Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Moves to Include YouTube in Social‑Media Ban

Key Points:

• eSafety recommends removing YouTube exemption under under‑16 laws
• Nearly 40% of children encounter harmful content (hate speech, self-harm, disordered-eating)
• AI-related risks like chatbot sexual content and deepfakes flagged
• YouTube’s current supervised-account model still permits unsupervised access
• Part of broader “Let Them Be Kids” campaign for raising legal age to 16

Australia’s eSafety Commission is set to recommend rescinding YouTube’s current exemption from its under‑16 social-media ban, citing data showing high exposure to harmful content such as hate speech, violent videos, and disordered-eating material, affecting nearly 40% of surveyed children.

Even supervised accounts aren’t safe: children can access unsupervised content. The commission also highlighted emerging AI-related threats, like sexualised chatbots and deepfakes, as factors in their decision.

Minister Anika Wells is reviewing these recommendations, which align with the broader “Let Them Be Kids” push for raising the minimum social-media age to 16.

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