Australia’s Under-16 Social Media Ban Struggles to Bite
Synopsis
An eSafety study found more than 80% of Australian teenagers remained on social media months after the under-16 ban, raising questions about age-check enforcement.
Australia’s under-16 ban on social media has only had minimal impact on kids’ access to sites reserved for older teens, according to the Government’s first evaluation of the legislation.
Most social media sites were found to continue to be accessed by children, months after they were asked to sign up, though fewer in possession of an account was documented.
The report follows a survey commissioned by eSafety Commissioner asking more than 4,000 Australian kids and their parents to complete for data taken between December 2025 and March 2026.
Three months post introduction on 10th December 2025, some 81 percent aged 10 to 15 years still had one or more accounts with age-restricted platforms, a decrease only marginally down on previous usage of more than 86 percent.
Account Ownership Falls While Daily Use Stays High
The data suggested usage daily by some 58 per cent of the young survey participants with some 42 percent possessing an account following the law’s imposition, from 52 percent before the measure was introduced.
Not be to able to access a service because they failed age verification, or because the age verification protocol on an app assessed the account holder as younger than 16, has been blamed on the remaining access from those aged 15 and below to the services now targeted under laws put in place, including through age assurance, identified as part of that same assessment criteria.
Australia has become the first nation in the world to implement a Federal Law to ensure that only those aged 16 and above will be provided with their own account access to the nation’s large social media sites, and the Federal Governments law has become the topic of significant global attention, as other countries consider enacting similar laws designed to improve protections for young people on the internet.
Global Interest Grows as Compliance Reviews Continue
While others, such as France, Denmark, Spain, Greece, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Indonesia, have also applied or suggested more strict on-line user protection measures it involves varied minimum age requirements and scope for any specific enactment.
ESafety Commissioner is assessing complaints in regards to use of platforms Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.
The federal government also passed into Federal Parliament legislation implementing fines of $99 million for firms failing to follow reasonable procedure to implement the law, or steps to meet any expectations made by the Federal Government on those platforms, the evaluation found.
This will continue for the next two years through usage surveys, participant interviews and participant device monitoring (by volunteers participants to help analyse the success rates of the social media platforms in adhering to the law).
Source: Reuters
Pooja Malik is a business journalist with over six years of experience covering startups, entrepreneurship, and emerging trends. She has previously worked with leading media platforms such as YourStory Media and BW BusinessWorld, where she reported on business, policy, and market developments. Currently, she serves as Editor at The Inspirepreneur Magazine, where she writes and edits stories across business, lifestyle, and travel, with a focus on clarity, accuracy, and reader relevance.
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