In less than two months, Australia will become the first country in the world to ban social media for everyone under 16. No parental consent. No exceptions.
The Australian Government passed the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 on 28 November 2024, introducing a mandatory minimum age of 16 for accounts on certain social media platforms, taking effect by December 2025, and parents cannot give their consent to let under-16s use these platforms.
Instagram announced its new PG-13 content filtering system the same week Australia launched a multimillion-dollar campaign promoting the ban. Instagram representative Mia Hopkins denied the changes were a last-ditch effort to skirt Australia’s under-16s social media ban, stating “We have not built this specifically for Australia and what Australia is going through with the social media ban”. The timing, however, is notable.
Comparable initiatives to the Australian social media ban are under consideration in France, Norway, Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, as well as in some US states. What happens in Australia could shape global policy on children and social media.
Here’s what the ban actually does, how it will work, and whether tech companies can stop it.
What the Ban Covers and When It Starts
The platforms the ban will apply to still needs to be officially worked out, but the suggestions at the moment are YouTube, X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Reddit. In July 2025, Australia extended its under-16 social media ban to include YouTube; whilst children can still watch videos without logging in, account-based features like commenting, uploading, and personalised recommendations will be blocked.
From 10 December 2025, platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, X, Facebook and YouTube will be required to take reasonable steps to stop Australians under 16 from opening an account. The law requires platforms to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent under-16s from creating accounts, with penalties of up to £32 million for non-compliance.
Unlike other countries where parents can give consent for younger teens to use social media, Australia’s ban has no such option. And crucially, there won’t be fines or penalties for young people and their families if they gain access to age-restricted platforms – the tech companies will face potential penalties instead.
The Age Verification Problem
Here’s the challenge facing platforms: Australia’s eSafety Commissioner conducted research in September finding that 84% of 8- to 12-year-olds are already on social media, and when asked “Were your parents or any adults aware that you were setting up these social media accounts early?”, 80% said yes, with 90% of cases involving parents helping them set up their accounts.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant says there are really only three ways you can verify someone’s age online: through ID, through behavioural signals or through biometrics. There was talk that Aussies would have to hand over personal IDs, like driver’s licences or passports, but the Government is expected to decide against this.
Instead, social media platforms will not be required to conduct direct age verification; instead, they will be asked to use artificial intelligence and behavioural data to infer users’ ages.
Tech companies aren’t convinced this will work. Rachel Lord, Google and YouTube’s senior manager of public policy in Australia, told an Australian senate committee that the new legislation might be “well-intentioned” to protect children online, but in practice it will have “unintended consequences” and will be “extremely difficult” to enforce.
Australia’s Public Campaign
The Australian government launched a £9 million campaign titled “For The Good Of” to raise awareness of the landmark reforms among families nationwide, with the first TV commercial airing Sunday night across TV, billboards, and “ironically” social media.
Communications Minister Anika Wells said the campaign aims to spread awareness about the changes coming for families, encouraging parents to “start having conversations” about the ban with their children, stating “The purpose of this law is clear – it’s about creating cultural change so that young Australians have three more years to build real-world connections and online resilience”.
The 45-second video shows children absorbed in their phones before announcing that from December 10, people under 16 will no longer have access to social media accounts as part of a new law to keep under-16s safer online.
Will This Actually Work?
The evidence for current age restrictions is damning. In Australia, 84% of children aged 8-12 are reported to have used at least one social media platform, with 40% using their own personal accounts, and of these users, only 13% were correctly identified by platforms for being under their minimum age requirement of 13. Clearly, self-reported ages aren’t working.
But critics worry the cure might be worse than the disease. Southern Cross University Law Lecturer Yvette Holt warns the ban “will be very difficult to enforce and, ironically, may end up making social media platforms less safe for the children who do manage to access them, as social media companies could justifiably argue that content does not need curation for a younger audience if they are banned from use”.
There’s also the concern about isolation. Critics argue the ban may isolate children and hinder political mobilisation, noting that “children under 16 will no longer have access to online communities, which may help them avoid loneliness and isolation”.
Politically, the ban appears secure. With bipartisan political support and with public opinion largely supporting the social media ban, there is little prospect of the legislation being overturned after the pending Australian Federal election.
But there’s a wildcard: one possibility is that tech companies will successfully lobby the Trump Administration to threaten Australia with retaliatory tariffs if such legislation is enacted, and the Australian Federal government would withdraw the legislation rather than risk adverse trade treatment from the U.S., which is its fourth largest export market.
Why This Matters Beyond Australia
Even if you don’t live in Australia, this matters. Countries worldwide are increasingly regulating children’s access to social media; Pakistan is considering a similar law with fines and jail terms for non-compliance, whilst New Zealand has proposed a minimum age of 16, France requires parental consent for under-15s and is exploring “digital curfews,” and several EU nations including Denmark, Italy, and Spain are piloting age-verification apps.
Instagram’s announcement of PG-13 content filtering – the same week Australia launched its ban campaign – shows how global regulation is forcing tech companies to respond. Whether these responses are genuine improvements or just public relations exercises ahead of potential bans remains to be seen.
As Australia’s eSafety Commissioner acknowledged, “it really depends on the actual circumstances of the child – do they have parental supervision? Do they have underlying mental health issues? What kind of content are they looking at, and for how long?” noting that “a whole range of things are important”.
The question isn’t just whether bans work – it’s whether they’re solving the right problem. Australia is about to find out.
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Sources: Unicef, Border Mail, LSE, The Guardian
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Stay Informed Without the Overwhelm
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