A new law took effect in Australia on Tuesday that bans anyone under 16 from having a social media account on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, X (formerly Twitter), Twitch, Reddit, and Threads.
Platforms that violate the law face fines of up to AU$49.5 million, or about US$33 million.
All listed platforms, except X, had confirmed by Tuesday they would comply with the ban, according to a report in The Guardian. The owner and executive chairman of X, Elon Musk, called the law in a tweet “a backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians.”
Update Dec. 10, 2025: In a statement provided to TechNewsWorld by spokesperson Joanna Stevens, Meta said it has removed access to Instagram, Threads and Facebook for teens who it understands to be under 16, and will prevent new users under 16 from creating accounts.”Ongoing compliance with the law will be a multi-layered process that we will continue to refine,” it explained.
“While we’re committed to meeting our legal obligations, we’re already seeing some of the concerns come to light previously raised by experts, youth groups, and many parents who believe that blanket bans are not the solution,” it continued. “These include isolating vulnerable teens from getting support from online communities, driving teens to less regulated apps and parts of the internet, inconsistent age verification methods, and little interest in compliance from many teens and parents. This will result in inconsistent application of the law and ultimately does not make young people safer.”
It advocated legislation that requires all the industry to invest in age-appropriate experiences, such as Meta’s Teen Accounts, and standardized, privacy-preserving, and secure age verification at the app store level with age signals shared across the digital ecosystem.
Regulatory Sledgehammer
Musk isn’t alone in raising questions about the new law. Alex Ambrose, a policy analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a research and public policy organization, in Washington, D.C. acknowledged that it is necessary to protect children from harmful content online, but added “bans blocking an entire age group from social media is the equivalent of using a regulatory sledgehammer instead of a scalpel to address complex and evolving online safety issues.”
“Bans are likely to be highly impractical,” she told TechNewsWorld. “They will make accessing social media difficult for all users, not just children, as any platforms that utilize government ID-based age verification will require adults to turn over personal information.”
“Social media is a tool that is increasingly vital to social and political activism and everyday communication and expression,” she continued. “Many users would likely not want to give up their personal information to access social media, particularly platforms like X, Reddit, and many others that enable users to maintain anonymity.”
Blunt Approach
Australia took a very blunt approach to deal with this problem, maintained Jennifer Golbeck, a professor at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies. “On one hand, we know social media can create harm for young people,” she told TechNewsWorld. “On the other [hand], there are also benefits, and the harm tends to manifest in specific ways.”
“It is important that we separate the real harms — like body image issues for teen girls — and the moral panic elements, such as kids spending too much time online and not engaging face to face,” she said.
“If we only wanted to address the harms, there are more surgical bans that could be instituted that limit the harm caused by algorithmic content feeds,” she continued. “If we are trying to address the moral panic, I think we end up with these blanket bans.”
“Besides,” she added, “Kids — and adults — are pretty adept at getting around bans like this. I would expect that a lot of minors will be able to get around it.”
Tony Anscombe, chief security evangelist at Eset, an information technology security company headquartered in Slovakia, agreed. “Those that want accounts will find ways to circumvent the bans, and those that can’t circumvent it will find alternate, less regulated methods to share content and be online with others,” he told TechNewsWorld.
“This will cause an underground and unmonitored space that could potentially be more dangerous than spaces that are used today,” he said. “Regulation will never keep pace.”
Political Gesture?
A blanket ban feels more like a political gesture than a real solution, because kids will still find ways online through messaging apps, VPNs, and borrowed logins, maintained Mark N. Vena, president and principal analyst at SmartTech Research, a technology advisory firm in Las Vegas.
“The real problems are algorithm design, data harvesting, and weak safety controls, and none of those magically disappear at age 16,” he told TechNewsWorld. “If we are serious about harm, we should be regulating platform behavior and business models, not pretending an age line fixes everything.”
“On paper, bans sound simple,” he said, “but in practice, you are asking platforms to reliably verify the age of millions of teens who are extremely motivated to get around the rules.”
“That means either weak, easily gamed checks or intrusive age verification that creates new privacy and surveillance risks for everyone,” he continued. “So we end up with the worst of both worlds — kids still online, and a lot more sensitive identity data sloshing around.”
Although bans aim to protect kids, they can also harm them. “Youth will now be cut off from social interaction, connection to peers in similar circumstances, promotion and reinforcement of positive attitudes and behaviors, and support for members of marginalized groups,” the ITIF’s Ambrose noted.
“While people are potentially harming themselves by overuse of social media, there are people who have never before had the chance to feel so accepted or to find support before the digital age allowed them to find people to connect with,” added Karen Kovacs North, a clinical professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, at the University of Southern California.
“Anybody who feels marginalized or has an unusual passion can find supportive communities online that they could never find in their own daily life,” she told TechNewsWorld.
Parental Control Weakened
Critics of the ban also say it interferes with parental control over online activity. “Many parents will be averse to their children being banned,” asserted Yonatan S. Levoritz, founder of the Levoritz Law Firm, in New York City. “Parents do not want to be told what their children can or cannot do. They want to decide what is best for their own children and address their children’s needs and desires.”
“Let us not forget that there is a lot of content that educates children on platforms, despite the rare attention seeker or TikTok challenge,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Overall, social media provides for growth, entertainment, and expansion of interests — from the arts to music to math to science.”
“A ban is akin to banning a library just because some content is controversial or inappropriate for children of certain ages,” he reasoned.
“Parents need to police their offspring’s online activities,” added Chris Hauk, consumer privacy champion at Pixel Privacy, a publisher of online consumer security and privacy guides.
“To those parents who say they are simply too busy to keep an eye on their child, I say, ‘bull,’” he told TechNewsWorld. “There are many apps and services that can be used to monitor their child’s activities, right down to their keystrokes.”
“Banning social media for minors puts an undue burden of proof on legitimate adult users and, in turn, has a chilling effect on freedom of speech,” added Paul Bischoff, consumer privacy advocate at Comparitech, a reviews, advice, and information website for consumer security products.
“Parents need to take responsibility and not depend on the government or tech giants to police their kids,” he told TechNewsWorld.
Education vs. Enforcement
Australia’s law is arguably the most aggressive because it doesn’t allow a parental override, but other countries and states have already enacted similar laws, noted Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst with the Enderle Group, an advisory services firm in Bend, Ore.
“Florida has a strict law that bans access under 14 and requires permission for those 14 and 15, and it took place in January of this year,” he told TechNewsWorld. “France requires parental permission for kids under 15, and that law went into effect back in 2023.”
He added that Utah passed a law in 2023 requiring anyone under 18 to have parental permission; China has laws that took effect in 2024 and 2025 that limit minors’ access; and both the U.K. and Norway have laws in progress that are expected to take effect this year.
“I think there needs to be a broader reflection about the fact that social media is here to stay,” said Vincent Raynauld, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Emerson College in Boston.
“You can prevent people from going on the platform, but they will eventually be using those platforms, whether it’s for recreational, social, or professional purposes,” he told TechNewsWorld, “and I think that there needs to be recognition that training or at least education on use of social media and the effects of social media needs to take place.”
“Whether it’s early on in elementary school or in high school,” he continued, “I think there needs to be some kind of training because social media is unavoidable these days.”
