Australia on Thursday passed into law a social media ban for those under 16 years old, setting a benchmark for jurisdictions around the world with one of the toughest regulations targeting Big Tech.
From late 2025, platforms including Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, Elon Musk’s X, TikTok and Snapchat must show Australians they are taking “reasonable steps” to keep out users under 16, or face fines up to the equivalent of $44 million Cdn.
Messaging apps like WhatsApp, child-specific versions like YouTube Kids and those used for education delivery, such as Google Classroom, could get carveouts from the ban, government officials have said.
The Social Media Minimum Age bill sets Australia up as a test case for Western governments concerned about the mental health impact of social media on young people. Some European countries and U.S. states have legislated age minimums for social media, but none has rolled out an enforcement regime, due to legal challenges involving privacy and free speech.
China limits those under age 14 to 40 minutes of daily use on ByteDance’s popular Douyin short-form video platform, while Pakistan’s example is not instructive, technology analyst Carmi Levy recently told CBC News.
“Pakistan has banned a number of social media apps, particularly Facebook and Instagram, but even then that regime leaks like a sieve — there’s huge amounts of activity on these platforms in that country,” said Levy.
Here’s a look at an upcoming trial that could provide more clarity on how Australia’s ban might be implemented, and what advocates and critics have said about the legislation.
The challenges and how it might work
The legislation does not specify what is meant by “reasonable steps.” One of the biggest-ever trials of age-checking technology, taking place between January and March and involving 1,200 randomly chosen Australians on the user end, will lead to recommendations delivered by mid-2025.
Britain’s Age Check Certification Scheme will help test products from up to 12 firms in the Austrlian trial. The criteria for evaluation includes accuracy, privacy, security and user-friendliness, Age Check CEO Tony Allen told Reuters.
Carmi Levy, who is a technology analyst and a parent, believes there are significant issues with how youth are using social media but thinks a ban is a ‘black and white’ solution.
Options include age estimation, where a user’s video selfie is biometrically analyzed and then deleted; age verification, where a user uploads identifying documents to a third-party provider that sends an anonymous confirmation “token” to the platform; and age inference, where a user’s email address is cross-checked with other accounts.
Software testers during the trial are expected to ask some users to try and fool the technology with appearance-adjusting filters.
Late amendments to…
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