Has Australia banned Social Media for children? Here's the details.
- Sania Jameel
- Oct 14, 2025
- 2 min read
The growing influence of social media over children and teenagers has been a big concern for parents. The Australian government took a bold step in late 2024, passing a bill in Parliament that would prevent children under 16 from accessing social media platforms. Popular platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Snapchat, and YouTube would be restricted from December 2025.
As the due date is merely a few weeks away, stronger reactions are coming from the platforms, opinion leaders, and the people. Here are the details of the much-talked-about law.
The online safety act
The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) was a new law passed by the Australian government on 29 December 2024. The government is initiating a Social Media ban for children under 16.
The ban will come into effect from December 2025. These 12 months were given to the tech platforms to figure out an age re-targeting strategy.
How are the social media platforms expected to comply?
The law covers a variety of social media platforms likely to be banned, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube (which was later added), and Reddit.
The platforms spared from the list are WhatsApp, Messenger Kids, Kids helpline, Google Classroom, and YouTube Kids.
The bill does not force Social Media platforms to use Verification IDs like a driver’s license or a passport. The platforms must have other alternatives for verification; for example, AI-driven facial age estimation can be used.
If the platform fails to provide the proper means to enforce the ban, the penalty is up to AUD $49.5 million.
Rationale behind it
The Australian Prime Minister and other officials have given various reasons for this bill. They want to protect the children from the psychological effects of social media, like increased anxiety, cheap dopamine addiction, and online harassment.
The government also wants to protect the privacy of children by preventing apps from collecting the data of these children, who may not be fully prepared to face risks.
Criticism & Challenges
The Online Safety Act has loads of challenges when it comes to practicality. For the bill to come into full effect, platforms need to find a reliable way of identifying children under 16 years old without being dependent on Verification IDs. Verification IDs will collect sensitive information, which can result in privacy issues.
Google has stated that this bill is “extremely difficult to enforce”, after YouTube was also added to the list despite being multi-functional, often used for educational purposes. They argued that YouTube is a video-sharing platform, not a social media platform.
Conclusion
The bill passed by the Australian parliament has valid reasons to exist; however, is it practically possible to implement it without a stern backlash? How would it actually affect the children? Would they lag behind the rest of the world in the absence of such a valuable source of information? Or would they actually be better off without the distractions? These are some questions that will be answered in time.
To stay updated regarding this controversial law and other social media-related news, keep reading The Screen Light.
