Australia doubles down on under-16 social media ban with $99 million fines

• Australia admits its social media ban for minors under 16 is failing, with over 85% of teens still using platforms.
• The government is doubling fines to $99 million AUD and expanding surveillance powers despite enforcement challenges.
• A BMJ study found no substantive reduction in teen social media use, with daily use unchanged among 12-to-13-year-olds.
• Age verification is easily circumvented, with two-thirds of platforms only requiring users to self-declare their age.
• Australia’s regulator compared enforcing the ban to fencing the ocean, warning the law creates new privacy and free expression risks.

When Australia passed the world’s first law banning children under 16 from social media platforms in December, global observers watched closely. Now, nearly seven months later, the Australian government is admitting what critics suspected all along: the ban isn’t working, and they’re simply doubling down on a failing strategy.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on June 28 that the maximum fine for non-compliant tech companies would jump from roughly $50 million to $99 million AUD, or about $68 million USD. The government is also expanding the information-gathering powers of the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, giving her authority to demand evidence from third parties including age assurance providers and app stores.

“It’s clear big tech are not doing enough to comply with the law — there are still too many children on social media,” Albanese said in a joint statement with Communications Minister Anika Wells.

But the evidence suggests the problem isn’t simply that companies aren’t trying hard enough. It’s that the ban itself may be fundamentally unenforceable.

Real-world results tell a different story

A British Medical Journal study of 436 young Australians found no “immediate substantive reductions” in adolescents accessing platforms. Daily social media use among 12- to 13-year-olds remained unchanged. Among 14- to 15-year-olds, researchers noted only a small reduction.

The study’s authors concluded that “social media use is ubiquitous and habitual among adolescents and serves core social functions, including supporting peer interaction, identity formation, and social connectedness.”

The government claims more than 5 million under-16 accounts have been removed, deactivated or restricted since the ban began. But a government compliance report found that roughly seven in 10 parents whose children already had accounts said those children still had them. The same BMJ study found that more than 85 percent of Australian teens under 16 remain on social media apps.

Part of the problem lies in how easily age verification can be circumvented. In one case documented in the BMJ study, two-thirds of respondents were simply asked to declare their age. Other platforms required photo ID or used facial analysis technology, which some teens have exploited by running repeated facial scans until the system incorrectly clears them as over 16.

Regulator admits limits of enforcement

Commissioner Grant herself acknowledged the challenges. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a fine issuing button, rather, systemic non-compliance needs to be proven in court with solid evidence and complex legal proceedings,” she told an Australian Senate estimates hearing in May.

In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, Grant compared the task to trying to “fence the ocean,” noting the legislation was developed very quickly and that she lacked sufficient tools and powers.

The government has opened investigations into five platforms — Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube — for potential non-compliance, but no enforcement actions have been announced.

Wells accused tech companies of “adopting tricks straight out of the big tech playbook and doing the bare minimum to get by.”

Yet under the law, the obligation to enforce the ban falls on tech companies, not on parents or children. Reddit has sued the Australian government, arguing the law infringes on children’s right to political communication.

A cautionary tale for other countries

For Americans watching these developments, the Australian experiment offers a cautionary tale about government overreach and the limits of prohibition. Despite good intentions, the ban has failed to meaningfully reduce teen social media use while expanding government surveillance powers and threatening free expression.

The lesson is not that social media poses no risks to young people; it clearly does. But centralized government mandates have a poor track record of achieving their stated goals, and they often create new problems in the process. As the eSafety commissioner herself admitted, you cannot legislate away deeply embedded behaviors, no matter how many zeros you add to the fine.

The most durable solutions to complex social problems tend to come not from government edicts but from families, communities and individual responsibility — and from honest, open conversations about the real risks of social media for young people. When governments try to fence the ocean, it’s families who get wet.

Sources for this article include:

TheEpochTimes.com

NYTimes.com

Engadget.com