Australia to Implement Social Media Age Ban for Under 16s

The Australian government is moving forward with new legislation aimed at restricting social media access for users under 16, which would see teens barred from platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube. The policy, championed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, is positioned as a response to concerns about the negative effects of social media on youth, particularly with regard to body image and behavioral influences.

The proposed law places responsibility on social platforms to enforce age limits, requiring measures to verify user age and restrict access for minors. However, enforcement challenges remain a key concern, given the ease with which young users currently bypass age requirements. Existing age restrictions, often set by platforms themselves, are routinely circumvented by underage users who misrepresent their age during account creation.

To assist with enforcement, Australia’s eSafety Office is reportedly exploring advanced age-detection methods, though these measures have yet to be formally introduced or explained in any great detail. Questions about which platforms should fall under the policy’s scope are also emerging, with platforms like Reddit and Pinterest being considered, given their social nature but lower active user counts.

While this naturally impacts Australian citizens – specifically, teens – the most, it could also cause a major drop in certain sites’ user bases. Platforms like X and Reddit generally only require users to be 13 years old to have an account, which means a gap of three extra years if this ban goes into effect – and even if this stabilizes in the long-term, that could cause many platforms to see a sharp dip in their active user counts when this initial gap is formed.

Austalia was one of the countries that got involved in initiatives like Instagram’s “automatically private the accounts of users under 18” change, meaning that this ban is likely going to be taken very seriously. While the details are still unclear in many areas, the Australian government will presumably make a fully-detailed announcement if and when the ban goes through.