December 9-10, 2025, Australia became the first country in the world to both pass and enforce a nationwide ban on social media for under-16s. During November 2025, Australia issued the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act.
This Act sets the minimum age for access across all social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, X, Facebook, Reddit, Twitch, Kick, and threads, etc., at 16. The Australian government will fine these platforms up to $49.5 million Australian Dollars if they continue to allow underage users to remain active on their platforms or grant new users under-16 access.
The Australian Prime Minister initiated this landmark law in the hope that this reform would change lives and allow Australian children to have a childhood. This decision was driven by several key alarming metrics and the repeated narratives of youth mental health trends, public pressure, and online harm data.
Thousands of complaints per year about cyberbullying, online abuse of children, and exposure to harmful, violent, and sexual content via algorithms, and the presence of platform design features to maximise screen time, steered the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, to enforce the social media ban for under-16s.
In the one month of enforcement, all social media platforms have removed or deactivated roughly 4.7-5 million teen accounts. Most of these platforms have rolled out age-verification procedures, such as ID uploads, facial recognition, and other checks. To date, they have had a smooth technical rollout.
After five weeks of the ban, initial reactions range from parents, children, authorities, and the rest of the world reflect a spectrum of emotions. Many parents are in a state of frenzy about how to handle their children after the Online Safety Amendment Act came into effect.
Some parental reactions are that kids are ‘completely addicted’, to ‘very distressed’. Some parents claim it has increased conflict at home, while others say the ban is a sigh of relief. Children worry that some of their friends might use VPNs and adopt various methods to bypass age restrictions, leaving them out of the social network.
Some teens have reported feeling unexpectedly much better, as there is now no pressure to be ‘always on’, and others have stated that they got more sleep, more sport, and more in-person socialising.
The world watches to learn and perhaps adopt the Australian example for protecting the well-being and mental health of youth. The world stands divided in thought, with many critics questioning and worrying about the enforcement, social media disconnect, and privacy issues surrounding age verification, whereas supporters advocate the monumental decision as it supports the healthy, sustainable development of youth and protects their mental health.
The ban has drawn global attention, with several nations expressing their intention to follow a similar path tailored to their own contexts. Countries such as Malaysia, Denmark, and Norway have expressed their intent to implement a social media ban in the future. Denmark plans to impose a social media ban for under-15s with parental exemptions, which is currently in the legislative phase.
Many parents who have lost their children welcome this landmark decision from the Australian government, and they strongly advocate that children must be educated about online dangers before the age of sixteen.
This is the world’s first enforcement of an under-16 social media ban, and the world watches the only live experiment that shows immediate platform regulatory changes, but with mixed human experience. The real effect will be generational and difficult to assess in a few weeks.
Though it is too early to conclude on the real outcomes of wellbeing, this is a conscious, Herculean, and commendable effort that etches the beginning of cognitive freedom from digital imprisonment for children in Australia, and maybe a possibility for children around the world.
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