A law is only as strong as the door it actually closes, and Australia’s ban on social media for under-16s appears to have left a window open. On 26 June, six months after the world-first measure took effect, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was keen to make the ban as strong as possible, after a new study found it had done little to keep teenagers off the platforms it targets.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, is the awkward part. It 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 stayed online by the simplest means available, declaring an age over 16, or posting a selfie that the platform’s system accepted as belonging to someone older. The gate exists. Teenagers have largely walked around it.
The government’s response is to harden enforcement rather than rewrite the rule. Canberra plans to stress-test the law, which bars platforms including Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube from giving accounts to under-16s.
A central focus, Albanese indicated, is making sure the eSafety Commission, the country’s internet regulator, is sufficiently empowered to do the job it has been handed.
