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”.
They should just ban social media in general. There’s zero reason for it to exist and it’s been a detriment to society since it’s inception. Like cigarettes, zero purpose other than addiction.
Well, bye I guess lol.
“Social media” ban would include also lemmy, that you are using to write your comment.
Yes.
I mean, I am 100% pro-freedom of access and speech and all, but tbf anything that super murders social media is a net positive to the world at this point, until it’s less harmful and addictive.
no social media.
less harmful.
addictive.
Australia.
I’ve seen this before
I was watching a piece on this the other day on PBS and they had some sound bites from youths they interviewed. It really hit me just how much dumber kids get as I get older. They aren’t actually dumber, but my understanding about how ignorant they are just keeps getting clearer. I remember think similarly in my youth, so it’s not unique to this generation, so no shade, but kids are dumb.
Er no. My progeny is a decade ahead of where I was at his age. Smarter and more self assured and stable.
He’s not dumber. But I’ve realised I am.
I’m not saying they are dumber than we were, I’m saying all kids are dumb due to ignorance. I do think that a lot of the current generation coming out is better adjusted than my generation, but they are still ignorant to the real world. The more I experience the real world the more ignorant I see that they are.
Ah I see. Yep. And it’s easier to see it as you get older.
Didn’t want to miss out on the chance to diss myself though. I was as dumb as a rock back then. And in many ways, still am.
Without a doubt. Like I said, I remember having views as a teen that were bad due to lack of life experience. I can look back into my 20s and think of plenty times where I was notably better than my teenage years but now I can see I still didn’t have it. It’s just the nature of growing up and getting older. We all evolve and have new life experiences that highlight our previous gaps in knowledge. It was just really noticable when I was listening to the sound bites in those PBS interviews the other week and it hit me like a truck. A sad, sad truck.
Does anyone know when we even start to feel like a grow up? I’m sure I’ll look back at my 40s and wince.
I’m not convinced it happens. I sure as shit feel like an old man some days physically, but my mind ranges from juvenile 12 year old potty humour to 70 year old get off my lawn and everywhere in between. It’s less often as I get older, but some days I get humbled when presented with something that I was sure was true that turns out to not be. It’s best to take it in stride as a learning opportunity rather than mope about it. It’s the xkcd “lucky 10000” situation.
I think that’s just experience on your own part. I don’t think people have really changed for thousands of years. You can go read translations of ancient accounts, and they don’t really sound all that different from today, which is why Ea-Nasir is such a meme.
I’m not saying today’s youth is dumber than past youth, I’m saying all youth are dumb due to ignorance, but especially when it comes to social media since that’s relatively recent in the grand scheme of the world.
No offence, children, but this is great news.
This needs to happen in america.
Yeah?, are you willing to let these companies gather even more data by making it mandatory for EVERYONE to submit a face scan or ID for age verification?
I don’t get it. This “ban” is going to last days or hours before the kids just find an app that does’t check their age.
It also will allow the big platforms to drop any pretence that their users need to be protected and take the gloves off with their algorithms to increase engagement to replace the kids.
Make it a world wide ban to the age of 80
That’d be an effective total ban, because noone would want to be on a social media platform with entierly 80+ year olds. It’d be all corny minion memes.
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.
It should be for the parents to let their children use social media or not
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
you don’t like your kids spending too much time reading books?
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.
Well, Reddit is useful. I used it before I was 16 for sure. There are useful subreddits like r/SAT.
Reddit is how I got into my self hosting hobby in my teens
Australia’s world-first
So, Australia’s first?
No, Australia is the first country in the world to implement this ban. So it is correct as written.
Except Britain already had it, so no. More horseshit from the media.
Good. Time to consume quality media.
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The algorithm loses some victims for a few years, maybe
On one hand I do think social media has ruined society, and kids should definately not be on it till their brain has matured a bit, on the other hand I worry how corrupt officials could use this in their favor
How could corrupt officials use this? I’m struggling to imagine how.
because not everyone in the country is under 16. So if you’re in your 40s and suddenly decide you want to start using tiktok or facebook then you have to provide proof that you’re not a teenager. which means providing ID or selfies or both to whomever they use to verify your identity. Now with that info they can now build a profile about what you do online. Also the issue that what happens if this info you’ve provided is in a data breach. OR they simply sell it to data collection companies.
That and it’s a ‘social media ban’ which is a pretty broad term. Depending how you define social media it could ecompase a lot of other platforms not included in the initial list i.e. Steam, Discord, etc.
This could lead to further restrictions on freedom of speech and anonymity dependent on whatever agenda the government is pushing or to try to control dissent by forcing the poplace to provide some form of ID to access any platform/access the internet.
That may be a leap too far from where we currently are, but it’s an important factor to consider as it could have wider reaching consequences if left unchecked.
That being said, I think the large social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are cesspools that prey on children/teens and are designed to be addictive even for adults.
It’s due to that I’m stuck on the fence a little. If anything we as a society should be looking to pressure social media companies to operate ethically.
What has happened instead is that the Australian government has basically pushed the onus on social media companies to block access to these platforms and threatened them with a fine. There’s no real plan for implementation, no push for education on social media and its issues.
These laws are written deliberately broad to enable mass censorship. They don’t just ban sexual material, but use vague statements like “objectionable material.” Actual real-world news is being censored and kept from the eyes of teenagers. Pretty much anything on the Gaza war is considered objectionable material and inappropriate for children to learn about.
I suppose now that “the children are protected”, there aren’t any roadblocks to more intently exploiting the adults?
It could be used as a wedge to further attack freedom of speech or they could require ID verification for anyone and then use that info to track you and target you if they think you are against them. The nazis used the census data to find and target Jewish people because back then religion used to be recorded in it, Trump and the republicans now require people on visa to have their social media accounts public so they can target anyone who they deem “anti American” and deport them. Any law should be made with checks and balances in place keeping in mind how the worst of humanity could abuse it
Nah. It’s not an age issue. It’s a social media issue. This stuff is bad for everyone. If you want to protect kids from the dangers of social media, start regulating how social media works for everyone. Why is it ok to start poisoning someone’s mind the minute they turn 18?
One parent said their daughter was “completely addicted” to social media
Have you tried parenting her?
True, but there’s also a little more nuance.
For a social media ban to be effective without ostracizing individuals, it has to include the entire friend group.
As an analogy, if the kid’s friends all text each other, but your kid doesn’t have a phone, they miss out socially. They miss out on organized and impromptu hangouts. And they miss out on inside jokes that develop in the group chat. Over time they feel like more and more of an outsider even if the ready of the group actively tries to include them.
Meh. It’s societal level issue. It should be handled at the societal level
Yah, a lot of people are raging at this but not providing any alternative to a studied and proven problem.
Yes. The societal level solution is the parents of the society choosing to do their jobs.
Parents who were can’t anymore, since there are no longer any parental controls.
“Give me your phone, give me your laptop” works pretty well.
My phone has a giant “setup parental controls” button. You can block specific websites using tools like PiHole that are easy to set up.
PiHole is only easy to set up for us becaise we’re a group of giant nerds. The average parent will think you’re talking about their mouth when you say pihole.
Lol ok just ask every parent who already can’t manage their children’s online habits to set up a pihole. I’m sure they won’t have any issues with that.
How dare you imply that a parent should educate their children? Don’t you know how much they have to work hard already every single day to grow up the child no one forced them to have in the first place??
