Australia begins global drive to restrict social media access for children

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By Newley Purnell, Angus Whitley and Sanne Wass

 

Australia will soon ban its youth from popular services like TikTok and Instagram, becoming the world’s first democracy to carry out such a crackdown in response to growing concerns about social media’s harms. It’s likely to be the first of many. 

The platforms will be required by law to block under-16s from holding accounts from Dec. 10, with companies that don’t comply facing fines of up to A$49.5 million ($32 million).

 

The measures are spurring an increasing number of governments to seek to hold social media firms to account for toxic content and cyberbullying. Interviews with policymakers from Jakarta to Copenhagen and Brasilia show they’re watching the rollout in Australia closely and planning moves of their own to protect young users, a crucial demographic for Big Tech.

 

“I was super envious when they announced it,” said Caroline Stage Olsen, Denmark’s minister for digital affairs. “Fundamentally, it’s a really important step.”

 

While figures on the number of under-16s on social media globally are scarce, research firm EMarketer says about one in ten US users are under 18. In some populous emerging markets like Brazil, under-18s make up nearly one in five.

 

User numbers, as well as time spent on platforms, are critical for social media firms because advertising accounts for the bulk of their sales. Curtailing teens’ access could jeopardize a portion of the more than $245 billion EMarketer estimates the industry will make this year from over 4 billion users worldwide.

 

Australia’s success as a trailblazer is far from assured, with technology experts cautioning that teenagers are likely to find ways to skirt the rules. But if forced to wait until they’re older to join, some may end up bypassing the services altogether. 

 

“As more governments look to tighten social media age limits, this could lead to a global patchwork of age assurance or verification rules for platforms,” said Abigail Chen of political and regulatory consultancy Flint Global. “This fragmentation would make compliance more costly and challenging. 

 

Meta Platforms Inc., which owns Facebook and Instagram, promised to comply with the new law but says there are better solutions for parents to have more control over kids’ access, that the ban will be difficult to implement and that it risks leading children to darker corners of the internet. TikTok-owner ByteDance Ltd. has also said it will follow the law but argued that age bans are ineffective. Meanwhile, both Snap Inc. and Google’s YouTube have rejected their classification as social media platforms, though the former said it will comply with the new law. Google and Elon Musk’s X didn’t respond to requests for comment on whether they would comply.

 

Firms also point to longstanding safety features on their platforms designed to protect young people.

 

In a sign of how much attention platforms are dedicating to the issue, Snap co-founder Evan Spiegel met personally with Communications Minister Anika Wells in Australia in October, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Snap declined to comment on the meeting or what was discussed, while a spokesperson for Wells didn’t reply to an email seeking the same details.

 

A successful rollout of restrictions, though, would likely bolster global momentum. Australia has been a leader in industry regulation before, with its move to require plain packaging for cigarettes in 2012 followed by dozens of countries, including France and Canada.

 

“There’s a sense of urgency that governments need to figure out appropriate ways to regulate this technology,” said Michael Posner, director of New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, which has documented the spread of online safety regulations. “It’s happening very quickly.” 

 

Australia’s clampdown began when the wife of Peter Malinauskas, the leader of South Australia state, read The Anxious Generation, a bestseller published last year by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. The book, in which Haidt argues that children’s excessive social media and smartphone use has caused an unprecedented mental health crisis, kick-started public discussions on protecting young people from technological ills. 

 

“I'll never forget it,’’ Malinauskas said in an interview.  “She put it down and turned to me and said:  ‘You have to bloody do something about this.’’’

 

Malinauskas proposed state age restrictions in September 2024, and a federal law passed just two months later — a pace he described as “warp-speed reform.” Tech firms and outside groups expressed objections, saying the legislation was rushed through without adequate consultation.

 

“Urgency was required,” Malinauskas said. “We now know that social media platforms were seeking to industrialize addiction. That invites a response from government.’’

 

Bereaved parents of children victimized by cyberbullying were part of the push for legislation. That includes Emma Mason, both a parent of a victim and a children’s lawyer in the rural town of Bathurst.

 

Mason’s daughter, Tilly, took her own life in 2022 at the age of 15 after being bullied on apps like Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook. Classmates sent messages from parties Tilly hadn’t been invited to, circulated a fake image purporting to show her nude, and urged her to end her life, according to her mother. 

 

Mason argues that social media platforms are culpable for their role in Tilly’s death. In September, she addressed an event at the United Nations to urge other countries to follow Australia’s precedent, drawing a standing ovation from the audience, which included European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

 

“This is unparalleled harm that our children have been exposed to and I'm just not putting up with it anymore,” Mason said in an interview.

 

A Snap spokesperson pointed to comments a company executive made last year as part of an Australian parliamentary inquiry into the effects of social media on society. Asked about Tilly’s death, the executive called it a tragedy, said Snap works hard to address bullying and that it had in recent years made it easier to report such behavior on the platform.

 

“What happened to the Mason family was a tragedy and our hearts go out to them and anyone affected by these difficult and complex issues," a Meta spokesperson said.  

While a 2024 poll showed many Australians support the ban, some advocacy groups warn the rules may have unintended consequences, such as severing lifelines for marginalized youths or pushing them to more dangerous platforms.

 

“LGBTQA+ young people in particular have spoken about how they find connection and community” on social media, said Nikita White, a strategic campaigner with Amnesty International Australia. “With the ban, that will be ripped away.”

 

It’s also unclear how easily age-verification technologies might be circumvented. And the ban has been criticized for failing to address the production of harmful material itself.

 

“It’s the content that’s the problem, not our access to that content,” said Patrick Jones, a 16-year-old ambassador for youth mental-health advocacy group UrVoice Australia.

 

Arturo Béjar spent six years as director of engineering at Meta, a role that made him responsible for user safety. During a second stint as a consultant working on user well-being issues for Instagram, he says he shared internal research with Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and other leaders showing one in eight children under 16 on the service said they had received unwanted sexual advances during the previous seven days. Béjar left Meta in 2021, and later testified to the US Senate that Meta hadn’t taken appropriate steps to address teens’ safety.

 

“When a company will not do what’s needed, it’s really the government’s job to protect our kids,” Béjar said. A Meta spokesperson said the company disagrees with Béjar’s assertions and has implemented many safety features for young people on Instagram over the years. 

 

In the US, social media firms have been challenged in some states, although the federal government hasn’t passed significant regulation mandating more guardrails.

 

Meanwhile, some emerging markets — home to large, youthful user bases important for tech titans’ growth — are beginning to wield legal clout. 

 

From March, Brazil will require that children under 16 can only maintain social media accounts linked to legal guardians. Malaysia will start banning accounts for under-16s next year, according to Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil. Indonesia has announced that those under 18 will need parental approval.

 

“We have learned a great deal from Australia,” Meutya Hafid, Indonesia’s communications and digital affairs minister, said in a November speech.

 

Spain and New Zealand have also expressed interest in following Australia’s example, while Singaporean policymakers have signaled they’re open to minimum-age laws. 

 

And in Denmark, lawmakers recently agreed to ban access to social media for those under 15, aside from 13- and 14-year-olds with parental consent. While legislation is still pending, Stage Olsen, the digital affairs minister, said her ambition is for broader, EU-wide rules.

 

“It’s our fault, as politicians and as parents, for not setting proper boundaries and not realizing how incredibly powerful a tool we’ve unleashed,” she said.