Australia has enacted a world-first ban on social media for users aged under 16, causing millions of children and teenagers to lose access to their accounts.
Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Kick, Twitch and TikTok are expected to have taken steps from Wednesday to remove accounts held by users under 16 years of age in Australia, and prevent those teens from registering new accounts.
Platforms that do not comply risk fines of up to $49.5m.
There have been some teething problems with the ban’s implementation. Guardian Australia has received several reports of those under 16 passing the facial age assurance tests, but the government has flagged it is not expecting the ban will be perfect from day one.
All listed platforms apart from X had confirmed by Tuesday they would comply with the ban. The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said it had recently had a conversation with X about how it would comply, but the company had not communicated its policy to users.
Bluesky, an X alternative, announced on Tuesday it would also ban under-16s, despite eSafety assessing the platform as “low risk” due to its small user base of 50,000 in Australia.
Parents of children affected by the ban shared a spectrum of views on the policy. One parent told the Guardian their 15-year-old daughter was “very distressed” because “all her 14 to 15-year-old friends have been age verified as 18 by Snapchat”. Since she had been identified as under 16, they feared “her friends will keep using Snapchat to talk and organise social events and she will be left out”.
Others said the ban “can’t come quickly enough”. One parent said their daughter was “completely addicted” to social media and the ban “provides us with a support framework to keep her off these platforms”.
“The fact that teenagers occasionally find a way to have a drink doesn’t diminish the value of having a clear, national standard.”
Polling has consistently shown that two-thirds of voters support raising the minimum age for social media to 16. The opposition, including leader Sussan Ley, have recently voiced alarm about the ban, despite waving the legislation through parliament and the former Liberal leader Peter Dutton championing it.
The ban has garnered worldwide attention, with several nations indicating they will adopt a ban of their own, including Malaysia, Denmark and Norway. The European Union passed a resolution to adopt similar restrictions, while a spokesperson for the British government told Reuters it was “closely monitoring Australia’s approach to age restrictions”.
all her 14 to 15-year-old friends have been age verified as 18 by Snapchat
I love how this sentence is just casually sprinkled there. So platforms are getting $50m fines if they do not implement “age verification”, but no problem if they fail to identify minors as such? Tells you everything about how they really care about protecting children.
As long as social media’s goals are commercial and have the effect of “digital cocaine”, keeping kids and adolescents out of it should be the default, worldwide.
Ban it all, its a plague on civilization!
Although I agree that children should not be using social media at all, banning is not the solution. It should be for the parents to let their children use social media or not and if they should be using smartphones at all. If I were a parent I would give my kid a dumb phone just to call and sms (and maybe play snake). If they were to go on a trip, I would give a smartphone without any Appstore — just a dumb phone with parental restrictions, secure messenger like Signal (even Whatsapp if needed) to allow keep in touch with us and friends and any coordinators on that trip. If they were to use social media, it would only be on a Linux PC/Laptop.
Yeah, but at some point they will and then they’ll have to deal with all of the problems without anyone to help them manage the challenges. So either you parent them now or you just set them up to fail later. Take your pick.
Pretty vague but let me make the best out of it. I’d rather prefer my kids to physically explore the world and socialize rather than forming opinions of it and the society through an echo chamber on a 6 inch screen. It is more setting up to be a better human being (if not successful) than a failure. Most of social media is nothing more than following your favorite creators. Staying in contact with your friends is as easy as asking for their number or their home address so they can actually talk and socialize — you absolutely don’t need social media for it (you will only need, at most, Instant Messaging apps).
This results in segregation and bullying.
I mean there are other social activities — Sports, Reading clubs, etc. It is not as if the world didn’t socialize before social media. Bullying is not a new problem. Kids should be comfortable enough with their parents to share (which social media addiction doesn’t allow) that they are being bullied and not with random stranger online who doesn’t give a fuck anyways.
in 20 years Australia will be the source of all nobel prize winners :D
I mean, I am 100% pro-freedom of access and speech and all, but tbf anything that super murders social media is a net positive to the world at this point, until it’s less harmful and addictive.
have a look at who proposed this change and you’ll see why it’s being done. it’s clear as day that this isn’t a win for anyone on the internet in Australia
This is a wildly popular measure in Australia.
This adds an extra layer of entry into the competition and ensures the big boys stay on top.
not around me
Good. Time to consume quality media.
Who’s next to be blocked?
I mean, now that the infrastructure and policies are in place, it’s only a matter of time.
Not every new law is a slippery slope that leads to something, this line of reasoning is literally a fallacy.
When we blocked youth from drinking, we didn’t inch towards making it illegal for people in their 30s did we? Worst we got was like 21 in some places.
I’m genuinely curious who you think will be blocked next?
People with a serious criminal record. Murderers and worse. Those who leave their victims alive but scarred mentally or physically.
Then those with less serious criminal records. Fraud. White collar crimes. That sort of thing.
Then other “undesirables” depending on who isn’t liked by whoever’s in charge.
And then the goalposts for what’s desirable will start to move.
And the scope won’t just be limited to social media. Websites will be categorised further. Some might remain open access to all people (except the ever increasing list of those to be protected and those who shouldn’t have access) but others? No. Those sites themselves are undesirable.
I’d be down with banning everyone from social media
I’d be down with banning everyone from social media
i’d just be down for banning social media. Not sure how that would look though.
Props to Australia for creating a generation of kids with above average tech skills.
The ban also affects everyone who isn’t willing to undergo the age check.
Kids will find a way around is. They’ll move to fediverse, and the cooler kids will still hang around the mainstream platforms thanks to their older friend, sibling or cool uncle.
The Fediverse is social media. Wouldn’t instances be required to do age verification? I mean, I guess that’d only be enforceable on Australian instances, but it seems like the whole world is going in that direction.
Exactly, people keep talking about VPNs, but where will we connect to if the whole world goes to shit?
It’s not designed to be perfect, it’s designed to influence a population towards better practices. If it even makes just 10% of young people grow up a little less alone and less asocial, it will be a success. That success can be built on and maybe in time we can push cultures in regions to not want to use social media as a substitute all the time. There is a very real effect how laws influence the attitudes of people.
It’s not designed at all. Some pearl-clutches said “won’t somebody think of the children”, and then made the social media companies figure out how to implement the ban.
The social media companies all looked at the free, government mandated access to user biometrics and complied.
Do I think that social media should be restricted for children and teens? Sure. Do I think this if going to go about as well as the 2007 porn filter that the government tried to implement? Absolutely.
Some pearl-clutches said “won’t somebody think of the children”, and then made the social media companies figure out how to implement the ban.
Bingo.
It’s never about “the children.” It’s a way to normalize handing over biometrics and anonymity to an assumed authority to use the internet.
It’s always about control, control, control. It’s about tying real identities to online activity, then it’s about wholesale harvesting your secrets you didn’t even know you were keeping.
Then it’s yet another instrument to make sure you shut up and don’t step out of line or else.
First they take us away from our kids by necessitating that entire households need full time careers to survive.
Then as a substitute for education and actual parenting we’re so eager to offer up our childrens’ futures in the name of “protecting” them from the inevitable consequences of parentless households.
Do I think that social media should be restricted for children and teens? Sure.
Okay, I agree and I am not exactly cheering for government telling anyone what they can and can’t look at… but what’s the alternative here? I am cautiously siding with the idea behind the regulation if not the execution, but so far nobody has suggested what we do about a problem that is real, proven and studied and is leading to a worse world.
I’m being serious here and in good faith. Should we do anything?
Am I in the wrong here for thinking we need to do something about this? Or is everyone just okay with whatever the end-result will be from subsequent generations of people growing up anxious, depressed, lacking social skills, without relationship partners? We already have “loneliness” being considered a global health risk, and it’s tied directly to digital communication habits. I would ask you or anyone here to just type “research on health social media teens” in google. Just try it and see how much work has gone into studying this problem.
Nice
Great!
So Australia is using facial scanning to verify age, allowing everyone else to remain anonymous? That’s how it should be done.
Here in Florida MAGA HQ, I’m hearing calls to verify the identity of EVERYONE on the Internet, because that’s the ONLY way they can keep the kids off. I even heard one MAGA state legislator say that it’s no difference then carding people for buying alcohol. That’s how we keep booze out of the hands of kids, so it will work to keep the Internet out of their hands, too.
They want to kill Internet anonymity, just as a report comes out that the DoJ wants to pay bounties to people who report “anti-Trump behavior.”
This will go to the Supreme Court before we’re finished.
This comment reads like you believe only people under age 16 will be required to verify and anyone above won’t.
Yeah, I assumed. Are they verifying EVERY adult who wants to get on the Internet? That’s a problem.
How else will they know if the person is over 16, or just pretending to be over 16?
Gotta verify everyone, scan all of their faces.
Here in America, they want Driver’s Licenses, with names and addresses. There is no good faith in this effort. They want to tie every person to their online activity, and protecting kids is just an excuse, as usual.
Same thing in Australia
That sucks. My kid was in the Internet as a teen, and he hardly ever killed himself.
Ofcourse, it’d be impossible to only card minors…
Minors don’t have to prove they aren’t adults, adults have to prove they aren’t minors.
It’s for the kids, you Commie.
This is completely normal for verifying age. Why are you acting like it’s some weird new concept?
Do you actually believe this is about verifying age?
I just expect that they dont end up making social media super cool
