Australia has enacted a world-first ban on social media for users aged under 16, causing millions of children and teenagers to lose access to their accounts.
Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Kick, Twitch and TikTok are expected to have taken steps from Wednesday to remove accounts held by users under 16 years of age in Australia, and prevent those teens from registering new accounts.
Platforms that do not comply risk fines of up to $49.5m.
There have been some teething problems with the ban’s implementation. Guardian Australia has received several reports of those under 16 passing the facial age assurance tests, but the government has flagged it is not expecting the ban will be perfect from day one.
All listed platforms apart from X had confirmed by Tuesday they would comply with the ban. The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said it had recently had a conversation with X about how it would comply, but the company had not communicated its policy to users.
Bluesky, an X alternative, announced on Tuesday it would also ban under-16s, despite eSafety assessing the platform as “low risk” due to its small user base of 50,000 in Australia.
Parents of children affected by the ban shared a spectrum of views on the policy. One parent told the Guardian their 15-year-old daughter was “very distressed” because “all her 14 to 15-year-old friends have been age verified as 18 by Snapchat”. Since she had been identified as under 16, they feared “her friends will keep using Snapchat to talk and organise social events and she will be left out”.
Others said the ban “can’t come quickly enough”. One parent said their daughter was “completely addicted” to social media and the ban “provides us with a support framework to keep her off these platforms”.
“The fact that teenagers occasionally find a way to have a drink doesn’t diminish the value of having a clear, national standard.”
Polling has consistently shown that two-thirds of voters support raising the minimum age for social media to 16. The opposition, including leader Sussan Ley, have recently voiced alarm about the ban, despite waving the legislation through parliament and the former Liberal leader Peter Dutton championing it.
The ban has garnered worldwide attention, with several nations indicating they will adopt a ban of their own, including Malaysia, Denmark and Norway. The European Union passed a resolution to adopt similar restrictions, while a spokesperson for the British government told Reuters it was “closely monitoring Australia’s approach to age restrictions”.
Although I agree that children should not be using social media at all, banning is not the solution. It should be for the parents to let their children use social media or not and if they should be using smartphones at all. If I were a parent I would give my kid a dumb phone just to call and sms (and maybe play snake). If they were to go on a trip, I would give a smartphone without any Appstore — just a dumb phone with parental restrictions, secure messenger like Signal (even Whatsapp if needed) to allow keep in touch with us and friends and any coordinators on that trip. If they were to use social media, it would only be on a Linux PC/Laptop.
The issue is, parents who do not want to let their children use social media have really lost the battle because every other kid is on social media. So if even if a parent stands their ground on a strict "no social" policy, their kid is an outcast.
With this law, even though some kids will still be on social, parents are empowered to hold the line.
This is exactly the purpose. I am largely against banning things but it's SOCIAL media. Parents who want to make the objectively correct decision for their child have to go up against the zeitgeist and risk complete isolation of their kids in exchange.
Yeah, but at some point they will and then they'll have to deal with all of the problems without anyone to help them manage the challenges. So either you parent them now or you just set them up to fail later. Take your pick.
Pretty vague but let me make the best out of it. I'd rather prefer my kids to physically explore the world and socialize rather than forming opinions of it and the society through an echo chamber on a 6 inch screen. It is more setting up to be a better human being (if not successful) than a failure. Most of social media is nothing more than following your favorite creators. Staying in contact with your friends is as easy as asking for their number or their home address so they can actually talk and socialize — you absolutely don't need social media for it (you will only need, at most, Instant Messaging apps).
So by this logic you don't like your kids spending too much time reading books either?
You are assuming that kids read stuff on the Internet. They don't (and even if they do, it is very little). Most of their screen time is social media or games.
Tue to some extent. Doing just one activity for a long time even if you love it is not good for developing your brain and the body as a kid. Even though they might not want to, I would encourage them to do more stuff as a parent.
This results in segregation and bullying.
I mean there are other social activities — Sports, Reading clubs, etc. It is not as if the world didn't socialize before social media. Bullying is not a new problem. Kids should be comfortable enough with their parents to share (which social media addiction doesn't allow) that they are being bullied and not with random stranger online who doesn't give a fuck anyways.
I think you misunderstood. If I, as a parent, don't buy my kid a phone and block them from socials, other kids may be less likely to include them in their groups, activities and messages.
We see that today with the 'blue bubble' iOS people not wanting to talk to android users.
Yes, it's very stupid, but kids can be cruel in ways they don't realise.
So rather than potentially causing issues between my children and their friends, noone can access socials, which makes a level playing field. Noone can be left out if noone takes part.
That's what I would hope for this to achieve, anyway.
The other kids with socials will be more likely to have mental health issues than the kid who doesn't even if they get excluded from that group. There will be other group of kids with no socials as well. They will always find a tribe.
I don't know about the west, but Indian schools don't allow phones to be carried at all in their backpacks or pockets so maybe that's why I might not know how serious this issue of isolation is in the west but in India it won't be an issue because schools are 4-7 hrs long and after that parents usually send the kids to daycare, private tuitions, sports group, or any other hobby coaching that the kid is interested in. But some parents are absolutely stupid — they just give toddlers a phone or a pad just so they won't have the hear the toddler crying.