Australia Bans Under-16s From Social Media: World-First Law Takes Effect
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Australia’s world-first social media ban for under-16s became law on December 10, 2025, forcing tech platforms to prevent children from accessing Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, X, YouTube, Reddit, Threads, Twitch and Kik or face fines up to $50 million.
What happened
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced December 10, 2025, as the official start date for the social media age restriction law at a Sydney press conference attended by bereaved parents, campaign advocates including 36 Months co-founder Michael Whipfli and News Corp’s Let Them Be Kids campaign lead Mel Pilling, and South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas, who commissioned the initial legal framework from former High Court Chief Justice Robert French.
The ban targets 10 specific platforms. Under-16s will be removed from existing accounts and prevented from creating new ones. Tech companies—not parents or teens—face penalties of up to AU$49.5 million for “systemic failures” to comply, according to Communications Minister Annika Wells and eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant in statements December 10, 2025.
Gaming platforms with social features (Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft) are explicitly excluded from the ban under current legislation language that exempts “messaging and online gaming platforms as a sole or significant purpose,” Julie Inman-Grant confirmed in a Sky News interview
However, Roblox separately agreed to implement four new safety measures by December 31, 2025, including preventing adult accounts from contacting child accounts without explicit parental consent and age-verifying all users, Inman-Grant stated.
The legislation passed Parliament in November 2024 with bipartisan support. Opposition leader Peter Dutton originally proposed the policy, and the Labor government implemented it, both leaders acknowledged December 10, 2025.
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What is this ban exactly?
The Online Safety (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 requires designated social media platforms to use “reasonable steps” to prevent under-16s from holding accounts. Enforcement focuses on platform behavior rather than individual users. Parents and teens face no penalties for attempting to circumvent the ban.
The eSafety Commission will monitor compliance through information notices sent to platforms requesting data on how many under-16 accounts were deactivated and what age-verification systems are deployed. Companies have a grace period to develop and implement technical solutions, with the Commission acknowledging “teething issues” are expected.
Age verification methods are left to platforms to determine, though Shadow Communications Minister Melissa McIntosh raised concerns that companies will “compel people to use digital ID” requiring submission of driver’s licenses or birth certificates to offshore data centers—a claim the government disputes.
The case for the ban
Campaigners point to research showing 84% of Australian children aged 8-12 had at least one social media account, with 90% of parents helping set them up, according to eSafety Commission research conducted in 2023-2024, cited by Julie Inman-Grant . More recent eSafety data found 96% of 10-to-15-year-olds use social platforms.
“This reform will change lives for Australian kids,” Prime Minister Albanese stated , describing the law as giving families back control over technology’s impact on childhood. Premier Peter Malinauskas framed the policy as returning power to parents who want to protect children but face social pressure when “they don’t want them to be excluded” from peer groups all using the same platforms.
Dolly’s Dream, a foundation created by Kate and Tick Everett after their daughter Dolly died by suicide following cyberbullying, sees the ban as reducing exposure to harmful content. “We hear every week from young people and their families about the horrific instances that they’ve had with cyberbullying online,” Dolly’s Dream head Sally Sweeney stated in a Sky News interview. The organization receives regular reports of bullying, predatory behavior, and algorithm-driven content contributing to depression and anxiety among teens.
The 36 Months campaign, founded by Whipfley and Rob Galuzzo, collected nearly 150,000 petition signatures from Australian parents “desperate for change,” Whipfley stated at the press conference. News Corp’s Let Them Be Kids campaign amplified bereaved parents’ stories across mastheads nationally starting May 19, 2024, Mel Pilling confirmed.
The case against (and concerns about implementation)
Critics—including some who support the ban’s intent—question whether enforcement will work and whether unintended consequences could make things worse.
Shadow Communications Minister Melissa McIntosh stated that the government “rolled it out too quickly” without clear success criteria or privacy safeguards. “They should actually just get it right,” McIntosh said in broadcast remarks, pointing to concerns that platforms will require sensitive identity documents to verify age, potentially exposing teens to data breaches or surveillance.
Liberal Senator Jane Hume, speaking on Sky News ,questioned what “success” means: “Just removing them from the platforms isn’t actually demonstrating that you’ve prevented the harm occurring.” Hume noted that gaming platforms with social messaging features remain accessible, creating an inconsistent regulatory environment that parents may find confusing.
Early evidence suggests migration is already happening. Within hours of the ban taking effect, three lesser-known social platforms—Lemonade, Yope, and Coverstar—appeared in the top three most-downloaded apps on Australia’s Apple App Store. The eSafety Commission anticipated this behavior and will monitor emerging platforms for potential inclusion in the banned list.
Julie Inman-Grant acknowledged in multiple interviews that “the technology isn’t perfect” and “there will be teething issues and kids will be ingenitive and they’ll find their ways around it.” The Commission’s enforcement strategy targets “systemic failures” by platforms rather than attempting to catch every individual violation.
Rural advocacy groups, including Dolly’s Dream, raised concerns about isolation for teens in remote areas where social media provides the primary connection to peers, especially boarding school students returning to properties during holidays. “For some young people, this is their only form of connection with their mates,” Sally Sweeney stated calling for platforms to develop genuinely safe online spaces rather than simply excluding teens entirely.
What this likely means next
Australia’s ban positions the country as a test case for similar policies globally. Prime Minister Albanese noted that international media organizations were present at the announcement, with “the world watching” to see if the Australian model proves viable. Norway and the UK have discussed similar age restrictions but have not yet implemented them.
For Australian teens, the immediate impact depends on platform compliance timelines. Companies have flexibility in how quickly they phase out under-16 accounts, and the eSafety Commission will gather data through information notices before determining whether penalties are warranted.
Pressure on gaming platforms may intensify. Roblox’s voluntary safety upgrades announced in coordination with the ban’s launch suggest companies are preemptively improving protections to avoid future regulation. The eSafety Commission’s codes and standards powers allow it to impose requirements on platforms not covered by the social media ban.
For platforms, the stakes are significant. A $50 million fine represents a material financial risk even for large tech companies, creating incentive to over-comply rather than test the boundaries of what constitutes “reasonable steps.”
Why it matters to me (Gen Z): If you’re under 16 in Australia, you can no longer legally hold accounts on major social platforms—even if you already have one—and platforms face massive penalties if they don’t enforce age restrictions, shifting responsibility from parents and teens to companies.
Bias Explanation: This piece leans Centrist/Moderate because it centers bipartisan political actors (PM Albanese and Opposition Leader Dutton both support the ban, with criticism from within both parties focused on implementation details rather than core principle).
The policy itself represents state-led regulation to protect vulnerable populations—a traditionally Progressive framing—but is justified through protecting traditional childhood and parental authority, which resonates with Conservative values.
The story foregrounds government officials, bereaved parents as moral authorities, and child safety advocates rather than either progressive activists calling for corporate accountability or conservative voices defending market freedom. Evidence is institutional (eSafety Commission research) rather than partisan.
The absence of corporate opposition voices or systematic critique of state power keeps this firmly in the Moderate/Centrist range, while the public health and tech regulation angles add Progressive weight and the parental empowerment framing adds Conservative weight.
Liberal (in the classical sense) shows through the emphasis on individual rights concerns raised by critics (privacy, digital ID surveillance). Minimal Left-Wing presence because there’s no redistributive or anti-capitalist framing, and minimal Right-Wing presence because the policy increases rather than reduces business regulation.
Bias comparisons derive from an AI-assisted evaluation of content sources and are protected by copyright held by Mencari News. Please share any feedback to newsdesk@readmencari.com
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