Will Australia’s teen social media ban work?
For Breanna Easton, social media is a lifeline. The 15-year-old lives on a farm in the Australian outback, 60 miles from her closest friends.
Australia’s new law banning social media use for kids under age 16, which went into effect last week, cut Easton off.
“Taking away our socials is just taking away how we talk to each other,” she said.
Breanna’s mom, Megan Easton, agrees that kids need to be protected, but remembers her own childhood in rural Australia. “We might be incredibly geographically isolated but we're not digitally illiterate and we have taken great measures in our family to make sure that we educate our children appropriately for the world ahead of them. I do think that it is a bit of government overstepping.”
Last week, Australia became the first country to implement a nationwide social media ban.
A social media platform has filed lawsuits, Australian teens have flouted the rules by posting workarounds, parents have been able to blame the law when trying to enforce their own phone-free policies at home, and policymakers in other countries are watching closely.
In this newsletter, we look at Australia’s grand experiment in banning teens under 16 from social media. It’s been less than a week, but it’s not too early to explore the questions on everyone’s mind:
Is this the government overstepping, or is this an example of a national policy to protect teens that will become a global blueprint?
// The world’s first nationwide social media ban for teens
After an extensive national campaign that equated teen's social media use to a humanitarian crisis, Australia's Parliament passed a law banning social media in 2024. Last Wednesday, it formally came into effect, banning ten social media sites for Australians under the age of 16:
- Facebook
- Instagram
- Kick
- Reddit
- Snapchat
- Threads
- TikTok
- Twitch
- X
- YouTube
Government officials chose this specific set of ten social media platforms because of their high usage and because their “significant purpose is to enable online social interaction,” eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant said.
The list is not exhaustive, and officials can update it to include others. Platforms like Discord, Messenger, Pinterest, Roblox, WhatsApp, and YouTube Kids, which were deemed to be messaging or gaming platforms, were excluded.
To comply, platforms must bar underage users from creating an account, or they'll face a fine of up to AUD$49.5 million (USD$33 million).
// How it works
Social media platforms are responsible for enforcing the ban—there are no fines for Australian kids or parents who circumvent the law.
In response to privacy concerns, platforms cannot rely solely on government identification for age verification. But they will use a range of other age-verification and age-estimation tactics, including the user’s self-reported age, how long the account has been active, whether the account engages with other accounts considered to be underage, facial or voice analysis (Australians have had to upload a video selfie of themselves to prove they’re older than 16), or activity patterns aligned with school hours (mobile phones are already banned in Australian schools).
Before the ban went into effect, platforms like Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) began removing underage users. Meta platform users can reactivate their accounts when they turn 16.
// The challenges of enforceability
Typically, the minimum age to create an account on a social media site has been 13, though enforcement has been challenging. According to Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, 80% of Australian children ages 8-12 used at least one social media platform in 2024 (that number rises to 95% for Australian teens ages 13-15).
Enforcement is challenging because age verification is imprecise.
- One parent said, “My 13-year-old son has passed the age verification face scan by hiding his teeth and scrunching up his face. It guessed his age as 30+. In real life he passes for a 10-year-old.”
- In the days after the ban, numerous videos on TikTok and posts on other platforms started to show up with kids boasting how they circumvented the ban. “It didn’t work bro I’m still here,” one wrote.
- Use of virtual private networks (VPNs), which can mask a user’s location, has also skyrocketed. Searches for VPNs hit their highest levels in 10 years in the lead-up to the ban, and one free VPN service reported a 400% increase in downloads in Australia during the 24-hour period after the ban went live.
- Teens are flocking to alternative social media sites. Lemon8, a photo and video-sharing platform owned by TikTok, has been the top download in the Apple App Store.
Inman Grant predicted enforcement challenges, calling them “teething issues” in the early days. “Our focus, by necessity, is going to be on long term systemic compliance,” she said.
// The reactions to the law
The ban has sparked a range of reactions.
Platforms
Platforms have indicated that they will comply with the law, though many have expressed their disapproval of it.
- In a statement from Meta, a spokesperson said, “While we’re committed to meeting our legal obligations, we’ve consistently raised concerns about this law. Experts, youth groups, and many parents agree that blanket bans are not the solution—they isolate teens from online communities and information, while providing inconsistent protection across the many apps they use.”
- Reddit filed a lawsuit in Australia’s highest court to overturn the ban, calling it an intrusion on free political discourse.
Kids
Jacinta Hickey, a 14-year-old in Sydney, said, "It's a bit insulting that they think we can't handle it." Two 15-year-olds, Noah Jones and Macy Neyland, have filed a lawsuit in the High Court of Australia. The Digital Freedom Project, the campaign behind the lawsuit, said the ban "robs" young Australians of their freedom of political communication, an implied right in the constitution. "Young people like me are the voters of tomorrow ... we shouldn't be silenced. It's like Orwell's book 1984, and that scares me," Neylan said.
Other teens are aware of the harms of an extremely online life. Lola Farrugia, 12, said she’s happy with a flip phone. "They're my school friends so I see them at school, I see them in sport - they're everywhere. My mom explained to me that social media is junk food for the brain.”
Parents
Some parents have already seen a “profound effect”—their kids are off social media and pursuing activities outside. Others have supported their children’s attempts to defy the ban.
“I’ve shown her how VPNs work and other methods on bypassing age restrictions,” one parent said. “I’ve had to set her up with her own adult YouTube account and have assisted her in bypassing TikTok’s age-estimation and will keep doing so each time it asks.”
Child development experts
Child development experts and social psychologists hold varying perspectives on a ban.
- Professor Jonathan Haidt has been a visible advocate for a social media ban, and his book, The Anxious Generation, influenced Australian lawmakers.
- Child development experts in France concluded last year that the country should limit smartphone and social media use for children and teenagers, a recommendation in line with the U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory about the harms of social media.
- But other experts aren’t convinced an all-out ban is the right approach. In 2024, a group of researchers recommended cultivating emotional regulation in teens rather than imposing severe restrictions.
- In Australia, Dr. John Sutcliffe, a professor of youth work, considered the ban to be a disproportionate response reflecting a moral panic. He raised concerns not only about the outcomes of the ban (driving youth to less regulated corners of the internet), but the process used to arrive at it; notably, the policy was proposed with minimal youth consultation.
// A grand experiment
According to 2024 research from Project Liberty Institute, public perception globally is consistent, with majorities worldwide seeking a safer internet. And governments—at all levels—are responding by enacting laws intended to keep kids safe.
- Denmark could be the first European nation to impose a similar ban (it recently announced a plan to ban anyone under 15 from using social media platforms).
- Malaysia announced plans in November to bar children under 16 from using social media platforms.
- In the U.S., Republican Senator Josh Hawley expressed support for Australia’s ban, as did Rahm Emanuel, a potential Democratic presidential contender in 2028. But a nationwide social media ban might be challenging in the United States, given that many states have passed their own state-level laws.
France, Spain, New Zealand, and many others are considering the implications of age-restricted bans on social media.
Australia’s ban also represents a rare research opportunity for social scientists and researchers to examine its primary and secondary effects. The Australian Government's eSafety Commission appointed Stanford Social Media Lab (SML) at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center as its Lead Academic Partner to study the effects of the ban.
// A blueprint to regulate tomorrow’s technology?
Based on what happens in Australia, is it possible that eSafety Commissioner Inman Grant is right when she predicted that teens will “lose interest pretty quickly” in social media?
It’s unlikely that what made social media so engaging and addictive will evaporate, but it’s not the only technology engineered to keep people constantly online: AI chatbots and companions are the latest instantiation of Big Tech’s goal of optimizing for engagement and profit.
Is Australia’s social media ban regulating yesterday’s technology? Or will it provide clues into how governments might approach AI? It’s too early to tell, but this is a story we’ll continue to report on in 2026. In the meantime, we’d love to hear your perspective.
