Accounts of teenagers under 16 years old are expected to be deactivated when the national ban takes effect from December 10, 2025. Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube will not allow users to access their content or register on their platforms. If they are found using these applications, they will have to face penalties of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars, which is around 32 million US dollars.
Why Australia Is Banning Children From Social Media?
Australia is the first country to introduce such an internet law aimed at reducing the risks of cyber crimes and harmful content that children are exposed to on social media platforms, which is designed to keep users engaged on these platforms for longer, pulling young people who are already vulnerable into a trap of likes and negatively affecting their mental health.
Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said she had initially felt concern about the “blunt-force” approach of blocking under-16s from social media, but she had come to embrace it after incremental regulatory changes were not effective enough.
She said that users' personal data is the currency that makes these companies reach and there are harmful features in these social sites that even adults are unable to control. "Governments around the world were watching as the Australian law took effect on December 10, and I’ve always referred to this as the first domino, which is why they pushed back”, she added, referring to the platforms.
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Meta, TikTok, Snap’s Snapchat and Alphabet’s YouTube said they will comply with the Australian government's law after it has experienced a ban of over a year on the social media companies. Some 96% of Australian teenagers under 16 – more than a million of the country’s 27 million population – have social media accounts, according to eSafety, reported DD News.
As the law takes come into effect on December 10, 2025, social media companies, including Meta’s Instagram, Facebook and Threads, began deactivating accounts from Thursday, according to screenshots seen by Reuters. Other platforms are pushing under-16 users to deactivate their accounts after taking a backup of their contents and contacts or freezing them until they turn 16.