Australia's ban on social media for under-16s appears to have left a window open. On June 26, six months after the measure was implemented, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he wanted to make the ban as strong as possible, after a new study showed it had little effect in keeping teenagers off the platforms it targets.
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The study, published in the British Medical Journal, found that 85% of Australians aged 12 to 15 were still using social media three months after the ban began. Two-thirds of underage users remained online by claiming to be over 16 or posting a selfie that the platform's system accepted as belonging to someone older. Teenagers have largely bypassed the barrier.
The government’s response is to strengthen enforcement rather than rewrite the rule. Canberra plans to test the strength of the law, which prohibits platforms such as Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube from giving accounts to people under 16. A key point, Albanese suggests, is ensuring that the eSafety Commission, the country’s internet regulator, is adequately empowered to carry out its mandate.
The regulator has already said Meta, TikTok and YouTube are not complying with the ban. The eSafety Commission and Communications Minister Anika Wells have said they are preparing legal action against several platforms. Companies found to have consistently failed to comply with the ban face a maximum penalty of A$49.5 million, about $34 million, a sum large enough to focus attention on companies without threatening the businesses it applies to.
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The numbers in the study reinforce the case the government is trying to make. The BMJ paper suggests that the rule has shifted to where teens say they are rather than where they actually are. An age limit that depends on a user honestly entering a date of birth, or on an algorithm correctly guessing age from a selfie, is an age limit with an obvious weak point, and two-thirds of underage users seem to have found it.
Australia’s position as a first mover gives the experiment an audience beyond its borders. Governments in Europe and elsewhere have proposed similar age limits. Norway has moved to follow Australia with its own ban on under-16s, the UK has considered comparable restrictions, and several have watched Canberra to see whether a strict ban can work in practice and not just on the law book.
The early evidence is mixed enough to be useful on both sides: proof that a law can be passed and platforms forced to act, and proof that passing the law is the easier half of the problem. Italy’s prime minister has gone further, warning that such bans are easily circumvented.
The deeper problem is what the BMJ paper reveals: an age limit imposed primarily by self-declaration is an age limit imposed primarily by trust. Australia legislated first, before the rest of the world, and is now publicly discovering what enforcing such a law actually requires. Other governments watching the experiment will have noted both the ambition and the gap between the rule and the result.
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The next step is procedural: legal action against named platforms, a review of the eSafety Commission's powers, and, possibly, a second study to measure whether stricter enforcement moves the 85%. The ban is for six months. The question of whether it works remains open.
