continue to access social media after the law takes effect. The companies can face fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars (about $33 million) for not taking reasonable steps to prevent users younger than 16 from having accounts on their platforms. When and how those fines will be triggered is still unclear.
(With inputs from Reuters and NYT)
